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[Pre order] Seagate 1TB Storage Expansion Card for Xbox Series X/S $309 (C&C/+Delivery) (Paying w/ LatitudePay) @ Harvey Norman

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For those looking for a deal on the 1TB expansion drive for the new Microsoft Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S models, the Latitude Pay deal brings the price down from the RRP of $359 down to $309.

For those who don't know what this is/how it's different to traditional external USB storage in the context of the new consoles, here's a handy guide taken from the Xbox site:

USB 3.1 HDD/SSD Seagate Expansion Card
Stores any Xbox game Yes Yes
Plays Xbox One, Xbox 360, and Original Xbox games Yes Yes
Plays games optimized for Xbox Series X|S No Yes
Replicates speed and performance of internal SSD No Yes

I was tempted to get this but decided to wait it out and see how prices change over time and whether or not I even need to upgrade the 1TB storage yet.

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  • +15

    Even with the discount storage is the biggest ripoff for these new consoles.

    • Yeah .. I am trying to decie whether it's just better to buy a large external drive and archive games there.

      • +3

        I'm using an old 4TB portable drive to store all my legacy games from my Xbox One X which I'll move over to the Series X.

    • +3

      This is pretty in line with PCIE 4.0 drives that this and the PS5 are based upon, but yes it ain't cheap

    • +2

      The PS5 supports standard M.2 drives (yes only PCIe 4.0 ones, but still) so I wouldn't call it a ripoff in that case

      • -1

        Has there been confirmation a Sony branded drive isn't a comparative ripoff?

        • I really doubt they'll bring out their own drive, but either way, wouldn't need to use it :)

        • There is no Sony branded drive. It'll be third party M.2 drives that meet a certain specification requirement TBC.

    • Were is the PS5 ripoff? .. they don't have any options and its all up to the buyer.

      • -3

        Sony just released a hardware vid today. They're too busy being anti-consumer this time around.

        I'm sure a branded drive is coming. Do we know if any drive is compatible with their licensed tech? (I forget the company they've partnered with)

        • +4

          "They're too busy being anti-consumer this time around." Not in regard to the storage choices as they are allowing people to buy 3rd party brands as long as they meet a certified standard.

    • +1

      Not by much. A bare M2 drive of the same spec is only a little cheaper, and this has the enclosure included.

  • Does the next generation consoles support standard USB external storage? A 1TB External SSD is much cheaper than this

    • +1

      It does, but you won't be able to play Series X games off it. But you can archive them there and move them back to the internal SSD when you want to play them.

      You can play Xbox One/360 games off an external drive though.

      • -5

        Sounds like Microsoft are trying to scrape every last penny lol

        • +2

          I don't think the PS5 will let you play new games off an old hard drive either.

          The idea being they have linked the SSD and VRAM more closely to allow games to load assets faster. So an external drive won't be fast enough.

          But hopefully the costs of these game drives drops a lot. Appaarently there will be more manufactures than just Seagate soon.

        • Normal external HDD's are not fast enough to run Series X/PS5 games. This is how it has to be if you want fast load times. It's just like how you have to install games and run them off the HDD this gen because disk drives are way to slow to run games. People, especially the normies are going to get really upset about this.

          • +7

            @Daniel6092: I think MS/Sony have done well to raise the bar of having high speed NVMe SSDs as the baseline (not just for consoles, but potential multi platform/PC games too) but whilst they've touted the advantages from a loading games/quick resume standpoint, I don't think they've done well to communicate how this massive change will actually impact game design. It's not just about reducing the time spent on a loading game screen but rather it has a more pervasive impact on how games are actually built and planned whether it be allowing more expansive worlds since assets can be streamed in much quicker, or removing the need to deliberately come up with world/map designs with narrow hallways or elevators or other distinct environmental features to conceal the need to stream assets in.

        • +1

          No, direct IO or whatever they call it is a massive feature in the new gen consoles… external drives wont have the speed necessary. Also this is expensive BUT it is a gen4 1TB nvme so its not THAT expensive. It needs to be compared to other nvme drives its unfortunate that is proprietary so it isn't likely to get as cheap as other nvme ssd's.

  • +8

    May as well just get 2 consoles, each with different games loaded as the resale in the long run would be a far better deal.

  • -2

    What the hell is this? Why not use a normal external drove??? Madness

    • +3

      Because normal external drives won't work with Series X games, the storage devices aren't fast enough. These use direct PCIE lanes like a NVME SSD with no middle man.

