The Seagate Expansion line hooks up with USB 3.1 Gen 1 connectivity, meeting the USB storage requirement for Xbox Series X and Series S. It's an unfortunate consequence of fundamental SSD technology, with the Seagate SSD Storage Expansion Card currently the only solution that mirrors the internal drive. Cheaper USB storage provides an ideal way to offload games, shuttling content back and forth when required. However, USB drives can only store games optimized for the new Xbox consoles before transferring these onto the internal SSD to play. Xbox One titles without upgrades and backward-compatible Xbox 360 or original Xbox games run with no problems.

That means you won't be playing many games directly from an external hard drive on Xbox Series X and Series S. Games built with considerations for Xbox Series X and Series S, including upgraded Xbox One games, can run only on Microsoft-certified storage that hits its high bandwidth threshold.

While that's more than acceptable for everyday use, it's worth stressing that's a fraction of the 2.4GB/s internal SSD included with new Xbox consoles.īut it highlights the limitations of any USB-connected storage on the newest Xbox family, with slower read and write speeds failing to meet new titles' demands. This 5,400 RPM external drive meets all the Xbox consoles' requirements, pushing up to 120MB/s maximum read and write speeds. The Seagate Expansion series remains our top pick in its 2TB configuration, although with additional capacities up to 5TB for those demanding long-term flexibility.

Window hard drive for x box 1