Tweet
In an era where a single game occupies up to 50GB of storage space, the 500GB hard drives found in the new wave of games consoles just aren't going to cut it. We've already looked at potential PlayStation 4 upgrades, but until recently, owners of the Xbox One were left with few options - other than to delete content and re-download it. Thankfully, recent OS updates now finally allow for Xbox One users to connect an external storage device to the console via the system's USB ports, used in concert with the unit's internal drive. External storage must be 250GB or larger and formatted by the console before it can be used. Once done the new drive is seamlessly integrated into the Xbox One's dashboard and content system. It is possible to install games and apps directly onto the external drive or copy them over from the console internal HDD. The OS also makes it possible to filter out content stored on both internal and external storage devices or simply group them all together seamlessly. The idea here is that games and apps can be played back from internal and external drives without impacting on the core Xbox One experience, and after many hours of testing we encountered no obvious issues, such as system crashes or game-related errors.
Better still the Xbox One's use of high-speed USB 3.0 ports also opens up the possibility of a genuine hard drive upgrade that could offer up benefits beyond just adding more storage space - faster loading times and texture streaming are two key areas that we've seen improvements in the past when using fast drives. The USB 3.0 spec features a maximum bandwidth around 300MB/s - more than double that of what traditional 5400rpm HDDs can achieve - and should allow for than enough throughput to make a difference in the day to operation of the console when gaming.
Read more…
More...