      They're on par with PCIE4 SSD's at the moment, but it still certainly doesn't mean it sucks.

      You can use normal external drives like on your One X or One S on your Series X (man these names stink), but you can only use them for back compat games (One S/X, 360 and OG).

      • Thanks for explaining it!

  • +1

    Good find, if you "have to" have it.

  • The Xbox Series S is only 500GB which costs $500. It would likely fill up in no time with modern game sizes. The expansion storage is 1TB for $350. Total costs $850 which is $100 more than a 1TB Series X.
    Looks like buyers of the series S aren’t really saving much even upfront

    • +2

      Yeah, I really fail to see the logic of Series S. That being said, at $850 you're getting 1.5TB of storage I guess…. but you're missing out on the discounted/used physical disc games.

      • +2

        And also you're lacking the extra power the Series X has.

      • I ordered an s for my kids but im wondering if i should get them a x instead because the console is 499 with 512gb ssd. If 1tb ssd card is $360 then 500gb is worth $180. So you add the console price with the $180 the extra 500gb to bring it up to 1tb like on the series X then thats worth $680. Thats $70 less than the X and you lose alot of power going from and no disc drive.

        • +2

          Series S will most likely have smaller install sizes due to not having 4k textures but we'll have to see

    • +1

      Don't forget MS probably shaves off 300gb for the operating system. How the hell it's that much on X1 I'll never understand.

      • Agree, apparently this time 802gb usable, so given a 1TB is really 930gb or so that's still almost 130gb install size. A whole lot for a OS.

    • -1

      Black Ops Cold War isn't even going to fit on the Series S out of the box.

      (/s but not really)

  • +2

    I'm hoping an adaptor comes out where we can plug in different SSD's which might be cheaper or better.

  • -2

    Sounds like artificially created "need" for this stuff. What BS. Usb3.1 is FINE even if marginally slower. Screw you MS!

    • I believe the majority of externals are still USB 3.0.

    • USB 3.2 Gen 2 can push 10Gbps. If that's not fast enough to load a game then they're kidding themselves.

      • i doubt USB interface speed is the issue, there would be so many diff models of external drives some with spinning drives some with slower SSD's or some are 3.0 3.1 gen1 bla bla and most console users have no idea there are differences, they are average users …like i said the proprietary format is the cash grab not lack of external drive support via usb..

      • -1

        Hell, 3.2 2x2 can push 20Gbps.

        • +1

          PCI-e 4.0 is 60Gbps. Sony's solution requires a throughput of 44Gbps minimum. I assume Xbox is similar.

          The expectation this gen is that games can stream assets from the SSD within the frame budget. Basically a huge cache.

  • +4

    Just wait until you absolutely need it. By then, larger size models will be available or this one will drop in price.

    Worst case scenario, back up your games to external drives and transfer everytime you want to play them.

    • Thats what you have to do unless you have the money to burn… download to external storage - play on console only 3 maybe 4 games - obvious once specs announced.

      until the Chinese sell quality enclosures for the purpose its gouge time.

    • I tend to just back up my games to the cloud or Bluray.

      • +1

        That's not for backup, that's for installing games.

        While next gen consoles support SSD, for next gen games, you must use approved external SSD solutions (this one for XBsS|X or approved NVMe SSDs for PS5 - bear in mind it must be PCIe gen4 x4 with at least 7GBps (which is 56 Gbps) - right now there is only 1 SSD that technically passes that requirement and yet it hasn't been officially approved). Using USB 3.1 external HDD/SSD is only limited to current gen / back compat. games.

        A cheap alternative is still use USB 3.1 based solution to move games out and then copy games back into the internal SSD. However, ideally, you would prefer USB 3.1 gen 2/10Gbps based solution for next gen console and that means NVMe SSDs (though doesn't need to be PCIe gen4 - as 10Gbps is not enough to saturate NVMe PCIe Gen 3 x4).

        • I understand, and I was playing funny buggers with semantics, but the difference between having a game backed up to a local hard drive and re-downloading a game is mostly just down to a difference in time to install. Of course, if your internet is broken then that could take a long time. But still. I wonder how frequently some people switch games back and forth between backup media?

          • @skrot: Yep, at $309 for the luxury to save myself redownloading or moving off the external hard drive…. I value my time, but not that much.

            I plan to just keep using the 4TB external drive, and I have another 3TB one sitting there unused.

