XBox Series S - hard drive upgrade

[thebigmacmoomin]

For the upcoming Forza Motorsport, I’m going to need more space in my XBox Series S. Got Horizon 4 with both expansions, Horizon 5 with both expansions, F1 22 & Wreckfest and no space for another game.

What hard drive expansions are people using and can recommend? I know there is an official XBox Seagate expansion card but that’s super expansive.

The console lives on a shelf and gets moved to play and moved back when finished.

Thanks

Andrew

[Motorman74]

You won't be able to play Series S/X games from an external drive as far as I understand it (backed up by this)



You need to get the proper expansion card which is ridiculously overpriced...

I managed to pick one up cheap the other day from Argos of all places (currently out of stock though) they had then for 149, and with a combination of a voucher and being able to buy discounted Argos gift cards from work I paid £115 in the end. It seems the Seagate exclusivity deal for the expansions have come to an end, so when the Western Digital ones start to arrive on the market, I'd expect competition to bring the prices down a bit.

The other option would be to sell your current Series S and buy the 1TB model they announced at the Xbox showcase on the weekend?

(edited because link wouldn't work so added a screen shot, and again for the new Xbox option)

Edited by Motorman74 on Tuesday 13th June 12:54

[P-Jay]

Like Motorman said, a standard USB3 external drive isn't going to let you run games from it. There was a time Xbox said you could, but they would be only at Xbox One standards, I don't know if that's still true.

You've got a couple of options:

Delete one of your existing games, you can always download it again later if you fancy going back to it.
Move one of your existing games to an external hdd.

If you can't live without them all available at all times, Western Digital now sell an offical 500GB expansion card, it's £90 or a 1tb for £150 maybe a bit less if you shop around.

Failing that, there are some ropey looking converters you can buy on eBay for about £20 to house your own NMVe m.2, but given the cost of them it's not much of a saving unless you want a huge one, which may or may not be supported, or work.

[Lucas Ayde]

Thought you could run older 'Xbox One' games off an external drive? Just that you had to use internal storage for the full-fat Series S|X games...

I did initially have an Xbox One S pre-release order but amongst other things, the high cost of extra internal SSD capacity (essential IMO with a a Series S) really put me off.

[DaveE87]

I haven't used my Series S in months, but when I still had time to play it regularly I just rotated my games.

Rather than get an expensive external SSD, consider just buying the Series X. You could probably sell the Series S on albeit at a loss. The new Forza will create a bit of demand when it comes out. Some might buy a console purely for that game.

[Brasshande]

Lucas Ayde said:

Thought you could run older 'Xbox One' games off an external drive? Just that you had to use internal storage for the full-fat Series S|X games....

Yeah, this is how it works, if it's not an Optimized For Series S|X game then it will run from an external HDD but anything Optimized will only work from the internal SSD or one of the expensive expansion cards

[thebigmacmoomin]

Thanks all.

Is it quick and easy just to swap games over from the console to external hard drive ?

[Motorman74]

thebigmacmoomin said:

Thanks all.

Is it quick and easy just to swap games over from the console to external hard drive ?

How fast is your broadband?

I have gigabit, and downloaded 120GB+ of flight sim onto my Xbox in under 20 minutes the other day - if you have fast broadband it might be quicker to re-download rather than move things too/from USB. The Xbox downloads way faster than my PS5, which I assume is due MS having better infrastructure for it.

[Lucas Ayde]

DaveE87 said:

I haven't used my Series S in months, but when I still had time to play it regularly I just rotated my games.

Rather than get an expensive external SSD, consider just buying the Series X. You could probably sell the Series S on albeit at a loss. The new Forza will create a bit of demand when it comes out. Some might buy a console purely for that game.

I ended up going down the route of upgrading my PC instead and don't regret it. Currently running a Ryzen 5900X with 4070 so a Series X now would be a bit of a downgrade for games.

I was kind of hoping the Series S would be a straight-up 1080p version of the Series X at a low cost, but they made too many compromises and the expensive proprietary SSD expansion just was the final nail in the coffin.

[Brasshande]

thebigmacmoomin said:

Thanks all.

Is it quick and easy just to swap games over from the console to external hard drive ?

Dead easy, just open the game tile up and you'll see move or copy, move to your external HDD and that's it. Obviously if it's an Optimized game you can't play it from there but it's a good bit quicker than deleting and reinstalling unless as Motorman74 says, you have extremely fast broadband

[thebigmacmoomin]

Just tested my internet via PC and got 381.1 Mbps download & 34.3Mbps upload, so not too bad.


Have seen that there is the WD_BLACK C50 Expansion Card for Xbox aswell as the SeaGate option. Will wait till Forza Motorsport, The Crew Motorfest and TDU:Solar Crown are released, unless there are any offers on.

Edited by thebigmacmoomin on Wednesday 14th June 17:29

[DaveE87]

Lucas Ayde said:

I ended up going down the route of upgrading my PC instead and don't regret it. Currently running a Ryzen 5900X with 4070 so a Series X now would be a bit of a downgrade for games.

I was kind of hoping the Series S would be a straight-up 1080p version of the Series X at a low cost, but they made too many compromises and the expensive proprietary SSD expansion just was the final nail in the coffin.

I've got a gaming PC too, not as good as your spec but good enough for 1440p on an Ultrawide. I snapped up a full setup for a bargain though, I paid less than the rig costs new.

I like the ease of plug and play on consoles like I suspect many others. Although it's good having both.