Modding has been a great focus for gamers in the last decade
. Some people are adept to technology and can't own a new piece of equipment without cracking it open. Others just want to have some of the aesthetics qualities of a modded systems or want to utilize their system to the fullest. For whatever reason you have for modding your Xbox 360, the process has become very popular and simpler than ever before.
There are two types of Xbox 360 console modding; external and internal modding. External modding is simply changing the casing or the external look of your Xbox 360. Gamers do this in order to get a personalized system that would fit their particular style. The pros of external modding are simple, you get to change the overall appearance of your system and most of these kinds of mods are legal. The cons are that if you don't know how to do this kind of modding it could be a bit expensive. A lot of the time altering the casing or opening your Xbox can void your warranty. Additionally you risk breaking your Xbox 360 if you are just blindly following a tutorial. All that being said, there are many places you can find tutorials or services that will mod your Xbox 360. YouTube for instance is a great place to find tutorials.
The other type of modding that was previously mentioned was internal modding. If you mod your system internally you are altering the software in order to enable your console to perform certain actions. The pros of doing this is you can play backups of your ripped video games. You can download the ripped versions of video games from the internet. Also you can run different programs that don't come with the Xbox console. The cons of internal modding are that most types of this kind of modding is illegal (even though prosecution for such a crime is very rare). Although it is not illegal to rip and burn backups of Xbox 360 software (as long as you own the software), it's illegal to play it on your console. Obviously this also voids your warranty. If Microsoft sees that you are trying to go onto Xbox Live with a modded console they can ban your system from Xbox Live.
There you have it, a look at both sides of modding your Xbox 360. There are many ways to mod your system, and you have to choose if it's right for you.