The Xbox Series X comes with 1 TB of storage, while the Series S only has 500 GB. That’s little, especially if you love playing MMOs like MeinMMO editor Alexander Leitsch. He likes to keep multiple online games on his hard drive and has therefore taken a closer look at the storage medium of the new console.
What kind of storage is this? The Seagate Expansion Card for the Xbox Series X/S costs €240 (about €188 at the exchange rate on September 24) and adds 1 TB. At first glance, that’s not much storage for a relatively high sum, but Microsoft justifies the price by saying that it uses the same technology found in the console’s internal hard drive:
- Thanks to the special Xbox Velocity Architecture, the external storage is also supposed to include an NVME SSD with a transfer rate of 2.4 GB/s. This transfers data 40x faster than the Xbox One.
- On the card, you should be able to store all games and start them directly from there, as if it were installed like the internal hard drive of the console itself.
This external card connects to a slot on the back where there is a particularly fast PCI Express 4.0 interface.
Can you already buy the card? Yes, you can already pre-order the card through Microsoft and various retailers. You can find out more about it here.
Memory card is worth it, especially for users with many games
Is additional storage even needed? Those who use several games at the same time will quickly fill up their internal storage of 1 TB:
- Just CoD MW and Warzone now consume almost 200 GB of storage
- For the MMORPG ESO, 56 GB had to be downloaded just for the Greymoor expansion on Xbox One
With increasingly better technology, prettier graphics, and many expansions in “Games as a Service” titles, it’s no wonder that storage is becoming increasingly scarce.
I myself tend to be a gaming hoarder and like to keep games on my hard drive for as long as possible – after all, the urge to play an old title can always strike. This has led to my PC currently being almost filled with 8 TB.
Since I’m eyeing my first Xbox console this year, storage space is an important topic for me.
How do you expand the storage of the Xbox Series X? If your internal hard drive is full, you have two options:
- You buy the new memory card for €240
- You connect another external storage medium. This works seamlessly; the only requirement is USB 3.1
If you already use an external medium for the Xbox One, you can easily use it with the Series X and even start the old games directly from there.
Why is the new memory card worth it? However, anyone considering a new storage medium should opt for the new card. It not only has a significantly higher write speed, making saving and moving files faster, but it will also be important later when there are many next-gen games.
Because while next-gen games can be stored on normal external storage devices, they cannot be started directly from there. This was revealed by Microsoft in a blog post. So those who use many next-gen games in the future will benefit even more from the memory card.
Is the card really too expensive? The great advantage of the external memory card is the write speed of 2.4 GB/s. If you’re looking for something comparable for a PC, you’ll end up spending around 300 to 400 euros. So significantly more than for the memory card for the Xbox Series X.
According to many experts, the SSDs specially designed for the new consoles are a game changer and an important component of next-gen hardware: The era of long loading times and graphics popping in afterwards is supposed to be over. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney says that the technology of the PS5 SSD is even superior to that of PCs. This progress comes at a hefty price that one must first swallow.
The Game Pass is one of the reasons I’m interested in the new Xbox. I already use it in the Ultimate version for PC, and it integrates wonderfully with a console. But even here, the large selection of games will lead to more downloads.
MeinMMO editor Patrick Freese has also bought it and saved a lot of money.
