ULTIMATE XBOX 360

Creating the Ultimate Xbox 360

The Xbox 360 is to my mind the best console of all time. The size and quality of it's back catalogue is hugely impressive, but best of all, almost all the games for it do not require an internet connection. That might sound like an odd reason to herald a console as the best console of all time, but because gamers having access to the internet was not taken for granted, it means that most of the games that were released for the console were finished at launch, and when you buy a game disc, the complete game is on the disc. Then when you add in an amazing controller and the standardization of HDMI as an output...you get one banger of a console.

Phase 1

RGH3 & Aurora Dashboard:

The Rest Glitch Hack is a well established way of jailbreaking an Xbox 360 with multiple iterations over the years. It always used to work best on the Jasper motherboards, but the 3.0 iteration for the Trinity motherboard (Slim Model) is now the most stable way of executing the hack. Plus it can be done with just 2 wires and a Nand flasher. Once the jailbreak has been done, it'll be time to install the Aurora dashboard, allowing games to be fully installed on the to console without the need for the disc to be in the disc drive to launch the game.

Internal 2Tb SSD Hard drive:

Fairly self explanatory I would have thought. Once Aurora is installed we'll need a lot more storage to hold the games I have in my collection. Unfortunately 2 terabytes is a long way short of enough storage for the full library.

Phase 2

Costume Case/fans/Hard Drives:

Quit the mental journey I've gone on to come to the decision to do Phase 2. It starts with the acknowledgment that 2tb is on where near enough storage for a large 360 library. The total USA library is just over 20tb, and it would be really nice to just stick a 20tb hard drive into the internal caddy and be done with it. Untorturable the console will not acknowledge more than 2tb per drive. Thankfully the console does have a total of 5 USB port on it, meaning that including the internal drive the theoretical upper limit of storage for the 360 only 12tb.

I don't really want to take up every USB port with hard drives but I thing using the 3 at the back and leaving the 2 on the front accessible for other uses is a fair compromise. I did think about attaching 3 external drives to the bottom of the 360, but that then leads to the next problem. Heat. The 360 is notorious for having overheating issues, and I can't help thinking that the additional heat soak of 3 additional hard drives under the console might just push the stock cooler over the edge. Plus I'm not a fan of how that's likely to end up looking.

So the solution of all the above, will be to rehouse the 360 motherboard in a new custom case with space to house the 3 external hard drives. It'll also provide more space for additional cooling such as a larger heat spreader, more fans, and some additional vents.