Datel 360 Xport -Docking Station (Xbox 360)

This product is just right for what I wanted. You can use this to connect you Hard Drive to you PC, you don't need any other wires or products. Only this is only need used to connect your hard drive to PC. This product is fast and easy to use. After you have bought this i would download Xport 360 (Its Free) this is a much easier to use then any other software.

This product has had a lot of bad reviews, but already have one of these and find it to be great as long as you know what your doing. the user interface is very good and easy to understand, there are full help guides with pictures in the Xport Program, and it is great for adding free themes and game demos that US xbox owners get, but UK owners dont.

If you have some knowledge of how HDD's work and are willing to read the instructions, and want to back up your save games BEFORE your 360 crashes (That's why they call it Backing-Up) its a wonderful tool to have.

Datel's XPORT Xbox 360 Docking Station is a very useful bit of kit, easy to use, versatile and with potentially great software.

Together with the XPORT cradle you also get: a small (3") software disk, a small (but surprisingly good) user manual and a `bonus' adapter cable which allows Xbox 1 memory cards to be read - quite a nice addition.

The XPORT cradle itself is just a cheap, bendy plastic housing with two USB 2.0 leads (one for HDD reading, the other for memory card reading) coming from one end, and a socket on the top surface to receive the Xbox 360 HDD. I had wanted on of these units for more than a year but refused to pay full price so was very pleased when it went down.

I have a 20GB HDD in my Xbox 360 which I backed up in twenty-odd minutes. There is an option for partial backup which backs-up the essential Xbox HDD signature as well as a full disk image backup option. Once backed-up you can access the image and search through the directories just as if it was the original drive - which you can also search through when it's in the XPORT cradle. But be warned (Section 3, page 6 of the manual): `By accessing your Xbox 360's hard drive contents at file level, you are bypassing the safeguards the Xbox 360 has in place to prevent you from damaging or corrupting either individual files or the drive's entire file system.' Sobering stuff...

The statement on the box that you'll `never run out of hard drive space on your Xbox 360' is misleading but it's not as hysterically bad as some reviews say. While you can *not* copy pictures, etc. from your PC to the HDD, and you can not simply copy one drive image to another HDD, you can `transfer your profiles and game saves' to a new drive by `copy[ing] the whole "Content" folder to your PC, then copy this folder to the new hard disk' (quoted from the `XPORT Xbox 360 Hard Drive Copy' PDF file on the mini disk).

I'm having lots of problems with the software though: first it couldn't `see' the Xbox 360 HDD in the XPORT cradle and now the XPORT software crashes all the time - I've tried v1.09 & v2.0. Since Datel's support website (codejunkies) is rubbish, I had to plug away on my own. First, disable Windows `User Account Control' through the Windows `Control Panel' and/or select `Run as administrator' - this allows the software to identify the Xbox HDD. I found that something running in the background is conflicting with the XPORT software but I can't find what it is. I have since been directed to downloading an alternative software option: `Xplorer360' (beta 6, at time of writing). It works perfectly with the XPORT cradle but is slower than the XPORT software and not as powerful.

So the XPORT Docking Station is a wonderfully useful and versatile device. You can access data on all Xbox 1 & 360 memory cards, as well as Xbox 360 HDDs, and add game saves from friends or off the internet (if you're into that sort of thing). You could even attempt basic software repairs by restoring the HDD's signature which may help the Xbox 360 reformat the drive again (or even recover the whole drive). The cradle itself dips below `cheap-and-cheerful' into `cheap-and-nasty' territory, but it's perfectly functional. The software is simple and effective (when it works) but on my Vista laptop is hugely unstable.

Verdict: massively useful, easy to use and much appreciated bit of kit. Tacky cradle is functional and the software would be great if it worked consistently (but Xplorer360 suffices). Just about worth the money (2½ stars until the software is sorted).