The promised USB Mass Storage support or “Up to 16GB USB Flash Drive” support as we like to call it, is making its way to Xbox 360 consoles as promised. The decision by Microsoft to move in this direction caught many by surprise, including us here at Fudzilla.

While Microsoft is capping the support at a total of 16GB per USB Flash Storage design and only permitting two of these to be connected at once, as with most users we applaud the decision by Microsoft to go this direction. Being able to purchase low-cost 16GB flash drives will allow a lot of flexibility for users to be able to both save and archive much more data; and some suggest that coupled with the recently released 250GB hard drive it will stop a lot of the clamor for larger storage options.

Microsoft will not be releasing their Xbox 360-branded offerings that will be coming from their partnership with SanDisk till next month. Of course, the Microsoft/SanDisk offering will be pricey when compared with offerings from other vendors. According to what our sources tell us, the Microsoft/SanDisk offerings will come in two sizes with an 8GB and 16GB offering. The 8GB is said to be going for $39.99 USD, with the 16GB version going for $69.99 USD when they hit the shelves.

While we have been unable to do a lot of testing of the USB Flash Drive support, from what we have seen it works as advertised and the performance was not bad; but clearly a USB Flash Drive with faster read support does, of course, yield better results. While our testing was informal, to say the least, the three models tested did vary in read performance. If you want the fastest access times, it is worth it to perhaps purchase a brand name model that might cost a little more, but that offers better performance.