The Xbox Series X remains on-track for release during the 2020 holiday season. Microsoft continues to reveal details about the Xbox Series X, with the focus remaining on the console's hardware for the time being. During yesterday's Inside Xbox presentation that trend continued, with the Xbox team talking about hard drives and external storage. The team explained how storage will work on the Xbox Series X, breaking down what could be a surprisingly complicated situation.
To start, it's important to understand that the Xbox Series X features a major leap forward in terms of storage. The console features an SSD, which is much faster than the HDDs of the Xbox One and earlier consoles. As such, Xbox One-era external HDDs aren't equal to the challenge of running Xbox Series X games. They're simply too slow.
Don't throw away those Xbox One-era external HDDs yet, though. They can still be used with the Xbox Series X. External HDDs can plug into the Xbox Series X via USB and run Xbox One games perfectly fine. They can also store any data that isn't directly tied to an Xbox Series X game being played. That includes multimedia as well as games that aren't being played. Xbox Series X owners can simply transfer Xbox Series X games between their console and their external HDD as they need.
For those who don't want to go through the trouble of transferring Xbox Series X games between the console and an external HDD, there's another alternative. The Xbox Series X has a proprietary, optional 1TB storage expansion card that works just like the console's own SSD. This card can have games installed to it and then run like normal. Multiple 1TB cards can even be used and swapped out if players fill up the Xbox Series X 1TB SSD and another 1TB card on top of it.
Between the Xbox Series X SSD, the expansion cards, and the utility of a standard external HDD, Xbox gamers will have plenty of options for storage management.
There are certain to be understandable frustrations with the Xbox Series X's storage when it eventually launches. External HDDs are relatively cheap, making it easy for Xbox One gamers to expand their digital library. It's not going to be so easy with the Xbox Series X, even if transferring Xbox Series X games on and off of an external HDD isn't too challenging. It's still an added layer of involvement. That the proprietary expansion card is guaranteed to be spendy doesn't help. It's okay to be frustrated by that, while also understanding that the trade-off is a much faster console due to the Xbox Series X's SDD.