After having considering spending 200-250 bucks on a SSD card for XSX I have decided not to do it. It’s just too much money. Man I wish we had more brands/options now.
Anyway, so I’ve been thinking about getting a external SSD for my XSX, so I can just move games to it, like Lego games for when my nephews visit me and not having them take up internal SSD space.
There’s a discount on Amazon now.
Crucial X6 1TB Portable SSD -
Up to 800MB/s - PC and Mac - USB 3.2, USB-C External Solid State Drive - CT1000X6SSD9
It’s only 67 euros now instead of 128, quite nice! This seems like it would be rather nice for my XSX. But what kind of duration to copy a big game can I expect? Let’s say something like 40GB? How long will that take?
And compared to a regular external HDD, how much of a difference is it? Because obviously I can have way more TB’s for way less money if I were to get an external HDD, not SSD.
I myself have a SAMSUNG 870 QVO 4TB SSD SATA hooked up through a SABRENT USB SSD adapter and use it for all the BC stuff and for “warm-storage” for any Series games. The copy between the NVME to SSD isn’t too long, definitely far faster than rust spinner HDD.
So the SSD is 17.5 minutes versus 34.5 minutes and 8.5 minutes versus 21.5 minutes.
Oh yeah, those differences are really worth it for sure. Do you think that Crucial SSD would be a good one to go for?
So it will never use the full capacity of the external SSD, hmmm, I see, that’s unfortunate. But it’s probably still gonna be worth it for me since my download speed just often are all over the place on XSX.
I’m not sure about the details of recent SSDs, I’d maybe try to find longevity reviews of them, and if there are none then go with a solid name-brand that has 3-5 year warranty.
All drives full capacity will be used.
It’s the speed that will be limited, but the benchmarks from DF are what you will see. They did real life tests. That speed limit is 5 Gbps (gig bits per second) which is 625 MB/s (megs per second).
More so just something to be cognizant or as you shop around. If the drive is just for your Xbox there is no need to overbuy as the read/write will be limited by the USB bus. Just a purely hypothetical with made up figures but if there is a 1GB/s for $120 or a 800MB/s option for $80, you can’t utilize the speed difference so you can save some money.
Like Brit said, you will be able to match the DF benchmarks as long as it’s capable of 625MB
The Microsoft/Seagate ones are 2.5GB/s(5GB compressed) matching the internal.
Know how the download speed gets halved (or worse) once you start playing a game? Does this happen too when copying a game from external to internal? I mean it’s not using the Internet but it is using Xbox resources isn’t it? Or will this not go any slower at all?
I don’t think the copy/move speed is impacted. However I have noticed bursts/hills and valleys on the move speed even when Reading from SSD and Writing to Internal NVME. I never checked on the speeds when running another game. I just play the other game and let the move operations continue in the background. I dont remember if COPY has these same peaks/valleys as MOVE.
They could be explained by file buffers filling and then being flushed. Maybe the write queue/buffer backs up after so long causing the read to slow down until there is memory available again.
Example using fictitious time and speed for game move without any other games loaded (I dont remember the speed or durations): It’ll be going at pace X for 45 seconds then slow down to pace Y for 15 seconds, then return to pace X then dip down to pace Y. This is where pace Y is like 1/4 to 1/2 X.
I would figure that with steaming I/O being an emphasis on these SSDs, that not throttling the copy could impact game performance negatively and is likely something they’d do.
That’s really good to know. I was briefly considering just getting a external HDD because you can get so much more storage for less money, but then I watched the DF video from 2020 and saw the transfer speed differences, the loading times differences for levels or like in some games texture loading and LOD, it’s definitely going to be an SSD. And I’m very likely solely going to put BC games on it, and keep the internal solely for XSX only games.
In the DF video they cover the Samsung 870 QVO and I gotta say it’s looking good. I will need that Sabrent adapter though. If I compare this to the Samsung T7 the price difference definitely is there. About 120 for the 870 and 150 for the T7. And that’s for 2TB. One by Crucial comes in at 120 or so too but I’m reading about issues with it needing a different cable and it not being recognised as a USB device for games. I’ll look into that.
But seeing how great the loading times for these BC games are running on external SSD makes me wonder why I haven’t bought one already, lol. 1 or 2TB solely for BC games on the external, 1TB solely for XSX games on the internal. Last step is deciding which is best for the wallet.
Another interesting suggestion someone gave me today, on Reddit.
He basically said there is zero reason to get high speed SSD’s. Instead I should go for a dirt cheap SATA 2 enclosure + SATA 2 SSD. I asked him for details because I am not familiar with this stuff at all. But no response after that.
But would this mean I can use any SATA 2 SSD (for pc) put it in a enclosure and use it for XSX (BC games)? I mean it’s true, a high speed SSD is never gonna be used to its full potential by XSX, so something slower is fine too, but where do I start? But more importantly, is it truly that much cheaper?
Are your download speeds that bad/inconsistent? I look at stuff like this and I could download the games with close-enough speed. Obviously know that internet speeds differ everywhere.
Nah it’s not even that, I just like more space, especially so for the BC games, for them to always be available to play.
My speed is good, like 300mbits I believe, although I rarely ever reach that speed, it differs a lot. I mean with juggernauts like CoD, FC6, Halo and a few more games installed the internal is full before you know it.
Something like the Sabrent adapter, right? And as for SATA SSD, can I just go for any SATA II? Because it does seem there are significantly cheaper options with that compared to the high speed external ones like T5, T7, etc. And since Xbox won’t use the full speed anyway…
I have an identical setup to what DF used, that Sabrent USB adapter and that 860 QVO. Any internal SSD should work. I was initially going to go with an older model and all to save money, but then Amazon had a great sale going on, so the QVO was only a $10 difference.
Also as said earlier in the thread by pg2g/Searsy82, its why I didn’t go for NVME Adapter plus NVME because it would have been overkill for the console and would have costed twice the price.
Very nice. Yeah I’ve been looking at the QVO too, but someone on Reddit adviced against it and recommended to get the EVO version instead.
What are the things I need to look out for when going for a internal SSD?
It needs to be SATA II. I probably should look at the max speed Xbox does and not necessarily go much higher?
Also, there’s this tech site that has a Pricewatch page and I can filter everything, like interface etc. I can’t find any that say SATA II, but I do see SATA 600 and such. I googled it and apparently it means SATA 3, would that work too? Because then there are tons of options here.
