WD's 12TB external hard drive can store every title on Xbox Game Pass with room to spare

[Shawn Knight]

In a nutshell: The entirety of Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass subscription service for the Xbox One can apparently fit on a single external hard drive with room to spare. While most people probably won't go through the trouble of downloading every single title, we now know it is possible with the right storage drive.

In testing Western Digital’s WD_Black D10 Game Drive, Kotaku’s Mike Fahey decided to download every game available on the service, which turned out to be around 250 titles. He said the process took roughly a week and his ISP wasn’t happy, but ultimately, everything fit on the 12TB drive and he had around 7.5 terabytes of space remaining.

For those interested, Western Digital’s 12TB Game Drive for Xbox One features a 7200 RPM drive in an external enclosure with active cooling. WD notes the drive is rated at (read) speeds up to 250MB/sec and can hold up to 300 games (with each game averaging 36GB).

The unit includes two 7.5W Type-A charging ports, which can be used to charge other accessories, and can be positioned either horizontally or vertically. It comes backed by a three-year warranty and includes all of the cables needed to get up and running.

Earlier this month, we learned that it would cost a little over half a million dollars to acquire every bit of content on Steam's digital platform.

Western Digital’s 12TB WD_Black D10 Game Drive carries an MSRP of $299.99 but can be had for a few bucks less if you shop around (I found it for under $290 over on Amazon).

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https://www.techspot.com/news/86875-wd-12tb-external-hard-drive-can-store-every.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

External HDD load slower than the internal Xbox One Drive.

If only they'd gone the Sony route and just let me swap the Xbox One's HDD with a 4TB SSD.

 

[DZillaXx]

External HDD load slower than the internal Xbox One Drive.

If only they'd gone the Sony route and just let me swap the Xbox One's HDD with a 4TB SSD.

Its super easy to swap the HDD in a Xbox One... Just pop in a new drive and put the offline system update on a usb stick. Putting in a 2TB SSHD into my XB1S made a pretty noticeable difference in overall system responsiveness. Took about 5min, pop a few plastic tabs and remove a few screws.

The Stock Xbox HDD just like Sony's is actually pretty slow. An external HDD is actually faster most of the time unless you are using a pretty crappy drive. For awhile I was using an external SSD and it was pretty quick to load games, but those games still use the internal HDD for caching. So swapping the internal drive IMO makes a big deal. I put the same SSHD into my PS4, and wish I did it sooner.

While there are a few cases where a SSD can make a noticeable difference, but really one of those seagate 2TB SSHDs will be nearly just as fast for game loading. As shown by plenty of testing done by many online testers.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Its super easy to swap the HDD in a Xbox One... Just pop in a new drive and put the offline system update on a usb stick. Putting in a 2TB SSHD into my XB1S made a pretty noticeable difference in overall system responsiveness. Took about 5min, pop a few plastic tabs and remove a few screws.

The Stock Xbox HDD just like Sony's is actually pretty slow. An external HDD is actually faster most of the time unless you are using a pretty crappy drive. For awhile I was using an external SSD and it was pretty quick to load games, but those games still use the internal HDD for caching. So swapping the internal drive IMO makes a big deal. I put the same SSHD into my PS4, and wish I did it sooner.

While there are a few cases where a SSD can make a noticeable difference, but really one of those seagate 2TB SSHDs will be nearly just as fast for game loading. As shown by plenty of testing done by many online testers.

It's also not officially supported and if someone from MS wants to ruin your day they can MAC BAN your xbox with an SSD or SSHD in it.

And you shouldnt have to disassemble your console to install a HDD. It takes, what, 40 seconds and 1 screw to do it on a PS4?

 

[DZillaXx]

It's also not officially supported and if someone from MS wants to ruin your day they can MAC BAN your xbox with an SSD or SSHD in it.

And you shouldnt have to disassemble your console to install a HDD. It takes, what, 40 seconds and 1 screw to do it on a PS4?

It is Officially Supported.... The HDD is a self service part and replacing it is not against TOS, therefor they can not ban you for it. Hard Drives fail, it would be pointless not to allow for replacement. And while it may take a few more minuets to install the HDD on a xbox, reinstalling the system software is the same process as on the PS4. Firmware on a USB drive.

And for 99% of users an external USB HDD is by far an easier way to increase storage... Even on the PS4 the amount of people who actually upgrade the internal drive is very slim. Taking a console apart isn't much harder than taking a PC apart, I've dealt with laptops that were more of a pain.

Internal HDD upgrades are for the DIY crowd, and most of us could care less if it takes 2 min or 15 min. Only that they make the process overall easy. And the Xbox One S and Xbox One X are super easy and simple to take apart.