Series X keeps closing out of games randomly, a popup that says my external drive is now...

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.

Games can be stored on external drives. No need to keep redownloading anything. Store Series X/S games on external drive and then transfer to internal drive when wanting to play.

It says "Optimized for series X/S. IT should say "Only for series X/S. Why does Microsoft try to hide this with a little red circle popup note "not playable on this device" If it's not playable then keep it off my Game Pass ultimate and store

that I pay $16.99 monthly for.

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.

Not really...

Xbox Series X games / upgrades / updates has to be installed onto the Series X internal or expansion card SSD,

You can have Xbox One games on your external hard drive that will get an Series X upgrade but the games will need to be transferred to the Series X and then the Series X upgrade will need to be downloaded onto the Series X SSD,

As an example...

I have Marvel Avengers on my external hard drive that will get the Series X upgrade and I will transfer the game over to the Series X SSD ready to download and update the game to the Series X version when available.