How to upgrade your Xbox One storage

Xbox One HDD Upgrade: How to upgrade your Xbox One storage

 

Both the Xbox One and PS4 come with a 500GB as standard. When you first get your console 500GB might seem like plenty, but with AAA game install sizes reaching the 40GB mark for the huge open-world titles, that 500GB hard drive will soon fill up.
Plus, we hate the thought of having to delete games to make space for new ones. Especially when games of that size take an absolute aeon to download over a standard Wi-Fi connection.
So, you might be wondering what’s the best way to upgrade the external storage on your Xbox One.
Well, unlike the PS4, where you’ll need to get your screwdriver out, Microsoft has made the Xbox One compatible with external hard drives instead.
It’s a quick and easy process that we’re going to help you through with our Xbox One HDD upgrade guide.

The drive

First choice you need to make is which external drive you will use. We chose the WD My Passport Ultra 2TB Metal Edition. It's USB 3.0, doesn't require an external power source so doesn't take up an additional socket under our AV cabinet, and its aluminium finish suits the decals on the Xbox One well (even though it will mainly be out of sight in our case). At just £100 for 2TB it's also good value. Even better value is the conventional version of the WD My Passport Ultra 2TB external drive, which is currently £80 on Amazon.co.uk.

You can pay a bit more and opt for a 7200 RPM drive instead (the My Passport Ultra is 5400 RPM) but we've gone for convenience, no noise and price. And after all, the Xbox One internal drive is 5400 RPM too, so the performance will at least match it.
You can also opt for a lager capacity drive. We're not sure if there's a maximum (just a minimum of 256GB) but suspect not. Of course, it all boils down to price in that case. Alternatively, you could add multiple drives - after all there are three USB 3.0 ports on the Xbox One. You can't daisy chain additional drives though as the console will only accept up to three external drives in total.

The set-up

Once you have your drive to hand, set-up is simple. Plug it into one of the three USB 3.0 ports (two on the rear, one on the side) when the Xbox One is on. A message will pop up on screen to show it recognises that the drive has been connected.

You can either go to the settings through interaction with the pop-up or head there manually and enter the "System" settings.

In there you will see the "Manage storage" tab. Select it and the next page will show your existing external hard drive alongside the new one.

In all likelihood the drive will need to be formatted before it can be used for anything other than storing video, picture and music files, especially if it's come straight out of the packaging. The Xbox One needs to do that itself. So choose the new drive and scroll down to the option "Format for games & apps". Select "Format storage device" and a new screen will pop up with a keyboard to select the drive's name.
We kept the default name "External" and chose to install new games and apps to the new drive when asked.
Formatting the drive takes no more than five or six seconds and you're good to go.

On your main games and apps screen you will now see that the entire storage available, both internally and externally, is accumulated into one statistic.
We also recommend you completely shut down your Xbox One and reboot. We did and the drive worked very well straight after.

Moving games and performance

 

In our primary tests we found a slight difference in in-game performance between games stored on the external WD drive and the internal one, specifically in initial loading speeds which seemed a touch faster.
As USB 3.0 is capable of shifting data at speeds of up to 5Gbps, that's much faster than broadband speeds so you'll notice no difference in download times in comparison to the Xbox One normally. But it's considerably faster than SATA II, the connection the Xbox One has with the internal drive, so that might even prove decisive in data transmission for games stored on the external drive.
We also decided to move a few across from drive to drive to see how long it takes and discovered that to move Halo: The Master Chief Collection's mammoth 58GB took just over 40 minutes in total.
One benefit of moving games from the internal to the external drive is that you will be able to play your downloaded titles on a friend's Xbox One by just connecting the hard drive to his or her console and signing into your profile. You don't then need to redownload any games you wish to play. That's another good reason for opting for a more portable USB 3.0 drive like the WD My Passport Ultra.

 

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