Playing xbox 1 x games from external drive?

jon mcfarland · Jun 11, 2023

Ok so i bought a pro x avolusion usb drive that holds 3.6tb. I have an xbox 1x with 800gb space. I went ahead and put all my games on the external drive plus more games I wanted. Well i went to boot up call of duty cold war and its saying i have to transfer it over to the internal drive to play. Ok no big deal, well ive been running into quite a few games saying this now. That quick my internal drive is now about filled. Now im kinda frustrated because i feel like xbox once again drops the ball with giving us storage. Like why allow us to use an external drive to hold games if we can’t play them from there? Cmon guys its 2023 we’re dropping 500+ dollars on your syatem give us legit space. I looked up my problem on google and i see that i can play these games from an external drive if its a seagate storage expansion card. So my question is before i go out and drop more cash again, and buy the 2tb seagate storage expansion card for $280 Will i be able to play all games from this card or run into the same bs?

:)

HomegrownSilky

Get a PS5, problem solved. you can play games on external sdd no problems attached

You cannot store or play PS5 games from an external drive. At least with the Series X/S consoles, you can store the Series X/S games to external drives. You just have to move them to internal storage to play them. You can play PS4 games from an external drive hooked up to a PS5 though, just like you can play Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One games from an external drive connected to a Series X/S.

Obsessive Power

Fair enough, a slow internet connection is as good excuse as any.

Be aware however that while that drive will work on Series X, you won't be able to play Series X games directly from it. Series X games will require faster access and read speeds. My understanding is that the Series X games can be 'backed up' on an external
drive and then need to copied/moved over to either the internal SSD or the External SSD's that will be available for the machine.

The Series X will read and play Xbox One games from an external drive though.

StuartATrueRed

Yes you can plug in the hard drive on the Xbox Series X, and the Xbox One, Xbox 360, & Xbox games will be able to be played straight away. If you have games on disc, just insert the disc, and the game should play as it does on the Xbox One.

Just remember you cannot play Xbox Series X games from the external hard drive, only from the internal and external SSD storage devices that are available for the Series X.

Obsessive Power

Hi,

If your game is now a Series X optimised title, it can no longer be played off an external hard drive. It must be moved to either the internal storage or an optional expansion card.

External USB hard drives are too slow to play Series X optimised games. None Series X games will still run from your external drive. The internal storage in the Series X is a fast NVME SSD. These drives are several times faster than mechanical hard drives.

SwordofWhedon

If you're playing the Series version, it must be run from the internal drive or card because it's about 20x faster than your external hard drive.

Anything that runs on the internal will run from the expansion card

You can use external drives for storage, I have a 5TB USB and move games i'm not playing over there.

Playing xbox 1 x games from external drive?