I feel like I’m always running out of storage on my Xbox Series X — I mean, of course, I do when games like Call of Duty want to eat over 300GB of space on my drive. So I was shocked and awed when Seagate sent over its new 4TB Storage Expansion Card for Xbox Series X, and it quickly became my favorite thing ever.
There is a problem, though. Just a tiny one. Well, maybe not so tiny. It costs $500. That’s as much as the Xbox Series X itself… when it launched, anyway (ugh, tariffs). But if that’s in your budget, the 4TB Seagate Storage Expansion Card solves a universal problem for Xbox Series X owners, and it’s available right now directly on Seagate’s website and at Best Buy.
Now, 4TB is a lot of space, but is it as good as the Xbox Series X’s internal storage? And is it worth the price? Let’s jump in.
Enough space to find myself… and Clair Obscur
Let’s get the not-so-obvious-but-obvious out of the way: It’s not 4TB. The same way that the Xbox Series X’s 1TB internal storage is not 1TB. There’s a chunk of that dedicated to the operating system or system functions. The Xbox Series X features 802GB of usable storage, and the Seagate Expansion Card offers 3.7TB of usable storage. That brings your total up to ~4.5TB.
Now to business. The 4TB Seagate Storage Expansion Card is physically the same size and weight as its siblings, coming in at 0.307 × 1.244 × 2.085 inches and 30 grams. It’s honestly adorable. It also comes with a little cap that protects the exposed internals. Although, it’s easy to lose (cut to me frantically looking for the cap in my couch cushions).
I always get a bit nervous about plugging in drives or any small pieces of tech because of how sensitive some of them can be, but the Expansion Card felt smooth to slot in, and it’s obvious which side to face up thanks to the Xbox logo on the card.
Upon plugging it in, I got a notification asking me, “Will you be using Storage Expansion Card with multiple consoles?” One neat feature is the ability to unplug the card seamlessly and slot it into another Xbox in your house or a friend’s. But how will that affect the usage? Well, if the drive isn’t going anywhere, it enables the card to check for updates automatically, whereas a drive designed to move will disable the automatic updates. You can still update your games, and even switch this setting by going to My games & apps > Manage > Storage devices.
Moving games does take more steps than I’d like, however. For individual games, head to My games & apps > Select game > Manage game and add-ons > Select game > Move or copy > Select game > Move selected. That’s too much selection for me. Thankfully, you can move all of your games and apps at once if you want to. You have to go to Settings > System > Storage devices > Internal Storage > Move or copy > Select all > Move selected. Ironically, just as many steps, which in this case is justified.
How long would that even take? First things first, let’s get into my testing.
How fast can I become disAvowed?
I tested three titles with the 4TB Seagate Storage Expansion Card, including Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Avowed, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
Jumping into my turn-based RPG parry fever dream, I tested how long it would take to load my save file in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. On the Xbox Series X’s internal storage, it took 7.33 seconds before I could start running into the first Nevron I saw. Meanwhile, the 4TB Seagate Storage Expansion Card took 7.39 seconds. That’s virtually identical, which is a great start. It took only 1 minute and 47 seconds to move over Clair Obscur (42.3GB) to the Expansion Card.
Living up to my oath, I hopped on Avowed to start blasting away at some Xaurips so I could loot their camp (it’s ethical, I swear). The Xbox Series X’s internal storage loaded my save file from the menu in 14.95 seconds. On the Expansion Card, I waited only 14.91 seconds. Virtually no change again, which is great. Transferring Avowed (76.2GB) over to the card did take 2 minutes and 49 seconds.
Becoming the best-worst archaeologist of all time, I threw on my iconic hat and started whipping people in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. This game loads saves instantly from the main menu, so I tested how long it would take to boot up directly from the Xbox Series X dashboard. You can’t skip any of the intro logos, so it makes it a fair test at the very least. With the Xbox Series X’s internal storage, I could bust out my whip in 42.07 seconds (ugh, so many logos). And on the Expansion Card, I jumped in at 42.19 seconds. That’s three for three on virtually identical load times. Indiana Jones is a bit chunkier, at 132.6GB, so it took 5 minutes and 33 seconds to transfer over.
If you plan on transferring all 802GB of data from your Xbox Series X to the 4TB Seagate Storage Expansion Card, it should take roughly 33 minutes, give or take a few minutes for overall processing between games and apps. That’s definitely a lot faster than downloading it all again.
Games | Load time |
|---|---|
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Internal) | 7.33 seconds |
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Expansion Card) | 7.39 seconds |
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Transfer time) | 1 minute and 47 seconds |
Avowed (Internal) | 14.95 seconds |
Avowed (Expansion Card) | 14.91 seconds |
Avowed (Transfer time) | 2 minutes and 49 seconds |
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (Internal) | 42.07 seconds |
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (Expansion Card) | 42.19 seconds |
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (Transfer time) | 5 minutes and 33 seconds |
Full Xbox Series X storage (802GB) to Expansion Card transfer time | ~33 minutes |
Should you Indiana-whip the Expansion Card into your cart?
Well, the 4TB Seagate Storage Expansion Card is $500. As much as I love not needing to worry about downloading too many games from Xbox Game Pass (the card comes with a free month of Game Pass), it’s tough to justify spending as much on an expansion card as you spent on the console..
Even if you can afford Seagate’s ridiculous Expansion Card, I would hesitate to get it at this point in time. Why? The Xbox Series X is five years old in November, meaning we are likely two years away from the next generation of consoles. We don’t know if this Expansion Card will be backwards compatible with a new Xbox, if Microsoft even plans on making a traditional console with all the handheld rumors (which also seems flakey right now). And if it is backwards compatible, it likely won’t be as fast as its internal storage. If it is, that means there’s been no technological advancement in 7 years.
However, as it stands right now, the 4TB Seagate Storage Expansion Card offers the competitive performance it needs to keep up with the Xbox Series X.
So, is it worth it? That depends on what $500 means to you. Is it terribly convenient and cool? Heck yeah.
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