New games have only grown larger and larger in recent years, and there’s no reason to believe that trend’s going to change as time goes on. For that reason, gamers on every platform are frequently looking for ways to expand their available file space; on Xbox, that means investing in one of the proprietary SSD storage expansion cards sold by Seagate and WD_BLACK. Since USB and external drives can’t be used to play new Xbox Series X|S games on the consoles, these cards are your best options for adding storage.
Due to their proprietary nature, these cards are unfortunately quite expensive under normal circumstances. On rare occasions, however, they go on sale — and right now, offerings from WD_Black are steeply discounted. For a limited time, you can get WD_BLACK’s 1TB card for just $109.99 at Amazon (usually $157.99), while its 2TB version is only $199.98 at Amazon (often $249.99). These are some of the best deals on the cards I’ve ever seen, but there’s no telling how long they’ll stick around.
The best prices on Xbox SSDs you’ll find right now
With new games getting bigger at a rather alarming pace, the importance of added storage has skyrocketed alongside those file sizes. You might be able to get away with sticking to your Xbox console’s internal storage if you don’t play a lot of games, but fans that like to have as many of the best Xbox games installed as possible will need a reliable — and sizable — solution to the problem. That base 1TB simply isn’t going to cut it.
That’s where Seagate and WD_BLACK’s expansion card SSDs come in, both of which represent the best external hard drives for Xbox Series X|S since they’re licensed by Microsoft. They’re neck-and-neck when it comes to performance, but WD_BLACK often has better prices — and right now, it’s beating Seagate’s offerings by significant margins even though both are on sale. For that reason, its card is the one I recommend buying.
The card’s read and write speeds are identical to the internal drive within the Xbox Series X|S, ensuring that the SSD functions with Xbox Velocity Architecture and is compatible with the Xbox Quick Resume feature. It’s also far easier to “install” than a traditional M.2 drive is, as all you have to do is plug the card into the slot on the back of your console.
The tradeoff of this proprietary slot is that the expansion cards it works with are pricier than regular drives, and as my colleague Zachary Boddy said in their WD_BLACK C50 Expansion Card review, “It’s still too expensive to upgrade your Xbox Series X|S storage versus more traditional SSDs.” With that said, deals like the ones listed above do a ton to dampen the impact of those higher price tags.
I should note that this isn’t the lowest I’ve seen the WD_BLACK expansion card drop, as during the holidays last year, the 1TB drive dropped as low as $99. That said, it’s normally around $150, and the 2TB version is known to go as high as $250-350. Therefore, I strongly recommend getting them while they’re just $109.99 at Amazon and $199.98 at Amazon respectively, especially since discounts like these are rare and don’t always last a long time.
