Those few drives that do support the best Xbox Series X games are well worth your hard-earned cash. If only because they greatly expand the console’s approximate 800GB of workable storage. Yes, the box might claim 1TB from the get-go, but that’s not including the space required for the Xbox Series X’s operating system. It’s a similar story on the Xbox Series S, too, which only features roughly 364GB of operational storage despite the 512GB claim. Interface type: The Xbox One series of consoles supports up to two external hard drives, connected via a USB 3 cable. This is important: the Xbox One doesn’t support newer USB 3.1 gen 2, or indeed USB-C or other miniaturised versions of the USB connector (miniUSB or microUSB). Fortunately, most modern external hard drives have a USB 3 cable, so you won’t need to worry too much about this.

You’re after something cheaper: There’s no denying that the Seagate Xbox Storage Expansion Card is a pretty huge investment, potentially turning off buyers on a budget. With a 5,400 RPM drive, you're again looking at standard performance for older games. Xbox One, Xbox 360, and Original Xbox games won't load extra fast, but you also won't have any issues playing these games. You'll also be able to keep your SSD space clear for the handful of titles that you are playing. Although Toshiba sells a gaming-specific version of its Canvio external HDD, the Canvio Flex is the current king when it comes to price, performance and value. It’s cheaper than most competitors, yet also one of the fastest portable HDDs we’ve tested. Our PC benchmarks place its sequential read/write speeds over a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type A connection at 151.5MB/sec and 158.9MB/sec. When it comes to loading saved games on the Xbox One, it’s a second or two faster than the Seagate Expansion Portable and only just behind the Seagate Firecuda HDD in most of our test titles. It’s a great drive for hosting your Games Pass favourites if you don’t want to splash a lot of cash. You can also get 2TB and 4TB versions. We run two sets of tests when we’re looking at external hard drives for the Xbox One or One X. First, we connect them to a PC and run the CrystalDiskMark benchmark to test their raw sequential and random read/write speeds. Sequential speeds are an indication of how fast the drive can read or write large quantities of data in one sustained burst, which makes a big difference when you’re first running a game, loading a saved game, streaming in all the models and textures in a level, or transferring a game from one drive to another. Random read/write speeds cover smaller data transfers, and make an impact when you’re running a game directly from the hard drive.

The best external hard drives for PS5

You’re on a budget: You might want to look elsewhere if you were hoping to spend less overall on an external SSD. However, previous-gen Xbox One and Xbox 360 titles can be run from these drives with a slight bump in load times, though. Read on, then, to learn more about the best Xbox Series X hard drives and SSDs to help boost storage and performance for your console. You’re after more space: As it can’t run Xbox Series X|S games natively, you may want to opt for a HDD for more storage space overall. When loading PS4 games and their saves, the Canvio Gaming still can’t keep up with the SSDs, but we’re talking about 31.4 seconds to launch God of War rather than 26 to 28 seconds – hardly a night and day distinction – while the time to load save games is in the same ballpark as the slower SSDs.

You won’t actually notice much difference in terms of general gameplay, so the main advantage of an SSD is the significant reductions in your loading times. Here, much depends on the individual game. Red Dead Redemption 2 doesn’t really load any faster with an SSD than it does with an external HDD, but when loading saved games it’s a different story. While you could be looking at a nearly two minute (133 second) wait on Xbox One X with an external HDD, that drops to just 71 seconds with an SSD. The Crucial X8 is a common recommendation for both PC and console use, simply because it’s both very cheap and a seriously speedy SSD. The limitations of the Xbox One’s USB 3.0 interface means you can’t actually make the most of the X8’s up to 1050MB/sec read and write speeds, but who cares when you can chop 30 to 40 seconds off the time it takes to load a saved game in Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla or Red Dead Redemption 2. It doesn’t make so much difference when it comes to simply loading games, but the high transfer speeds make this a good bet if you’re thinking of upgrading to an Xbox Series console, where you can run your old last-gen games from the external drive. It’s a well-built drive with a tough anodized aluminium casing, and it even comes with both a USB Type-C cable and Type-A adapter bundled in. You don’t need to spend more on an Xbox SSD – and, at this price, there’s no compelling reason to pay less.So, what if you're not looking to spend a ridiculous amount of money, but you still need a fair bit of extra storage? If you're looking to reduce your problems with storing older titles, this 4TB hard drive from WD will remove most of your woes. With a rating of 5,900 RPM, this massive external hard drive isn't branded in any special way, but it manages to stand out due to how large it is. Due to its size, this isn't a simple plug-and-play, as the drive needs its own power supply via an 18W adapter that's naturally included. Besides our top two choices, you’ll still be able to store your Xbox Series X|S games on all of our other options. The difference is that you won’t be able to run the games from them. The Seagate Xbox Storage Expansion Card is the first product that arises in conversations about the best Xbox Series X SSDs. Launching the same year as the console itself, it enjoyed a reputation as the be-all-end-all of storage expansion for Microsoft’s current-gen machine. That may not be as true now as it was before 2023, but it’s still a superb choice for gamers looking to greatly increase storage capacity.