Best Xbox Series X external hard drives, memory cards, and storage solutions Brendan Griffiths 2/18/2021. On a frozen Minnesota lake, political antagonisms melt away. So the TL;DR is: If you are looking to upgrade the storage in your OG Xbox in 2020, I recommend either a laptop SATA hard drive or a SATA SSD combined with the Startech IDE to SATA adapter. The laptop hard drive has the same performance as the desktop drives and runs cooler and uses less power while the SSD is the speed champion. The Xbox One comes with a traditional inbuilt Hard Disk Drive or HDD. An HDD is a storage device that consists of magnetic disk or plates that are rotating at high speeds. The speed of the Xbox One hard drive is rated at 5400RPM.
© Provided by GamesRadar best xbox series x external hard drivesOffice home student 2019 download. Picking up an Xbox Series X external hard drive is one of the first items we'd recommend if you've recently bought one of the super-powerful next-gen gaming systems, especially if you have Xbox Game Pass too. There are plenty of other storage options to choose from too, like a faster (but more expensive) external SSD, or you can go for the ultimate deluxe experience with an Xbox Series X storage expansion card. We'll guide you through which one best suits your needs and we'll show you the cheapest prices for them too.
The Xbox Series X doesn't come with much storage as the 1TB listed on the box actually translates into about 802GB of usual storage. As for the cheaper Series S console, the listed 512GB works out at a rather horrifying 364GB of usable space. So yes, let's get an upgrade so you can fit more than Call of Duty: Warzone and a few more of today's average-sized triple A games on your new machine.
Let's clear something up though. The bespoke internal NVMe SSDs inside the consoles are specially made and are capable of loading at incredible speeds and essentially help power Series X games. So if you have a game specifically made for the new console, or you have a last-gen game that's had a patch for a Series X version to take advantage of the new hardware (aka 'optmized for Series X/S'), you must run the game off the internal SSD, or the official Seagate Storage Expansion Card (more on the card later). Any of the other drives listed on this page, even external SSDs rather than HDDs, won't give you these next-gen graphical enhancements.
Instead, we'd recommend using these other drives as storage for unused games to save you the hassle of re-downloading them all the time. So if you have Xbox Game Pass, you can have loads of games ready. If a game hasn't had a Series X patch, you can still play them directly from this drive, but some might benefit from faster load times if you move them onto your Series X or Series S.
Best Xbox Series X external hard drives and memory cards
Putting that $220/£220 pricetag for 1TB (920GB usable) aside for one moment, the official Seagate Storage Expansion Card for Xbox Series X is the best option for expanding your storage with no compromises on performance.
We've extensively tested the load times of this card vs the internal storage of the console along with performance on games enhanced for Series X and it matches the internal NVMe SSD at every turn.
But this early into the console's life, there's a strong case for you not really needing it yet. You can still fit a fair few games on the default storage and the other Xbox Series X external storage solutions on this page will give you even more GB for less money and we'd use them as a holding bay for your Series X games and to run most older Xbox One titles. We did cut Red Dead Redemption 2's loading times in half on this card compared to something like the WD Black P10 though.
If you can afford it, this is certainly the card to go for but you're certainly paying through the nose for that early adapter hookup. We have seen this go for $15 less over Black Friday, but overall, it's going to be a while before the price drops. It's still unclear as to when other brands will produce cards of their own.
The WD Black P10 drives are a perfect companion for anyone rocking an Xbox Game Pass. We used a 5TB one a while back to download every single game available on the service for our Xbox One giving us a real home arcade experience with hundreds of games at our fingertips. We loved it so much, it ran away with our 'best gaming hard drive' prize at the GamesRadar Hardware Awards 2020.
And when the Series X arrived, we simply plugged the P10 straight in and started playing our games again. Although we did shift some over to the Series X itself to take advantage of those increased loading speeds offered by the console's SSD. So yes, the speeds on the P10 are just the standard rates of an HDD of around 130Mbps, but given the large capacities you can get for a fraction of the cost of the official SSD expansion card mentioned above, we think this is the best external hard drive (HDD) for the Xbox Series X.
The drive's rugged design makes it a great match if you need to carry it around a lot too when you're taking your digital game collection to someone's else house for games night and the like. Look out for the Xbox branded version if you can as some come with a code for a few months of Game Pass access.
