There's already been a lot of talk about whether 1TB of storage space is enough for next-generation consoles, so be warned - you won't actually be able to get access to 20% of that space on Xbox Series X.
As reported by IGN, the internal SSD provides you with 802GB to store your next-gen games, with the rest being taken up by OS and system files. It's not entirely unexpected, but it's a bit of a downer.
Here's what IGN's Ryan McCaffrey had to say in his hands-on preview:
"To be clear, it’s 802 gigabytes of usable space, after OS and system files. When you plug in the very pricey Seagate 1 terabyte storage expansion slot that gives you all of the benefits of the internal drive, it adds 920 gigabytes of usable capacity.
A more affordable alternative is to use a cheaper USB 3.1 external hard drive to store the next-gen games you’re not playing and just shuttle them back and forth as you want them, sparing yourself the need to download them every single time."
Fortunately, as mentioned above, you can always use a cheaper USB external hard drive to store your next-gen games and move them back and forth at will, and according to VentureBeat's Jeff Grubb, this is actually quite a fast process.
Based on his experience, moving Assassin's Creed Origins from an external USB HDD to the internal drive took around seven minutes, and just over two minutes from an external USB SSD. Not bad at all!
What are your thoughts on this? Let us know in the comments below.
[source ign.com]
Comments 26
Looks like quick resume will take up some space to cache games. But the good thing is that next-gen games wont need to take up redundant spaces to avoid accessing slower sectors.
Good bit of info to know. Wonder if that means the S will clock in at only a little over 300. That'll fill up in no time!
@Senua this was my thought too. I’m surprised they don’t offer a toggle for quick resume e.g. choose between 0-6 to save precious ssd space. I definitely don’t need 6 quick resume slots but 1-3 would be nice. Especially if that equates to a few more smaller game pass titles
Those transfer times are really promising too for a 49GB file, I’ll be happy to archive for a while. Also the grand improvement to external SSD speeds, removing the bottleneck, make this a feasible middle ground too over a traditional external HDD. Eagerly await full Digital Foundry breakdowns. But it’s a great start.
Jeff Grubb's full breakdown was in mins:secs for 49GB
External USB 3.0 SSD
External USB 3.0 HDD
Definitely going to use the external HDD and just transfer.
Bought a 5TB one from Amazon about 3 years back on sale. Have over 200 games on it currently and it works a treat.
With the quick transfer times i’ll have no issue continuing to use it 👍🏻
Do you get the entire 1tb from the expansion slot if you choose to use it?
@sixrings You get 920GB from the expansion 1TB
Yeah 800 gb is not that much..
Wow 200gb lost before youve even installed your first game, dread to think the space il have on my ps5 🙄
Its going to be one expensive gen for me seeing as I have around 15 multiplayer games that all take up around 450gb on my ps4 alone
@redd214 If the Xbox series S is in line with these two I would expected it to have 342 GB of storage available for games.
@Medic_Alert JeffGrubb tested with the Seagate Xbox branded external SSD which is upto around 540MB/s, whereas the Samsung T7 he suggested is faster upto 1000MB/s.
The cheaper Samsing T5 is also 540MB/s and 'only' £140 for 1TB. If you keep a lookout around Black Friday i'd expect to see some of these or equivalents for £100-£120 for 1TB
@Medic_Alert Regarding the disc allocation size. I'm surprised there isn't an option to limit how much space quick resume takes up. Whether this is 0-6 games or 0-50B (or whatever the total is)
@Medic_Alert I'm assuming it allows more than one drive? I was hoping to have a large external HDD and a smaller External SSD hooked up
All these new "features", 4K, quick resume, ssd's in general, they all come at a price, and not just a monetary price
Things should improve a lot in a couple of years. This reminds me of older phones where it was painful how much storage was eaten by the OS. Nowadays good phones don't have that problem as they have so much RAM. Similarly I'm guessing in 2-3 years time we'll have 5TB expandable for XS. Then storage truly won't be an issue for the rest of the gen.
I'll be happy with my current USB external drive for a while. But how long depends how big future games are and how much bigger current games get with their Series X upgrades. I enjoy open world games most of all. Mix those with shooters like Gears 5 and CoD Warzone, and 800GB could disappear quick.
At least, moving games is fast.
Any chance we can use a NAS with these new consoles?
We all knew it wouldn't be a full 1 TB, just from file formatting it would be lower. Throw the OS on there and it drops more.
Do we know if that 200GB is JUST for reserved space for the OS, or if that includes reserved space for quick resume? That could make a meaningful difference.
Still, I can't imagine the PS5 doing any better than 700GB usable space if it's starting at 825. Even if they keep the OS much smaller, it can't really do much better than that.
@NEStalgia It's been a while, but iirc the PS4 1tb has around 750gb usable space, so I don't doubt the PS5 will have an even bigger OS portion than the Xbox.
I feel stubborn and may just buy the official 1TB expansion. I just want to save time loading games and not have something hanging off the back of the console. Transferring back and forth is better than redownloading, but I think I want the experience of having a decent amount of storage space and not have to plan out which games I want ready to go.
802? Yeah, guess I was expecting about 825 same as ps5, certainly wasn't expecting 1024!
But fine my me, & happy with 6 slots for fast resume, less wouldn't have been great
Might not be as lightning fast as the ps5 but these are still fast speeds
I think I will be fine with that amount of free space. Like I mentioned in other articles, I usually install my games, play them, then uninstall them. So I think I will be fine. Especially with my solid internet speed.
Given the file sizes of many current-gen games, even with the (very expensive and proprietary) expansion storage it's very feasible that many folks are going to be running out of space before too long. Better hope the prices come down and larger storage options are offered.
Well my One X shows 780.9GB of usable space, so the Series X at 802GB is a slight improvement.
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