What you need to know
- The Seagate Expansion Card is the only official SSD players can use to expand their Xbox Series X|S storage capacity for current generation games.
- A listing for a WD_Black Expansion Card has appeared online at Best Buy.
- The card is listed at $180 for 1 TB, a discount compared to the $220 list price for Seagate's option.
Since the launch of the Microsoft's current generation gaming consoles, the only way to expand storage that can used with optimized games is through the Seagate Expansion Card. Now, it appears some options might finally be on the way.
A listing on Best Buy spotted Sunday (thanks, @andyricflair on Twitter) shows a 1TB WD_Black Expansion Card for Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. While it's currently listed as sold out, this likely means the card will be formally available for purchase sometime soon. The price is also eye-catching, as it's $180, which is a $40 cut from the usual price of the Seagate-branded version at $220.
When the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S first launched, Microsoft noted that while the company was partnering with Seagate on a 1TB option at launch, other "capacities and implementations" would become available in the future. Seagate did eventually bring a 512GB option and a 2TB SSD, but until now, there haven't been any other manufacturers providing options.
We'll be sure to provide and update when or if any official release dates for the card are announced, as well as when orders become available.
Windows Central has good reason to believe these cards are imminent and coming soon. When the Xbox Series X|S consoles first launched, the ease of use in installing these cards (you literally just plug them into the back of the console) was widely appreciated in comparison to having no option on the PS5.
That's turned around in the last year and a half or so, with Sony supporting player installs of any SSD that meets a specific speed requirement on the PS5.
As a result, it's not been unusual to see a 1TB third-party SSD at half the price of the Seagate Expansion Drive, with our managing editor Jez Corden noting that it's one thing the PS5 definitely does better than the Xbox Series X.
With how large many games are, and the sheer number of games available to play, having one of these cards is basically a requirement when transferring data from your Xbox One to your new Xbox Series X|S. This is only more true as last-generation games have been mostly phased out, with upcoming launches like Starfield and Redfall exclusive to Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC.
Windows Central's take
Hopefully, additional manufacturers providing options on Xbox provides some breathing room for prices to fall, but we'd expect the semi-proprietary nature of the cards and focus on ease-of-use — there's no worries of stripping a screw or taking the console partially apart to install the drive — means prices will remain relatively high by comparison to what's available for PlayStation users.
Storage and play more games
The Seagate Storage Expansion Card is the only official way to store more current-generation games on your Xbox Series X or S while playing them. That looks like it'll be changing soon though, which could help bring prices down a bit.
