Xbox storage confusion

Tanner Gremmert · Sep 4, 2023

I've been thinking about this a lot, but I was wondering if it was at all possible to be able to download XSX / XSS optimized games to external USB drives, while still being fully playable, using the versions of the games that get downloaded on non-XSX / XSS consoles...

I have an external SSD connected via USB on my Series S, and it has an average read / write speed of 1050 Mbps. In theory that should be fast enough to play MOST of the optimized games just fine. For example, Forza Horizon 4 should run perfectly fine (Not sure about Horizon 5 though). Also, do simple games like Among Us REALLY NEED the fastest storage to be playable?

I also have an Xbox One S and can still download and play the same games on it, just without them being optimized. I'm confused why there hasn't yet been a way to manually choose the versions of games that get downloaded. I cannot for example play unoptimized versions of games downloaded on my SSD from the One S without them REQURIING an update on the Series S to be playable, I've tried that already

I understand that you can still play the gen9Aware optimized games on external drives, but why not every game?

:)

ngocphi

Because you can't.

Smart delivery titles update as soon as you put it on your console as long as it's digital

Not Disk installed games

No external ssd hdd us fast enough.

You are limited by the bottleneck

USB 500mbps

Optimized games require 4.8gbps

This is the same with all next gen consoles.

USB drives cannot be used inplace of nvme drives like nvme or xbox storage cards for optimized or patched games

As soon as you use gen aware games they will download the correct version

This is important especially on series s as they use the compression processor to keep file sizes small and not requiring HD textures

Obsessive Power

The max speed of the USB ports on the Series S and X is 500MB/s, therefore any external SSD drive would be limited to this speed.

Forza Horizon 4 doesn't have a Series X|S specific version. It was designed to run on a mechanical hard drive. It will work fine on an external SSD, with much faster loading times.

The basic rule for Xbox Series X|S development is that games for the system must be run on faster storage. Does a simple game like Among Us need faster storage? Probably not, but this is the rule that Microsoft laid down for the 'Optimised for Xbox Series X|S' feature to be added to a game.

It is, and I would assume, still would be up, up to individual developers to make their game either a 'Gen 9 aware' title or an 'Optimised for Series X'. I doubt you're going to see any more Gen 9 aware games though.

MB5656

hi the stuff ad's up to 3.75GB and the xbox need some room to operate well. you can buy a hard drive for 80 to 90 bucks some places like amazon have it cheaper ebey also or micorsoft store has new ones also but make shure the hard drive is genuine microsoft
product or else you will have more problems

hope that helps

Smwutches

There are also system files that have to be on there. So the actual amount of space to use on the drive is about 3.2 gb.

MtFish

you are correct that it is targeting USB storage device but that is only because when I try to change it to "truck" it automatically changes back and continues to tell me that the device is full.

Xbox storage confusion