Microsoft has opened pre-orders for the Xbox Series X 1TB Storage Expansion Card, which is designed by Seagate. The proprietary storage solution is priced at $219.99 / £220 and slots into the rear of both the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S.
The Xbox Series X comes with 1TB of super-fast storage, while the Xbox Series S ships with 512GB. Priced at $499 / £449 and $299 / £249 respectively, if you were to buy the Storage Expansion Card alongside Microsoft’s cheaper Xbox Series S, you’d end up spending $520 / £469 in total for 1.5TB of storage
Microsoft claims that games for the Xbox Series S will be 30% smaller in size than their Xbox Series X counterparts, as they won’t require 4K textures. This means that the internal NVMe SSD should go a bit further than at first glance, but space will still be at a premium.
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It’s worth noting that Xbox One, Xbox 360 and original Xbox games can be stored on an external hard drive. You can also store games that are optimized for the new Xbox Velocity Architecture on an external hard drive, though you’ll need to transfer them over to the console’s internal SSD or Expansion Card when you want to play them.
Microsoft has outlined how the new storage system works, and why the Expansion Card is so pricey in a detailed Q&A on Xbox Wire. It's an interesting read if you're new to the world of NVMe SSDs.
Looking for a new console? Find out where to buy Xbox Series X and where to buy Xbox Series S. Or, if you're thinking of siding with Sony this generation, you'll want to find out how to buy PS5.
Xbox 1TB Storage Expansion Card US
Seagate 1TB Game Drive for Xbox Series X, Series S:
Xbox 1TB Storage Expansion Card UK
Expansion plans
Comparatively, the PS5 comes with 825GB of storage. Sony has previously said that the console will be compatible with Sony-certified, off-the-shelf NVMe SSDs, but these drives must match the PS5’s internal SSD’s bandwidth specifications. It’s also unclear whether any new drive would replace the internal SSD solution, or expand upon the existing storage. If it’s anything like the PS3 and PS4’s storage solutions, it’s likely to serve as a replacement.
Microsoft has stated that additional sizes will be available in the future, but as we’ve seen with current NVMe SSDs, the price tends to increase exponentially the more storage a drive includes. The Xbox Series X/S 1TB Storage Expansion Card will be available when both the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S launch on November 10, 2020.
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