Don’t Run Out of Room: How to Upgrade Your Xbox Series X/S Storage

One of the biggest changes for this current generation of consoles is the change in storage. The Xbox Series X and Series S both feature new SSD storage, which is more lightweight and allows for faster loading times. However, that comes at an increased cost—solid-state drives are still more expensive than regular HDD storage.

In order to keep costs down, Microsoft decided to limit the amount of onboard storage you get with your console. The Series X has 1TB of storage, while the Series S has just 512GB. This might sound like a decent amount, but games are only getting larger, with some—like Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War—over 200GB.

Depending on the games you play, your Xbox’s storage drive will likely fill up quickly. Thankfully, Microsoft has provided a way to upgrade your storage.

How to Expand Storage With the Expansion Card

(Credit: Carli Velocci)

Microsoft has officially licensed an expandable storage option, the Seagate Storage Expansion Card. This card can be purchased from the Xbox website(Opens in a new window) in increments of 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB. It is nearly identical to what is already inside the Xbox, so games on the extra storage should load just as fast as those on the internal drive.

The Expansion Card is also easy to install. All you need to do is turn off your Xbox, plug the card into the Storage Expansion slot on the back of your Xbox, and turn your console back on. Install any updates, and you will officially have more storage. 

The only real downside is the cost. It costs $129 for 512GB, $219 for 1TB, and $399.99 for the 2TB version. You can potentially find it on sale, since it’s been on the market for a few years now, but there are more affordable options—if you can stomach some of the caveats.

How to Set Up External Storage

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

If you don’t want to spring for the Expansion Card, you can turn to external storage options. The Xbox Series X and Series S have three USB 3.1 ports, which is plenty of space for accessories, including an external drive with a minimum of 128GB of storage.

There are plenty of great external options on the market from companies like Western Digital and Seagate that cost a fraction of Xbox’s official Expansion Card. For example, you can get the 8TB Western Digital My Book hard drive for under $200. 

However, this route has some caveats. Speeds will be a lot slower, meaning an external HDD can’t be used to play games optimized for the Xbox Series X and Series S. You can certainly store these games on your drive, but you would need to move them over to internal or expansion card storage to play them.

That being said, you can play any non-optimized Xbox games (so backward-compatible Xbox One, Xbox 360, and Xbox games) from the external HDD, although this is not officially recommended.

If you want speedier storage, you can also opt for an external SSD. You would be paying a bit more than you would for an HDD, but you would be able to transfer and load games a lot faster. However, the same game-playing caveats apply here, so if you want to play an optimized current-generation game, it needs to be running off internal or expansion card storage.

(Credit: Carli Velocci)

Regardless of your choice, setup is still simple (though more complicated than just plugging in the Expansion Card). Note that if you reuse an old hard drive, make sure to back up any important data, as this setup process will reformat the drive and wipe anything on it.

Turn your console on, and plug the drive into one of the USB ports. You will get a pop-up that asks how you wish to use the storage device. If you want to use it for games storage, select Use for Games. You will be asked to name your storage device. Your Xbox will then ask if you plan to use the drive with multiple consoles.

(Credit: Carli Velocci)

If you want to install games on your new storage device by default, choose Keep Current Location. Select Format Storage Device, and you should now have more space for games on your Xbox.

(Credit: Carli Velocci)

You can check to make sure your new drive was installed properly by going over to Settings > System > Storage devices. You should see your new drive listed on the page alongside the internal storage. You can also change the default installation location from this menu. 

To move games to and from your new storage, click the Xbox button and select My Games & Apps. Head over to the game you want to move, select the View button and choose Move or copy. Select the game so the box gets checked, and hit Move selected on the right. Your game will then be transferred over.