The debate about how to use external storage and gaming -- need your guys input

So as my Hard Drive is starting to fill up in the 70's range full, I started searching for the best or most used drives that people were using with their Xbox One. I also came across a few discussions and boards on past Pc gaming setups with external storage
and the life of the drive with constant loading, etc. My question is would it be fine for using it as a main gaming drive or to simply use it as storage and backp of games not currently playing. I'm sure the transfer rate back and forth being USB 3.0 should
not be that much of a wait if you had to move one game back and forth. What do you guys suggest, just to play off the drive as it were an internal drive already or use it for alternate storage only? There should not be that much latency between the external
and the Xbox correct? Would this affect the life span of the exteranl hard drive by being constantly used if it's loading/saving, etc.? Thanks for the input.

:)

 

Yes, the PlayStation 4 Supports External Storage, but There’s a Catch

I don't think that it's that bad of a catch to prevent me from using the external storage. Though I am not sure if I will ever need to actually use external storage. The fact that there will be 33 games at launch makes me think that eventually, a lot of users will need the external space. I'm OK with it not being functional for downloadable games. No biggie.

 

External hard drive being recognized as media

If you have not important data on it you can Format it on your xbox, then you^ll be able to use it just for gaming, (media will be delete)

support.xbox.com/.../manage-storage

read how do I Setup external storage...

 

As far as I know, constant use of an external is not really any different to the constant use of an internal. They are basically the same thing.

 

And I would rather my external crap itself than my internal as the internal has the operating system. So using the external more would really be preferable in my opinion

 

Dufful is correct. The difference is how each are cooled.

Internals are open and in a case with a fan. Most externals are in small cases designed to be portable rather than being concerned about keeping them cool.

There are external options where cooling has been taken into consideration or even a docking station but I'm not sure how the One OS views a docking station and if it would work.

 

I didn't think of the case issue, that would make the heat issue and confined space the biggest issue then. I'm surprise they haven't release or atleast announced Microsoft branded "Xbox One external drives" yet. And I also agree that I would rather have
an external drive go bad that I can replace rather than the internal that is made entirely irreplaceable go out.

 

The internal can be replaced, Microsoft just made it much more difficult to do that it needed to be and there is some debate if they'll drop the ban hammer for doing so ( I don't think they will ).

I think most of assumed we'd see proprietary externals from Microsoft and surprisingly we didn't but we are seeing the special edition consoles with larger internals so they are going the cash grab route. Externals are a bad option to game off but MS didn't
give many alternatives when you run out of space.

My advice if your gaming off an external is to go cheap and consider it disposable. I have externals that are a decade old and still work when used as intended. Playing 6 hrs of CoD off one daily is going to significantly reduce it's lifespan.

 

Remember 6 months after you start using your external, it will die on you...

 

@Burnin

I may have been generous with that estimate. People are already having issues with games being installed on the external becoming corrupted.

That could be from heat or an issue with how the OS views the external in regards to updates, pre-loads, etc.

 

[quote user="Dwoop33"]My question is would it be fine for using it as a main gaming drive[/quote]Yes, provided you purchase a quality drive. Don't buy an off-brand, buy a brand made by a drive manufacturer (Western Digital, Hitachi, Seagate, Toshiba).

It's not.

I use a 512GB Crucial m4 SSD with my console as the main game/app drive. The internal drive is just there for OS functions.

As long as it is a quality drive with a good USB 3.0 adapter and cable there's no difference between using an external and using the internal drive.

If you intend to make an external HDD your primary storage device, I would opt for a 3.5" powered external drive. For an SSD, a decent enclosure is all that is required.

 

Pretty much all points above are valid. I wanted to add that games generally perform better (load times) from external. Most portable ready to go drives are 5400-5900 RPM, if you wan 7200 RPM you will need to buy your own HD and enclosure, but it's how
you will get the best performance (other than SSD).

 

I ran out of HD space on my xbox 360, and installed a larger gig hard drive in the console itself. Is this also possible with xbox one?

 

I have only 18GB free left on my 500GB Xbox 1 console and have 14 games YT Skype and IE on it. Only about 380GB of the HDD is useable.

However I might think about getting 2 1TB Seagate Slim portable HDD's. Seagate is a big brand in NZ/Australia and the slim HDD looks not too bulky. I'd get one for my Xbox 1 console and one for my PC since I have over 100GB of video files on my HP Pavilion
dv6 W7 intel core i5 320GB HDD computer.

As for the transfer though, is it better to store games on your 5400rpm consoles HDD or is USB 3.0 fast enough? Does anyone know exactly how high the transfer rate is with the USB 3.0 ports on the Xbox 1 console?

 

I was a bit iffy about getting an external drive because of comments like Randver's. Combine that with the fact that I rent a lot of my games, which means a lot of them are only temporary installs and my internal isn't... wasn't... anywhere close to being
full.

I decided to go ahead and get one for Christmas, simply because I know my internal will eventually get near full... and for the fact someone mentioned earlier, that the OS is on the internal so why not put a large part of the 'work' on a removable drive.

In any case, I decided to go small and not overly expensive, but not cheap/no name. I've seen a few posts in here about the WD My Passport drives, so I decided to try one out. I got the 1tb Ultra (metal edition) since I figured metal would help dissipate
the heat Randver has mentioned often more effectively.

BTW @Randver, the drive did get pretty warm while transferring games, but not anything I'd be overly concerned with unless it would run that warm all the time. It does not, however. I do keep it out in the open on the same end table my X1 sits on, there
are no shelves above, nothing but the open air of the room around it. On a typical gaming night, it only feels a bit warmer than the ambient temp of the room. My typical gaming nights go 5ish hours, almost every night. So far, so good, in my case. Everything
seems to be working fine with it. I guess time will tell how long it lasts since it's pretty new, but TBH... from what I've seen (and felt) so far... if it did fail due to heat, I'd be a bit surprised considering my experience with it so far...

One side note. Just an odd little observation I made. I only moved games to the external. I left all apps on the internal, just to see if there would be any notable differences and I did notice something with TMCC. When it was still installed on the internal
drive (along with The Halo Channel), it would generally take a bit longer to load, when accessing a terminal in SP. It wasn't a huge difference, but it was enough for me to notice that The Halo Channel did load up more quickly while playing the game.