Xbox Quietly Releases New 4TB Expansion Card For Series X|S

Nah, I'm good with a bog-standard hard drive and I'll just swap games to and from the internal storage. It costs a fraction of that price and it literally takes minutes to move even the biggest games to and from Xbox to HDD.

Someone more tech savvy than me, please explain - is this sort of storage necessary? Like, will this be what we see next gen too? Or will we go back to better priced standard storage devices? (Or something new, but more cost friendly?)

Crazy. This reminds over here in Germany, there were 2 sale discounts with a Series X console bundled with Diablo 4 for 399€. A friend started with the Series X there.
Of course this was before Microsoft were deciding: "hey let's make our consoles more expensive again and again."

It's nice that there's a 4TB option, but I wouldn't pay that money. That's way over the fence for me. I have the 1TB model and an external HDD with 2TB. I can deal with this.

@Kaloudz Yeah, the storage speeds are mostly necessary for S|X games to run properly. Slower drives can cause issues with loading assets in time. That said, I do think there are plenty of games that should run fine from external SSDs.

I use a USB hub with three NVMe drives (around 512GB to 1TB each) in USB enclosures, and they transfer games at about 2.64Gbps. If I want to play something, it only takes a minute or two to move it. Plus, re-downloading games at 1000Mbps isn't much of a hassle either.

For everything Microsoft does right, making storage expansion proprietary is easily their biggest misstep this generation. It’s actually something I have to applaud Sony for with the PS5—though they only learned that lesson after the PS Vita did pretty much the same thing.

@Kaloudz well that's better than nothing, especially for older games. If they are still available digitally.
But no, the prices won't get much better. The M2 SSDs which are used on PS5 didn't get really cheaper over the last years.
And from now on, I wouldn't spend that much into this generation anymore.
Who knows if Microsoft uses the same expansion cards on their next Xbox.

@Nintendo4Sonic That is the exact reasoning why I never purchased one. If it's not supported for the follow up it's just a way to high investment imo.

What Xbox NEEDS to release is a splitter that allows multiple expansion cards to be used.

That's a spicy meatball of a price my goodness 😱

@Nintendo4Sonic

The M2 SSDs which are used on PS5 didn't get really cheaper over the last years.

M2 SSD’s have gotten more cheaper. Just a quick search and i’m finding deals as low as $319 for a 4TB SSD for the PS5. Thats $110 cheaper than this. No, Xbox just made a bad call here, propriety hardware just isnt going to drop in price as fast as third party options

Never needed extra storage on Series X but I might have been tempted more if I stuck with the S.

At the moment I have 14 games installed ranging from 180Gb down to 2Gb in size and I still have about 200 gb space if I need it without needing to delete anything. Even then for me it's easy to just delete & download as necessary with good internet speeds that I have these days.

14 games is more than enough to keep me well entertained and I just don't see any need for these expensive storage expansions for my circumstances.

You have to remember, the 2TB started at $499, which was even more insane. I bought it on sale (maybe two years after release) for 300, which was my absolute limit. The latest sale a couple of weeks ago was just above 200 (of course I was a little angry).

I really really want the 4TB but would only consider buying, if they had some sort of trade-in. Paying over $800 for 6TB is completely nuts, no matter how you look at it.

@Nintendo4Sonic I would like to add to @LogicStrikesAgain comment that in 2021 I picked up a 1TB WD Black SSD in a Black Friday sale for £170 (which looks like a crap deal now but I was buzzing at the time). I could get the same SSD for £120 today or the 2TB version for £180. And these are in the higher price bracket for SSDs…..a 1TB Crucial is less than £80. I reckon they have dropped about 30% in price over the last 4 years which is pretty substantial considering the prices of the consoles themselves have actually increased.

As an extremely happy owner of;
1 - Xbox
2 - Xbox 360 Halo Reach Limited Edition
3 - Xbox One S
I wanted buy Xbox Series X all along. But, microbe-soft did make some critical mistakes, like;

• forcing me to pay additionally (around 100 $) for a disk drive which I was never gonna use
• Forcing me to buy the console with inadequate storage, with a hope of I'll buy worthless seagate ssd someday.
  Guess what! I never bought Xbox Series X! (despite the fact that I loved it)
  It was a bad move to, not letting people to install, their own PCI Express 4.0 ssd they already have.
  Purposfuly bottlenecking the console's storage to force people to buy seagate ssd did not work. Because it was not gonna work. I did not buy it. Just like, I did not buy Xbox Series X despite the fact that I had more than 3 years of gamepass ultimate subscription.
  so, how profitable was for microbe-soft to not selling Xbox Series X and additional seagate ssd?

@themightyant Yep agreed. With gamepass and quick resume I would almost certainly have more games installed on my Series X than my PS5 but I refuse to spend the current asking price for single use propriety storage. As someone who is terrified of tinkering with hardware I appreciate the plug and play aspect but installing the SSD on my PS5 was surprisingly easy and took less than 10 minutes with a YouTube video.

These cards where always a terrible idea. I get that they are more user friendly if people are not confident in fitting an M.2 but the price as a result is utterly ridiculous.