            Funny how many USB 3 hard drives I accumulated over the years thanks to OzBargain.

          • @skrot: For Xbox with GamePass, you reckon 1TB is enough? The hyped up ability to download games first before you purchase, if you were to download it to HDD or USB 3 SSDs first. Some manual movement is unavoidable (for next gen games).

            1TB isn't enough to really enjoy GamePass.

            • @netsurfer: I agree 1TB isn't enough. On my One X I'm almost always trying to find something I've not picked up for a while to cull, and precisely for the reason you mention - game pass. Though a lot of that is just to complete those game pass quests, not really for long-term playing. I never really have an issue with keeping my currently active games installed.

              Really this is all an argument for improved internet speed as much as anything. Local backups are just a manual caching mechanism. I wonder if there's potential for this kind of backup to be more automated.

              • @skrot: While making faster NBN available and more affordable is quite important, it does not fix the problem. What kind of speed are you expecting? 1Gbps? 10Gbps is unrealistic. And, even if it is at 1Gbps, do you really expect our ISPs to have sufficient bandwidth to the USA to support that?

                USB 3.1 gen 2 is 10Gbps and that's TOO SLOW for next gen. Even if you have 1Gbps NBN, you are still downloading at 10x slower than USB 3.1 gen 2.

                Yes, for most OZBers, this doesn't make sense. However, for some mums and dads, they love their children too much that they will cave in and buy these. Anyway, this highlight an issue that we do need more cost effective SSDs.

                Just because you could download the game again and again from the Internet, it does NOT make it an efficient use of Internet nor actually provide any speed benefit.

                I get the eventual move to cloud based solutions, but we are not there yet.

                • @netsurfer: You seem to be getting worked up over this. I'm just pondering what a local backup really is. From what I can tell it's just an optimisation, assuming no failure of the internet.

                  I'm not suggesting you can play the games from the internet or anything, and I'm certainly not suggesting that'd be somehow faster than local storage. If you really are very frequently moving games back and forth between the console and backup media, then just get one of these expansion cards and be done with it - no moving back and forth needed at all. But maybe 2TB isn't enough either.

                  • @skrot: I was puzzled with:

                    the difference between having a game backed up to a local hard drive and re-downloading a game is mostly just down to a difference in time to install

                    That difference in time is quite large for most people, especially for people on XBox camp (with GamePass, there is no need to buy most of the games physically).

                    I tend to just back up my games to the cloud or Bluray

                    What exactly is the so called cloud backup of the whole game you claimed to be using? Backup to Blu-ray?

                    Okay, you were fooling around, but that statement is not witty at all. And the comment at the beginning of the thread seems reasonable.

                    What are your issues with people using external HDD or SSD? If you really have a better solution, then fair enough. Copying to USB HDD is currently faster and more cost effective than re-install from cloud. If you really want to go all cloud, wait for x-cloud.

                    • @netsurfer: I wasn't really trying to make a point to dissuade people from buying this or other local backup drives. The thought just occurred to me that local backup is just an optimisation for installation.

                      I've not got an external drive for my Xbox or PlayStation, but have often thought it'd be useful. But what ends up happening is that I realise there's such a small relative cost to just redownloading games when I want to play something that I haven't for a while that got pushed off the back of the queue. Using the game pass app of my phone to download to the Xbox while at work has a very decent turn around time because I'm not sitting there waiting for it anyway, a lot of the time.

                      In a functional sense these all serve the same purpose: installation. So I distorted the language a bit to claim that installing from the internet or from the original disc is my "backup" solution. It just needs more patience. With the only real issue being if you play enough games frequently that don't all fit on the drive at once.

              • @skrot: I think we're jumping the gun a little here since we haven't seen the actual game sizes in practice are - i.e. how effective the Smart Delivery or selective component install/uninstall is.

                That being said, I agree that if you wanted to play everything on Game Pass, you'd fill up your 1TB drive pretty quick but I guess that's the value of having the older Xbox One/360/OG titles on the cheap external hard drive, as well as moving any Series X optimised games back and forth as needed. If someone really values their time to the point that waiting for that transfer to take place isn't worthwhile, then there's a convenient $359 solution to that problem.

                • +1

                  @jace88: Well u can only play 1 game at a time so setting up a move between your external usb 3 whilst playing isn't really a biggie.

                  You just have to remember to housekeep the internal more often, and move from the internal all the time.

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