Microsoft's upcoming Xbox One recently found its way to the operating table of teardown specialist iFixit. The team discovered the next generation console uses a number of off-the-shelf hardware components including a standard 2.5-inch hard drive.
Hobbyists, modders and the DIY crowd will be happy to learn that only a few tools are required to fully disassemble the console. The opening procedure is similar to the Xbox 360 albeit much easier and once inside, a no-nonsense modular design allows components like the drives, fan and heatsink to be easily replaced... although I can't really think of a reason you'd need to replace the heatsink, unless maybe you wanted to watercool the system.
Specifically, the Xbox One ships with a 500GB, SATA II Samsung Spinpoint ST500LM012 hard drive with 8MB of cache. This is in contrast to the proprietary hard drive casing used on the Xbox 360 although replacing the Xbox One's storage drive could prove difficult as one must open the case and remove the Wi-Fi adapter and system speaker assembly to get to it.
What's more, the team was unable to determine if the system will recognize an unformatted replacement drive. As such, it might be best to wait until Microsoft enables USB storage support before trying to tinker with the new console.
Overall the Xbox One earned a repairability score of 8 out of 10 (10 being the easiest to repair). The system was docked for having clips instead of screws that make the case more difficult to open and the fact that the HDD is tough to access.