Hopefully the next device swaps to standard drives to give customers more choice with better deals.

The Xbox expansion cards, even if pricier and proprietary, have one big advantage: they’re plug and play. This means I can bring my digital games to a friend’s place and play them after loging in as if I were bringing, say… an N64 cartridge. On PS5, you can’t do that with internal SSDs.

@Kaloudz If you're parking a lot of games on the drive and desire the portability maybe it would be worth it. For someone in some corner of the games industry, sure. I upgraded from a 1TB to a 2TB, which was worth it.

On PC, I recently built with 2 2TB NVMe drives and a 2TB SATA drive. The previous machine was running out of room at 5 TB total. My backlog a lot of "almost done" games over the years and I was hanging on.

Xbox SX space edition 2tb+4tb card for like 1160 LOL. Thats the ultimate xbox fan setup

@theduckofdeath Yeah for me, that's literally all I do. I have a 1TB storage device and that's always been more than enough for me. I think the issue I have with consoles in general is that they advertise overall storage rather than available storage. I hope next gen we get at least the full 500GB.

@Nintendo4Sonic @themightyant @bazchillin Thanks so much for all the informative responses guys. It does beg the question doesn't it? How will current S/X games be future proof and BC on next gen hardware if they need the current storage format to run. Or does it not work like that? If MS move to the other format - will S/X games work on there too?

So like, they're not locked to the current hard drive format, they can operate on the other speedy format too? Sorry guys, I'm really trying to make that sound like it makes sense.

Hot take but I found having many games installed simultaneously and actively downloading GP games - a very deteriorating effect on the desire to play games at all.

1tb is enough to have 2-3 live serivce games and 2-3 single player games. I dont think anyone needs more or you get stuck with jumpting between games and never really immersing into one. This also leads to a burnout and less desire to play.

The only console that benefits from any storage expansion is the basis SS white 512gb. Thats not enough for anything these days.

The beauty of the Series S|X is it's a dying console generation. Lots of great deals in the used market. I picked up a used Seagate 1TB drive for like 1/3 current new retail price. Definitely not worth the new price given no moving parts, used is just as good as new. Although lots of people literally high on the prices they asking for used Series hardware, the rush for the door is accelerating. Quite frankly I don't mind... I like value & Microsoft still doesn't know what it is doing... Microsoft rewards is so broken, still easy to earn free GPU every month.

Cheaper to buy a PS5, oof

I bought a 1TB card back in 2021 and that’ll just have to do, as I’ve absolutely no interest in upgrading for these outlandish prices. Also we need to know whether these will actually work with the next hardware generation because if they don’t then that’s going to be a very expensive paperweight after just 2-3 years!

I sure hope they maintain backwards compatibility for these cards with the next Xbox.

I would bite if the system had two slots. But given the price it is what it is. Gonna stick with my 2 TB.

@Kaloudz as far as I know. The Series X uses a perfect emulation for OG Xbox, 360 and One games. For all of these games, HDD is alright to play them. The modern X/S games need the SSD technic, because it's not possible to load these big datas with older hardware.
I think the next XBox, however the name might be in the end, will go on with the same procedure. We'll see, maybe they even use the same SSD generation like the modern one. It's a bit slower than PS5 SSDs, but it's still very fast.

I have the 2TB plus an external hdd and I still find myself running out of room.

Xbox storage is ridiculously, seriously, overpriced.

@Nintendo4Sonic Ah right. Yeah emulation makes sense. I think we will get support one way or the other (maybe even cloud play) given how big MS are on preservation. Either way, I'd never spend this sort of money on storage - not when I can get standard for £30 and just store them lol. Has anyone seen the insane speed of transfer from storage to internal? It's like, 3 minutes, for huge games.

@ozkrmz As much as I agree with you 110%. Your single display of nonconformity, nonpurchase, did not sway Microsoft even the tiniest bit.

Numerous amounts of people foolishly forked out money for that overpriced storage. Just another Microsoft grift, much like game pass is.

Its really frustrating when games that do not need to be on the fast SSD memory are mandated to be installed there by Smart delivery
Much better to give you the option to install on an external hard drive and give them Gen9 Aware status rather than being Gen9 games and forced to the SSD drive
There are understandably games that require the faster drives, but surely games like Pinkman & Epyx Games Collection do not need to be on the SSD memory
Is there some mandate that stops games being certified as Gen9 Aware rather than Gen9?

Dear friend @GuyinPA75
Thank you.
I do not expect Microbe-Soft to realize it's mistake and/or other people to join me with taking a similar stand.
I believe in freedom and it is perfectly fine anybody to act how ever they see fit.
By the way, microbe-soft's wrong decision making process (in this generation consoles), unintentionally directed me to investing for my own future, rather than wasting my hard earned purchasing power to imperfect xbox series x.
So... For that, I can not thank enough to (both) microbe-soft and sony. They (not only) saved me wasting my time and money for PS5 and Xbox Series X, (even better) they directed me to make highly yielding investments. My purchasing power keep increasing as I blissfuly clear my back log on Xbox One S + PS4 + PC games.
Can not be more happy...

