Seagate’s SSD Xbox Game Drive is a nice luxury, at the cost of some space

500GB

It’s getting to the point where more and more people are switching over to solid state drives (SSDs), even on consoles. While I’ve yet to make the jump on PS4 I decided to check out the Game Drive for Xbox SSD to see how it measured up.

Once again it’s plug and play, as is the case with all of the Seagate hardware I’ve tested on the Xbox One, and the 18 inch cable is more than sufficient for putting it out of sight, plugged into the back of an Xbox One. The idea is that with SSDs you’ll experience quicker load times (up to 440MB/s), and better reliability since SSDs don’t have any moving parts. As is the case with any SSD, officially licensed or otherwise, they have lower failure rates long term, and are better to switch over to if you can afford it.

The only issue is space. This drive clocks in at 512GB, so you can only store roughly 10 massively sized games on it. I’ve been setting aside that coveted space for shooters like Destiny, where I noticed the slight load time decrease the most (things like menus load a second faster, roughly). It’s not a massive improvement, but again, part of the drive’s benefit is long term security. While the MSRP is $240 you can find them for $200, putting them more inline with other similar external SSDs, like the Samsung T3.

With a competitive price for a nice form factor, the Game Drive for Xbox SSD is a better option than a lot of other officially licensed hardware that tends to charge a premium. You might want to opt for more space, but if you have a high capacity Xbox One, it’s worth getting this model to install your “everyday” games on, and leaving the sparing pieces of your library to the internal side.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the hardware provided by the publisher.]}