There are a many reasons to buy and enjoy an Xbox Series X. Its proprietary storage solution isn’t one of them. The Seagate expansion card that goes into the back of the console has been exorbitantly expensive since 2020 when it launched alongside the Xbox Series X. Even as the cost of fast M.2 SSDs used in PlayStation 5s sank, Xbox expansion cards clung to higher prices, likely in part because they’re the only option.
Well, following a stealthy, weeklong discount of the 1 TB version to $149.99 (originally $219.99), Microsoft announced on Twitter that the price cut is permanent. There are two other sizes, 512 GB and 2 TB, but 512 GB is rarely in stock, and too small — seriously, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is 135.18 GB — while the higher 2 TB capacity may still be out of reach at $279.99; that’s more than half the cost of a Series X.
Because the Seagate expansion cards can be used to store and play Xbox Series X games from (slower USB drives are limited to games from the Xbox One generation and earlier), it’s technically the best Xbox SSD that exists. So, as much as it would personally pain me to pay this much for storage if I owned an Xbox, it’s the SSD that you should buy if you want more space for games and their increasingly huge updates. Refer to the table below in case you need more context.
Xbox Series X external storage options, compared
| Feature | USB 3.1 hard drive | Seagate Expansion Card |
|---|---|---|
| Feature | USB 3.1 hard drive | 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 |
Table: Microsoft
If you’re able to hold off adding more storage for later, I suggest waiting for news on a newcomer that might shake up the pricing structure a bit. The Verge reported in April that a new expansion card from Western Digital, called the C50, leaked on Best Buy. We have no confirmation that it will be officially supported, or whether it’ll launch at the purported $179.99 cost for 1 TB (now more expensive than the equivalent Seagate model), but more competition could mean even lower prices in the future.
