New Xbox external storage expansion from WesternDigital

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What a timing after the 3 threads about how overpriced the storage on Xbox is on resetera

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Great!

Better late than never. Still a lot of money, and as the article says

At $179.99 it’s still hugely overpriced for 1TB storage, especially when you can find a Samsung 980 Pro 1TB PCIe Gen4 drive for $79.99 right now.

I’ll definitely wait for a lower price. Of all the things I wish MS had done differently, it’s this. I absolutely would have installed a SSD already if MS had done the same as Sony. A bit less user friendly when it comes to installation, but it’s only once.

Maybe next time.

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I’m hoping this too will see similar sales, where the price drops $30.

Part of the price penalty is the size form factor. It has to reach and sustain the high speeds with pretty much just a single memory chip. Compare that with the larger M2 NVME drives that can use 4 or 8 chips to reach the speeds. The other part of the price penalty is the physical connector adapter.

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The two decisions which xbox’s hardware teams has taken doesn’t make sense to me until the speculative follow up happens

  1. Propertairy storage - until they allow installing windows on it

  2. Series S low GPU frequency - until they make a handheld based off series S

Offcourse, just speculation on my part. Both are good devices.

Very nice! I recently got an external 2TB SSD from WD for my backcompat catalogue and am very satisfied with it, so I am confident this will be a great alternative to the Seagate expansion.

Might get one once they get a decent sale.

Good I suppose. Competition and options are always good. It’s still too expensive though and another advantage given away to PS.

One more thing I would like to add, that has me a bit apprehensive about getting either of those storage expansions: I would think that whenever the next Xbox gen rolls around, the new console(s) will support them as well. Knowing that for sure would make the investment in one of them sting a bit less.

However, should they turn out not to be supported on the successor, I would be a tad miffled.

They definitely won’t be supported next gen. It’s a bet they made early on that didn’t pan out well.

I remember the PS5 being mocked relentlessly on here for their SSD method being cumbersome but it’s clearly the most consumer friendly aspect of the PS5 3 years later.

Who would of thought that having one company having a monopoly on your SSD’s would turn out bad for your consumers lol.

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Not a concern for me, but I can see that view. I’ll just trade it into GameStop and use the credits towards other new accessories.

I view it as a one time purchase that runs the lifetime of the console. The Seagate was $180 on sale when I got it and I expect to use it to use over the 7 years of the console lifetime. In the end that’s $25 a year for convenience of not having to juggle storage.

I understand not everyone has the luxury, as it is a large upfront cost, but breaking down the cost over several years may help with the justification of purchase and alleviate buyers remorse.

Its not something I would buy if we were in the last 2 years of the console use.

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The price aspect is not strictly limited by Seagate. It is the technical requirements because of the chosen formfactor as I listed ealier. They could alleviate some of the price disparity if they had a means of using full length NVME 2280 instead of capping at 2230. Doing so would mean an L shaped plug where they could house a normal 2280 formfactor NVME. However they would still have the additional cost of the plug adaptor so an extra $20 to connect as CompactFlash (I think that’s the actual style of connector being used).

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Yeah, trading it in once its usefulness has run its course is also an option. Since internal space on the Series S is so limited, I’ll inevitably have to get one once games like Starfield, Avowed, etc. drop, because I sure will run out of space very quickly, especially since I want to have games I want to play periodically over a longer span of time, such as Forza, SF6, Diablo 4, permanently installed. Gonna be impossible to juggle on effectively 300something GB.

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Yeah, I saw that and all the tribe got at it with the little stick, it was like watching some kind of ritual from a cult.

Although, yeah, it’s better late than never.

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Thankfully with unlimited internet and a good download speed I no longer need to worry about storage issues so I feel for those that do

The idea of paying close to the pirce of a Series S for 1tb of storage…no thanks

I think that was part of it “one time installation” when what MS wanted was plug and play. Part of the reason for this form factor was so you could move games between consoles. I think MS felt using the plug in SSD cold storage drives would be fine for most people.

Conflating ease of use/installation vs price, and defining one element in that false equivalency as the more “consumer friendly” is a take. Yes, the form factor PS5 went with has kept prices lower (which is a win) but I know more than plenty of PS5 owners who aren’t savvy enough to be comfortable swapping out the storage. Even though you may find it easy, as someone who’s worked in technology for the better part of two decades, I’d say you’re over underestimating how many people fall into that category.

The simple fact is “consumer friendliness” covers a wide spectrum, and while PS5’s method wins on price, Xbox wins on ease of use - and that is where most of those commentators were coming from. No need to be reductionist and misrepresent folks.

As for the price, it’s better, but it’s still not great. That said I managed to snag the 2 TB for about 40% off - which made it actually cheaper than some of the 2 TB 2.5 SATA drives, so deals are out there often - never pay retail unless you have to.

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