Technical Question:Gaming Related

[monkees19]

So, a few years back I bought a 2TB external hard drive for my laptop to back up old pictures, music etc. Now that console makers are allowing the use of these drives to be storage options for their systems, I am interested in using it for this purpose.

My question is this: Is it possible for me to partition off sections of my external hard drive to use for multiple systems? Say, section off 500 GB for the PS3, 500 GB for the Xbox 360 and maybe 200 GB for my Wii U, leaving the remainder for the computer's needs.

The drive I have is Western Digital and has it's own power supply so I wouldn't need it powered through the consoes. I feel like the 360 had some sort of restrictions on external storage, maybe 64 GB. I would likely only do maybe 250 GB each of those 3 since I eventually plan on getting a PS4 and Xbox One. I just want to know if I can use a device I already have or will I need to purchase additional equipment. I'm aware I will likely not be able to use the games from the drive and would need to transfer it back to the system for use, but I can live with that.

Thanks for any advice in advance.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Xbox 360 requires you to format it a particular way, and won't support that size. Not sure on the others.

[Techie413]

XBox 360 requires exFAT formatting (a proprietary Microsoft format) and the PS3 requires FAT32 formatting.  Though I am not sure what type the Wii U utilizes, the console will require you to allow it to format the HDD for it's use after being detected.  It doesn't appear that it can be previously configured.

[monkees19]

Dang. That would be the key, if I could format just parts of the drive in advance to plugging it in, without the console trying to do it again, which would in turn reverse anything I did beforehand.

I looked up some info and the Wii U will aparrently force a re-format and the Nintendo website says specifically I cannot use it no other devices, like a PC. Looks like I may be forced into buying some smaller external drives to use on the systems. Blah...

Oh well, thanks for the input guys.