by With the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S , Microsoft has given us two really good gaming consoles. The first is for you who want the very best, most gaming power on the market today and the second is for you who want a modern gaming experience, but settle for something more affordable. Together with Xbox Game Pass , both machines are really interesting choices for gamers today and are slowly nibbling on Playstation ‘s big lead from the previous generation. But what about the internal storage space? The Series X comes with 1TB on paper, of which only 802GB is usable after system installation, while the Series S comes with 512GB, which ultimately leaves a paltry 364GB left to install games on. With games like Call of Duty, which can stretch around 200GB, it becomes clear that the internal storage will be too small to play multiple Series games (you can add any external disk, but these can only play Xbox One games or older, not Series -game). The solution is spelled out: Seagate Expansion Card for Xbox Series X/S – the best, and indeed only, solution for more internal storage on this Xbox generation (at the time of writing anyway).
Unlike the PS5, which can expand its internal storage with any approved M.2 SSD NvmE module , the Xbox only supports more internal storage via Seagate’s dedicated solution, which looks like a wide USB memory stick. With it you get up to 2.4GB/s transfer, which is claimed to be as fast but is actually only almostas fast as the Xbox Series’ own storage circuit (it takes a couple of seconds extra to load heavy games, but otherwise the difference is not noticeable in the games themselves) and the expansion is 100% fail-safe. Just shut down the machine completely, insert the Seagate stick into the port on the back of the console (you can’t even turn it wrong) and voila, on the next reboot you’re up and running. The storage space is automatically merged with your internal storage and here you get over 900 GB of extra space to download games. Suddenly, you can start downloading Game Pass games optimized for Series X/S wildly and easily jump between them, just like it should be.
We are somewhat partial to this product. On the one hand, it is fantastically good, exemplary simple and 100% error-proof. On the other hand, you have toto go for it, if you want more internal storage (and you do, especially on the Series S) and it’s certainly not cheap per GB. The fact that Microsoft did not choose a more open solution can of course be criticized. At the opposite end of the scale, Series S is so affordable today that you might be able to treat yourself to an expansion to it, even if 1TB costs almost as much as the entire console, SEK 2,500? You can get 512 GB for SEK 1,700 at the time of writing, and you who have money burning in your pocket can spend a breathtaking SEK 5,500 for the 2TB version (as much as a Series X console). As a product, there’s really nothing to complain about with the Seagate Expansion Card, it does what it’s supposed to, does it well, and it’s super easy to handle. As a solution, however, it feels a bit “Apple”, locked-in and too expensive compared to third-party solutions (which, just like expansions on Mac, do not exist in practice). A 1TB M2 SSD module (PCIe 4.0) costs about half of what this one does. At the same time, today you have to pay several thousand more for onePlaystation 5 , which is not yet in stock, against an Xbox Series X and above all a Series S. So, yes, the pot is standing. More storage is not a must either, but of course very nice.
So, for those who want the convenience of jumping between many games, easily, quickly and smoothly, the Seagate Expansion Card is a must, if you can afford it. Everyone else gets to judge convenience versus investment.
