Western Digital Officially Announces Two New Xbox Expansion Cards

Hopefully this means that more and more companies will start releasing their own versions at a cheaper cost.

It was smart for the PS5 not use proprietary expansion for its system as I believe there are 1TB out there under $100 that work.

I pretty much only install one game at a time on PS5, but I'd love to no longer use an external HDD on my Xbox.

Nitpick about both expansion cards (this one and seagate) the plastic should be white.

On the Series X, the thing is hidden on the back.
On the Series S, depending how you set it up, the thing might be popping off the side.

The prices still high, but at least they no longer feel prohibitive. I could see myself buying a 512gb for my series S if I was struggling with space. I might pick one up around Black Friday when we definitively get some good sales.

Still $100 too much.

@Tharsman FYI, out that 512 space going to say it's really about 312-300 worth of free space. Please keep that in mind before shelling out the cash. Definitely research it for sure.

I bought the 1 TB one around series x release time and was incredibly jaded and disenchanted when saw the "real" free space accessible for legit storage.

Dont like these at all. How do we know these will be supported on future consoles? At least USB is standard.

personally i think external USB works great on xbox

4TB when? Already have the 2TB and it's way too small already.

@Echtzeit It would likely cost more than a Series X.

@blockfight I expect the next Xbox consoles to have the same ports (or backwards compatible ports). It's not USB because it's faster than USB. The alternative would be to open the console with a screwdriver and insert a new SSD, like in PS5. Xbox makes it easier. It also accepts HDDs via USB.

@GuyinPA75 should be close to 512gb on the expansion card. You don’t need to duplicate the system software

@GamingFan4Lyf

Yep. Proprietary was the the dumbest decision Microsoft could have went with.

Even at launch you could get the same since m.2 for a PS5/PC, faster than the Xbox storage, for less.

Better but Nah still too much, won't pay that. Make the 1tb £99 and I'll start thinking about it

are they ssd???????? or not?

@LonelyMuthaShutYo yes

To be fair, Western Digital can be pricier than most, so let's hope we see some cheaper versions by other companies.

I need 4TB for my Series X & PS5. My 2TB SSDs are already full.

And is still stupid expensive!...

@blockfight I was wondering about this. The is the possibility of a mid-gen Series X-2, or just the next Xbox. Will it have a port for these cartridges and a bay for PC NVMe sticks? The next-gen of consoles may use PCIe5.0, so it is possible PCIe4.0 sticks may not be recommended or incompatible as well.

I'll consider grabbing one when the 1TB card has the price of the current 512.

I wonder if MS is making much profit from these after the manufacturer takes their share.

@trev666 USB 'works' if all you want to do is 'store' games and only run XB1 versions from it. The whole point of these Expansion cards are to be able to run Series S/X Versions from the 'Storage' instead of having to wait for them to transfer across to the internal storage to play.

@Echtzeit as these are simple 'plug and play', can be switched out whilst the Console is 'on', You can always just buy another 2TB expansion and swap them out as and when required.

At least now there is more 'competition', it should help bring pricing down. On top of that, its easier to expand your storage. There is no limit to how many Cards you own (I own a 1TB & a 2TB card) so already have nearly 4TB's of Storage capacity - not including the 5TB HDD USB External Storage I have connected with my XB1 and older games stored on it.

With Sony, you may be able to buy a 4TB SSD but I doubt it 'fits' properly in the slot and may require a Heat Sink too. Also, you can't swap storage quickly and easily so even if you did own 2 2TB SSDs, you can't swap them over very quickly and be back playing.

Pro's and Con's to both. MS may have a 'Proprietary' solution that is perhaps more expensive per TB, but makes up for it in terms of ease of use etc. Sonys may offer cheaper options, but its still 'limited' by the size, realistically needs a Heatsink (MS designed their system to not require this) and doesn't cover you if you something happens from a third party SSD - like it overheats and damages your PS5.

Again, pro's and con's - not saying either is the better solution. I own both Platforms myself and whilst I do think the pricing does favour Sony, I prefer having these 'expansion' cards as that basically give 'limitless' Storage. When one is full, add another, and another. With digitally owned games, these Expansion cards become more like customisable Game Cartridges. Just plug it in and have all those games on it ready to play - maybe one for First Party Games, one for RPGs etc. Just plug it in and jump into the games stored on it - no need to swap discs as well. You could keep one just for games you need the disc for as you bought those titles Physically.

