- One of the most anticipated Xbox Series X and Series S accessories is the custom external drive that will support the same speeds as the internal storage.
- The Seagate Storage Expansion Card for Xbox will launch during the holiday season, but the memory maker has yet to reveal its official price.
- A leak from the UK reveals the 1TB SSD might cost more than half as much as the Xbox Series S.
Microsoft started Xbox Series X and Series S preorders worldwide on Tuesday after the company revealed various accessories available to gamers on day one. The list of new gadgets includes a new color option for the wireless controllers and a new USB-C rechargeable battery. But the Xbox accessory some gamers want most still doesn’t have a price, as neither Microsoft nor Seagate are ready to reveal it. That’s the Storage Expansion Card for Xbox Series X and Series S, giving the new Xbox a considerable advantage over the PS5.
On Tuesday, the price of the fast SSD drive that fits inside the custom port of the new consoles finally leaked.
The PS5 and Xbox Series models rely on custom SSD drives that support faster speeds than most computers, with the PS5 having a significant edge over the Xbox. But Microsoft has a storage advantage of its own, which might be far more important than the maximum theoretical speed. That’s the ease of use that its Storage Expansion Cards offer.
Both Microsoft and Sony made it clear that they will support regular HDD and SSD drives, which can run older games — PS4 games for the PS5 or any Xbox, Xbox 360, or Xbox One game for the Series X and S. But games that take advantage of the faster CPU, GPU, and SSD of the new consoles will require access to fast storage on both platforms. That means they have to be installed either on the internal drive or speedy external storage options.
The new Xbox models come with a unique port that takes those Seagate cards in the image above. The port supports the same speed as the internal drive, meaning you could easily expand the 512GB memory of the Series S or the 1TB storage of the Series X with additional 1TB Expansion Cards. Those cards are hot-swappable, meaning you don’t have to reboot the console to access their contents on your next-gen Xbox.
Sony has yet to announce which SSDs will fit inside the PS5’s SSD bay or the speed they need to be to support PS5 games. And it’s still unclear how easy it will be for users to add those external SSDs to the console.
Seagate is the only maker of custom Xbox external drives for the time being, and the company has not announced availability details for the storage solution, other than the elusive “holiday 2020” launch date. ResetEra forum members discovered the UK price of the accessory. They cite a Smyths Toys Superstore listing in the region that reveals a £159 ($202) price for the 1TB drive.
That price includes tax, so a direct conversion won’t get us the US price. But the price seems to be in line with previous estimates and relatively affordable for a custom drive that supports 2.4GB/s speeds. Then again, it’s two-thirds of what you’d pay for an Xbox Series S, so not everyone will be thrilled about it.
The only SSD that might work with the PS5 is the newly announced Samsung 980 PRO, which comes in capacities ranging from 250GB to 2TB. The 1TB version will retail for $229.99.
