Western Digital Making Expansion Cards For Xbox Series

Western Digital Could Be Coming For the Expansion Wars

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So it's only $40 cheaper than Seagate's version. I take it Xbox terminated or paid off their exclusivity with Seagate seeing the massive backlash lately, even from tilted sites like Windows Central.

WD - BLACK SN850 2TB Internal SSD PCIe Gen 4 x4 Officially Licensed for PS5 with Heatsink
The same manufacturer is selling the drive above on PS5 for $199.99, $20 more but double the capacity.

As I said, only $40 cheaper, that isn't much of a deal in the grand scheme of things.

[Neonridr]

it could have been a timed arrangement with Seagate. And $40 is $40 at the end of the day, and it'll only get cheaper as time goes on.

While it's not as nice having the ability to use off the shelf items, having more manufacturers making these cards for the Series consoles means prices can be driven down a little due to competition.

[Eonjay]

Right. The PC/PS5 SSDs are so cheap in part because of competition. And from WDs point of view, it is only 'competing' against Seagate. As more and more companies join in prices should start to crater.

[porkChop]

The 2230 (square) NVMe drives are more expensive than the style that PS uses so there will always be a difference in price. But a $40 discount is great. Anything cheaper than Seagate's prices are an improvement. Hopefully we can start to see some deals on these drives now.

[ABizzel1]

They cost more due to the form factor, but also because Microsoft, Seagate, and WD make clear profits off of these for being proprietary. Not to mention the drives they use cost more than comparable 2230 NVMe SSD M.2 while also being nearly half the RAW transfer speed.

These things have always been highway robbery, and it's even more apparent when a 4TB Gen4 NVMes are in the same price tier as the 1TB Seagate which is absolutely crazy.

4TB TEAM GROUP CARDEA and Crucial P3+ are constantly floating around the $250 price point or less, and they work extremely well for a console since you're not endlessly writing files to them.

[porkChop]

Correct, they are indeed obviously making profit. My point was that the drives themselves cost more so these expansion cards were always going to cost more. Seagate just took it way too far like usual. I was surprised Xbox even partnered with Seagate. Their drives are terrible and prone to failure.

[Jin_Sakai]

A 2TB PS5 SSD is still cheaper than this 1TB drive. Xbox custom drives will never become as cheap as off the shelf.

[agnosticgamer]

Whoever said they would? All comments I've seen are saying hopefully the prices will go down as it now appears at least one other company can compete and maybe more. Everyone knows having a proprietary method is always going to end up being more expensive than off the self-components.

[ABizzel1]

I mean even the 4TB NVMes are close to the price of the Seagate 1TB.

Seagate 1TB $220, meanwhile the 4TB Crucial P3+ and 4TB TEAM GROUP are $215 and $250. The Xbox drives are highway robbery at this point and MS needs to do something about it, but they won't, because it's been one of the ways that help make up the loss for the consoles.

[StarkR3ality]

At the end of the day you're paying for something that is small, convenient and portable. Yes you can get storage cheaper on the PS5 than this (finally), but it's implementation isn't as good as the storage card.

The proprietary storage card is the better product compared to a 3rd party SSD, it just is.

[RGB]

PS5 SSD have been better valued since 2021, I got mine on Black Friday for £275 including a heatsink, 2TB too!

[StarkR3ality]

Yeah but they didn't offer anything for close to 2 years if you remember, didn't allow any expansion while only offering about 600gb of usable space. It's my fave console of this gen but don't get it twisted that they can and should improve.

[darthv72]

Been waiting for them to do this. It had been reported like a year ago that WD had been granted a license to make their own drives. Another brand we may see soon is Sandisk.

[RedDevils]

WD own Sandisk lol for little as $19 Billions!

[darthv72]

WD will use the SD brand as another line on the market. They can offer high and low capacity cards spread across both brands.

[Workshyskiver]

Its about time, hopefully this creates competition and lower prices for the consumers.

[Anomander]

Cheaper is good and it's a start. Now that there are two hopefully we will see a couple of others as well.

[Huckman]

Hopefully a 2tb next!

[EvertonFC]

It'll bring competition at the end of the day, that's a good thing.

[hiawa23]

I have two 1TB and one 2TB Seagate cards for my Series X, but this good news. If MS can get more competition for their mem cards, the prices will fall.

[Fonsecap]

Paying for an expansion storage almost as much as for the series s itself it's just nuts... How can they even justify the price if not just by that this is the only option people have...

[gold_drake]

this is still so weird to me.
like, why ha.

[z2g]

Good. Competition should drive the prices down. I prefer the series x’s method for storage expansion as it’s dead simple and hot swappable, but the lack of competition has left the cost a bit high.

[wiz7191]

Cheaper options are out there , you can always use a USB SSD I’m pretty sure they work just as good.