We've seen the outer casing change a few times in recent years, but Western Digital's My Passport series has been a great fit for expanding storage capacities of Xbox and PlayStation consoles for a few years now and this series is always on lists of recommended options from ourselves and plenty of other sites too.
Via the retailer links above you'll generally land on our favored 4TB model, but you might find smaller drives are enough for you depending on how many games you want immediate access to without having to redownload them all the time.
WD My Passport has been released in a wide range of colors, so you will have more options to choose from and you should never pay the full MSRP for one of these as they're seemingly always on sale. If you just want plenty of space for the lowest cost without risking losing your data, the WD My Passport is the way to go today on Xbox Series X.
Seagate has been making great value portable hard drives for a while now and is one of the go-to brands on both Xbox and PlayStation in recent years. It also makes a few limited-edition branded models like the Last of Us Part 2 model as found on our best PS4 external hard drives guide, while over on Xbox there's a bright green version or there's this Halo Game Drive.
Truth be told, crack these drives open and you'll find the same, admittedly very good, portable hard drive Seagate sell in the more plain designs for less money. So yes, you're paying a bit of a premium for the branding, but if you really like the look of them and your home entertainment center is arranged as such as you'll be able to see the drive and admire it, then why not treat yourself? This Halo model comes with a design of Master Chief on the front and a UNSC logo on the back. Unlike the basic standard Seagate drives you get a more durable braided cable and it's a lovely shade of green too, which we really like (so tired of black cables).
The drive itself is super small at around 3.2x0.75x4.5-inches and generally quite sturdy around the sides and underneath, but the top cover feels much weaker, so just be aware if you're going to be on the move with this one a lot.
You don't have to fork out for the official Seagate memory card for the Xbox Series X to get improved load times on your Xbox One games, instead, you can opt for an external USB SSD, and Samsung makes some of the very best, with the T5 series offering the best gigabyte to cost ratio for our liking.
Important note: while this will dramatically improve loading times of Xbox One games (by nearly 75% in some cases), it still won't run Series X games, or Xbox One games optimized for Series X with all the enhanced graphics and so on, although you can store the games here no problem.
There's a newer Samsung T7 out now too, with loading speeds improved once again, but the increased cost (discounts notwithstanding) puts it fairly close to the Seagate expansion card but still without the ability to run Series X titles. Check out the latest prices over at Amazon US and Amazon UK to see if you can get lucky with a deal though as we have seen some 25% off prices lately.
All said and done though, if your main reason for increasing storage options on your Xbox Series X is to have somewhere to enjoy your Game Pass/Xbox One library, and you're happy to juggle the internal SSD space for just Series X games, then a Samsung T5 is a great option if you want to cut down on those load times. If you're not fussed about faster loading, then pick a regular external HDD from this page and save a lot of cash.
Buying tips for Xbox Series X external hard drives
Best Hdmi For Xbox Series X
If you're heading out to shop for your own Xbox Series X external hard drive or are considering seeing if an old drive you have at home might be usable instead, there are a few things to bear in mind.
Best Hdd For Xbox One
It's worth double checking what USB type the drive has. For Xbox Series X you'll need one that has a USB 3.0 connection or higher. Legacy USB 2.0 and 2.1, often found on older drives, is a no go. The Series X console does not have a modern USB-C (sometimes listed as 'Type-C') port, so we'd avoid drives that only have USB-C connections drives, although a USB-C to USB 3.0 adapter adapter might get around the problem. Some drives like the Samsung T5 mentioned above have a USB Type C connection going into the drive itself and a USB 3.0 connection on the other end of the cable - this is fine.
When you plug an external hard drive into your Xbox Series X, it will ask for permission to format it, this will delete everything else on the drive. So be sure to remove or backup anything on there you were thinking of using. Sadly, you can not use a single external hard drive to store both PS4 and Xbox games, so you can't buy one massive drive to use if you enjoy both platforms.
Another excellent upgrade to your new console we'd recommend looking into is audio and the best options are covered in our best Xbox Series X headsets guide. Still on the hunt for the console itself? Then check out the latest options on where to buy Xbox Series X. We've got you covered if you'd like to see what the best TV for Xbox Series X is too.
If you're sticking with your older Xbox for a while, all of the storage options mentioned above (except for the Expansion Card) will work with it, but if you'd prefer to check out our dedicated guide, head on over to the best Xbox One external hard drives.
