Alternative ways to save on the 360.

[otoko]

Okay, I'm sorry if this subject has been covered before, I'm not a frequenter of the Modern Gaming fair.

Here's the story, I got my First 360 and I plan on buying all the needed things in time. First I want to get controllers and games. I'm not sure if I can get storage for it until next month's payday.

Thusly, I implore my fellow gamers, do you know any other ways I can save my information?

Here are my thoughts:
1. I have an usb extremely generic external HDD that has 160 gigs of space on it.
2. USB stick (I have several)
3. I could get the 360 card reader and use my XD disk on it.

Would these options work?

Thanks~

[s1lence]

You can't use any of those options unless you use the 360 Xplorer. Your cheapest bet might be a 360 memory card as the USB stick will not work.

[icbrkr]

For me, I have both a HD and a memory card and I save my games on both. Hard Drives aren't the most reliable things in the world (though they've gotten much better) and I've already seen what happens when your HD dies after you've had it for 2.5 years. Friend of mine lost all of his saves for countless games when his 20GB took a big crapper.

Microsoft replaced it, but they don't attempt to recover data.

[c0ldb33r]

I'd like to get a 360 memory card but they're so expensive :(

I've been eyeing those ones that come with a free XBLA game - but what's the deal with those? Can you transfer the game to your HDD or will it take up memory card space forever?