Here's an interesting one. A modder has claimed to have transformed an internal SSD into a handy expansion card for the Xbox Series X|S. While they've only been able to replicate the theory once, they believe other SSDs could be used similarly.
As spotted by VGC, an author on the Chinese website known as BiliBili has come forward with how they've managed the impossible. The idea came when watching a teardown video of the next-gen systems, which showed the system used two PCIe 4.0 x2 slots - one was for the internal NVMe SSD storage, while the other operated the Seagate expansion card.
Using a 1TB Western Digital SN530 m.2 2230 SSD, it was connected to a CFe to NVMe adapter. The reason being is that this particular SSD is said to be the same used internally within the Xbox Series X|S console. The end result seems to have been a success.
Once the connections were all completed, the site claims the console recognised the SSD once it was inserted into the back of the console, offering an extra 867GB worth of storage in the process. Although, it is worth pointing out that the site isn't sure whether SSDs that aren't used in the console internally will work.
BiliBili claims "someone tried inserting their camera card (CFexpress Type B, PCIe 3.0 x2, 2000MB/s) into the Xbox and got an incompatible pop-up", so it's clear it doesn't connect with everything. While the process of doing this perhaps isn't ideal for most people, it is an interesting sight into what can be done if you have the means to do so.
Find this modder's claim about using a standard SSD in an Xbox Series X|S fascinating? Let us know in the comments below.
[source videogameschronicle.com]
Comments 16
I wonder what the price breakdown would be
Interesting. I'm sure we will see more storage options going forward though so no hacky solutions will be required.
I must say that the two 1tb expansion cards that I own (one in my X, one in my S) have been great, plug and play, an elegant solution.
This sounds cool, but I wonder how many people are going to fry their consoles trying to save a few dollars.
My neighbour has been doing this for months. He's a bit of a tech geek (indeed, he is tech support for EE), but he has some sort of adaptor and then an SSD expansion card attached to that. The whole shebang cost him around £80. I think his SSD is only 1TB, but I imagine he could do the same with more...
Interesting. I might do this sometime… although, I have an Samsung T7 hooked up right now for that Game Pass hoarding and it’s speedy enough for some back n forth transfers. It didn’t work as intended (to hold a games library for my slim 200GiB Windows partition on my MBP, it kept disconnecting), but it works fine with my XsX.
@Flurbdurb BiliBili is a Chinese video hosting site much like YouTube so any claims wouldn't be from them but the video author.
@Shigurui Ahh, thanks for letting me know! I've updated the story now.
Since pretty much lunch we knew it was just an off the shelf SSD that was being used.
Looking forward to this solution to avoid Microsoft's silly SSD costs.
@John117 I'm actually thinking of getting one today lol....mostly because my missus surprisingly didn't seem put off by the price
@JohannVanDerSmut If I had the space, all my games would be SSD only.
@John117 You have the choose your battles. The Expansion Card is reasonably priced, not expensive considering it’s speed, but unless you absolutely need an extra ~900GiB of 🚀 storage any external drive works fine. I’d rather spend money on a proper display or sound as well. I’m actually considering a retirement for my monitor (I’m a designer and have prioritized color over speed, but now the gaming monitors seem to have caught up to a bare minimum standard… maybe, I’ve yet to see one but I have my hopes up for the latest Ultragear). Regarding sound I’m set, with a pair of bassy Razers and a good old AKG set (retrofitted to handle a mic) but I have a couple of Xbox Wireless arriving soon for that wireless comfort. I like to switch it up.
@John117 Just fyi, optical fibre and fibreglass are extremely different things. Internet over the latter would be... slow, to say the least.
My ext 480gb SSD is speedy for transfers so I'll pass. Also tend to play 1 solo game at a time until it's done, then delete and move on.
@John117 $2000 TV over an extra 1TB storage, sign me up!
Microsoft have made this much easier. You can create groups/pins including not installed games and you can easily see your full library, all your Games with Gold and all the titles available on Game Pass. It's the console that manages libraries best.
Hopefully this, or other 3rd party solutions, work out. I'm not a fan of the proprietary expansion slot. I have a 1tb One S, and even then it's sometimes a bit of a shuffling job with installs.
Games are going to get bigger and bigger, and so the 500gb of the Series S (which you can't use all 500gb for games) is going to get filled up with only a handful of titles. If MS lock out 3rd party options then the consumer isn't going to be able to reap the benefit of reductions in memory.
When the Xbox One came out SSDs were around $1/Gb but now it's more like $0.10/Gb. Do you think they'll cut the price of Expansion cards tenfold by the time the Series consoles are replaced?
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