The Best Xbox Series X/S External Storage Solutions
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Published 2020-10-20
The Xbox Series X comes with a 1TB internal SSD and with the size of games today, that can fill up fast. It's also worth mentioning that the Series S only has a 512GB drive. So, you'll probably be looking for ways to expand the storage capacity for your new Xbox console at some point. And we have some solutions for you.
Microsoft is offering a 1TB expansion card from Seagate which works identically to the internal SSD. It's built to take advantage of the same speeds, and it slots right into the back of the console. While it's the best performing solution, it's relatively expensive at $220 (which is fair for NVMe SSDs). You can also use external USB drives, though there are some conditions you'll need to be aware of.
You can still use the Quick Resume game-swapping feature for games running off of USB drives. But keep in mind that USB drives can only play Xbox One, Xbox 360, and original Xbox backwards compatible games. You can store Series X/S games on a USB drive but they need to be transferred to the internal storage or Seagate expansion card in order to be played.
So, for external drive testing, we used a Samsung T5 portable SSD through USB 3.1--the data transfer speeds were quite fast and load times were very close to the internal SSD. The Samsung T5 is also much cheaper than the Seagate expansion card. Using the Western Digital My Passport, a traditional external hard drive with USB 3.0, things slowed down as expected, but it wasn't too bad. Transfer speeds were reasonable and load times were a bit better than what they were on the Xbox One X. And if you want bulk storage for cheap, this is the route you'll probably want to go.
You can get details on how we tested drives, our specific results, and our advice for storage options by watching the video above. Be sure to check out our full Xbox Series X preview where we dive deep into performance, graphics upgrades, load times, Quick Resume, and much more.
All Comments (21)
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If that ssd card was 2tb paying 220 would feel like a fair price.
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To a person like me who lives in Latin America, due to the prices, The HDD is a better deal, I don't mind waiting a little bit longer to transfer back my games.
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Michael, is THE man!! Nerding out on all sorts of relevant bench marking like that nice one mate. Keep it up.
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I remember that the Xbox 360 250 gb hard drive was something you had to grab vs the 1TB where you just need 2 fingers to hold,it’s crazy how advanced technology has become.
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Working at an internet cafe this is good to hear that there's really no issues to have our backwards compatible games literally working right out the gate. We've been rocking 4tb Externals for a while now and would like to keep rocking those for the backwards compatible titles.
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The expansion card reminds me of the memory cards from the PS1 and PS2 it’s interesting to see how we’ve in a way rebooted memory cards with these expandable storage cards
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Thank you! Exactly the video I’ve been looking for
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Exactly the video I was looking for. Many thanks. Subbed!
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Get the 4TB HDD and keep all the Xbox One, 360 and OG games in the HDD, use the internal SSD only with Series X games.. This would be the best move..
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Keep in mind that this is based on games that are not optimized to make use of the the SSD, so what we are seeing is raw speed.
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Excellent video! I'm glad you did this, before the Xbox was released some were saying you could only use the Xbox proprietary card to expand the storage.
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Thank you! I was looking for this exact thing.
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It's about time someone did this video
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Just for info. For storage purposes and to play non load intensive games get a External HDD, either a standalone device or better an External HDD cage ($20 - $40 depending on brand) and a 2 TB HDD ($50 - $70) and you are set for a good time.
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I look at it this way. If you've already got a USB drive use it. If you don't and you need to buy one, might as well just go with the seagate even if it costs more. Then you don't ever have to worry about transferring.
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After watching this video i purchased the Samsung T5 SSD for 120$ and I have no regrets. Was able to slap huge games on it and quick resume still works. Games like Apex, Overwatch and Call of Duty Warzone run flawlessly on the external SSD. I've downloaded everything I want and still have over 600gigs left. I feel like i have a series X now. Great value.
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Love the content, nice and concise.
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I'm trying to manage what I keep on my console and what I keep in my external 4tb. Transfer is slow, and gta is dramatically faster on the console but eats up all that space. Im hoping there is a bigger, cheaper solution in the near future
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I taught the hdd was slower definitely getting a 2tb hdd, i rather wait 10 minutes than redownloading a full game for over 4 hours. Thanks for the video
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Thanks Mike, this really helped me make the decision to upgrade to the Series S!