With a 2TB expansion, you can fit a decent number of games on it. If you buy digitally, that 'expansion' card becomes essentially a Games Cartridge that are 'instantly' available to play as soon as you plug it in. Its probably quicker than swapping Discs everytime you want to switch to a different game.

Point is, If I need 10TB's for example to keep all my games 'accessible' relatively quickly, I can buy 5 2TB expansions for example. Much quicker to swap an Expansion Card (like swapping games in the Cartridge days) than 'redownloading', quicker than moving from a USB connected HDD/SSD etc...

@GuyinPA75 @GamingFan4Lyf really? I bought a 2tb one for PS5 an it has 2tb on it.

No screwdriver required.

Still gotta drop that price, it's $200+ before taxes in Canada so better....but better crap. Still it's new competition and hopefully with sale's they get pretty decent. My buddies with the series S need some more storage, I'm good with the series x memory.

@Stnkygrngo All I can say is I purchased a 1 TB card and when I inserted the card to move items it said little over 700 gig available.

That was my experience.

@Lastatopiny Just replied to another post here. Wil do copy and paste. This just my experience. Who knows. Pasted below.

All I can say is I purchased a 1 TB card and when I inserted the card to move items it said little over 700 gig available.

That was my experience.

@Darylb88 It sounds tongue and cheek but my PS5 SSD bay screw is stuck in the holster thread no matter the force exerted short of stripping the screw...I had to buy 3rd party screws to secure the SSD....I googled it and it seems like a common problem. The screwdriver thing is a real problem!

And for us Europeans 1TB = €160

Overall they used to put $100 = €90, later it was $100 = €100, now $100 = €110. The real conversion now is $100 = €93.50

Do those brands all have different scales in 1TB = X GB? And is this officially mentioned on their website? 1TB = 700 GB is kinda low?

Edit, had to check this out:

https://www.techradar.com/reviews/seagate-xbox-storage-expansion-card-review

What’s worth pointing out though is that, like almost every hard drive, the usable space on the expansion card is less than the advertised 1TB. Between onboard drivers and the discrepancy in how the console reads available space on the card, you’re actually left with 920GB to play with. Still, that’s more than the 802GB the Xbox Series X’s “1TB” hard drive provides, and huge compared to the 512GB the Xbox Series S is shipped with.

@Sifi I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Faster storage was available before the Series X or PS5 released. Microsoft gave you an overpriced card. Or you could wait for Sony and use a m.2. Or, as also stated, could plug the m.2 into a PC.

Nothing you mentioned is any reason for the jokes of prices Xbox storage costs.

Still to expensive. But this card might give us the info we need to get custom ones 🤞

Never understood why people need this, the internal storage is huge. Do people actually play more than 2 games at a time? Just because I could I installed all 14 games of my GP backlog on my Series X and I still have 300 gb of free space.

@Banjo- Yep I get thats it's faster. I still have a hard drive that I originally used on the Xbox 360. It's currently plugged into my Series S. This is why I will stick with USB drives.

@GamingFan4Lyf you can get a 1TB for $50 at Best Buy for a Samsung 980.

@Jamesfromdfw Nice, though I'd probably opt for a Pro Model with the heatsink as it has better speed for only $30 more.

Even still, I only have one game installed a time. The PS5 is an exclusives-only machine, so once I finish a game, I just delete it.

I probably should start doing that with the Series X rather than installing a bunch of games.

It helps to keep me focused on my backlog.

Wait, they stick outside the system like a USB drive?? I don't know about the original official options, but I had thought the Series X had a slot they slid all the way into.

I honestly haven't looked at the back of my Series X since I set it up, but if that's the case for both options it's ugly and I don't like having more crap sticking out of my systems than the already numerous cords.

Plus it just makes it that much susceptible to accidental damage.

Nice one. i never buy Seagate anymore! BigUp WD

I got a 1tb card that gave me 995 GB. The ones only gettin 700 GB from it I Dunno what's going on there. The 512gb gives me 460 GB. But until they lower the prices I won't be getting anymore until then the games I got uninstalled are mostly cloud so that works out