2gb was pricey for me but works well as can easily move games on mass between the (no longer) kids consoles, which is mile quicker than downloading them for us

I'm considering getting an HDD since majority of my games downloaded are actually 360 and Xbox OG.

Seriously who needs that much storage? There’s no way someone is going to have 30+ games installed and play them at once. I’ve got a 1TB SeaGate expansion card but that’s because games these days are around 100GB and are increasing. What’s wrong with just having certain games installed then uninstall when done with them to make space for more?

Fair to see, but for those with that much games/apps, other media, by all means.

I’m in the inner city and my internet is super fast so i just stick to deleting and re downloading games rather then forking out the cash for added space

It was removed because the price was too low.

I really wanted it, but with the next-generation Xbox on the horizon, I don't want to buy peripheral devices that may not be compatible.
I'll make do with the built-in storage.

@Titntin multiple Pros??? Hardcore.

$430 is absolutely insane.

Kinda sad when even hardware is cheaper on PC.

With th price hike of the console and this price...

IMO there's no argument to make to someone to buy this with a Series X over a serviceable PC.

@Bassianus yeah, I bought a second expansion before I checked the back to see if there were two ports. It's wild to me that there isn't. As it is, I use one for my multiplayer games only, since I usually play them in binge stretches or not at all.

@MaccaMUFC I've currently got over 590 games installed, including all my games for gold stretching back almost 20 years. Why not? Most if the older games are in a 12tb HDD, while newer ones are either on an SSD or the expansion.
I like having the same convenient access to games that need installation as I do my old physical copy games, I don't think storage is that expensive, and I get years of use. $600 spent here and there on storage over the course of 5+ years is nothing, and I'm not loaded.

@Kaloudz yeaaah get ready because HDD is a thing of the past. I think xbox periphials will continue to work but as games get bigger and require more had won't be able to keep.up.
The 1tb card at launch was 220 so these prices aren't bad at all

@YungCizzle24 Not bad at all but damn, the cost of that 1TB card was almost the cost of the SS. Either way, I always get by with enough using internal only. I just hope they work out a way to bring it down next gen, or like above says, move to a more affordable one.

This would be a completely wasted development... Not needed for the 99.9%

Based on the high percentage of respondents that own the 2TB card (which is WAY more than I expected) I would venture to guess this will be in higher demand than most think. I'll get one. I love having even my old Xbox One and 360 games on one of these whenever possible. Loading screens are for suckers.

@Kaloudz Hopefully Xbox goes down the route that Sony did with the PS5. Where u just buy sticks and install them. Far cheaper than having their own proprietary plug-in card. If it is going to be more PC like then they def need to make it like that.

Wow, that's a lot of money. 1tb is actually just about enough if you are decent at managing it.

If Microsoft would guarantee these SSDs will work on future Xbox console even more so just for Series, One, 360, and OG games I think that would show your money isnt thrown to the wind. Just tell us it can be used for legacy games for next generation.

Price is a hard sell vs other consoles SSD but can they be used the future is more of a problem.

@Nexozi I hope they do, anything to find a more cost effective way to add more storage is the best way forward imo.

@Kaloudz Totally. They really need to do something especially with the size of games nowadays.

@Nexozi Precisely. Do not get me wrong, I usually deal with the space I have internally - but;

A) It would be nice to buy a 500GB machine and get the full 500GB lol...

B) There's no way in hell I'm buying a card that cost nearly as much as the console...

@Kaloudz Yea u can switch games internal to external and back again. Far handier to actually have instant access to ur games rather than rotating them or sitting down wanting to play something and then have to wait while it copies over. The prices are really not on for these cards. MS decision has u locked in though so they can get away with it.

I got a high-end high-speed 4TB M2 drive for my PS5 Pro for $300, and they're charging $500 for this?

Yeah, no way this is worth it for me. Honestly have to wonder who can justify these prices Microsoft is trying to charge for their hardware now.

I don't have any expansion cards... I have two Series Xs

@Nexozi Oh yeah much, much handier. I mean it only takes a few minutes to move a game from internal to standard storage (or whatever it's called) but still, it'd be nice to have more space so that that wasn't an issue. All we can do is hope they find a better alternative next gen lol.

I'm not spending that much, but I hope this means the next box won't drop expansion card support. Just give us the option of either spending more for the propetirary storage expansion that's easier or getting a screwdriver and installing our own like every other device. Plus that'd really help with storage concerns as we'd be able to plug in an HDD for older Gen games, the expansion card and install our own for modern games. Instead just buying one big expansion upgrade, we'd be able to install multiple expansion devices we already own.

I used to have a 5TB external hard drive. But it died. I also found it to be extremely slow.

But I bought the 1TB expansion card as soon as they became available. Larger versions were not yet available. But I love the fact that the expansion card is instantly accessible. And so easy to use.

I may yet get a larger expansion card, at some point, but right now I feel that they are too expensive for me.

I also have a PS5. Not the Pro, not yet. The PS5 has a 2tb SSD card inside. I was hesitant at first, but opening the lid was easier than I expected.