Xbox One external hard drive - can you use any external hard drive?

Draeger · 3 Dec 2022 at 09:00

As part of his Christmas I am looking at getting our son an external hard drive for his Xbox One. I'm unsure as to what to buy, can I use any external USB hard drive or does it need to be specifically for the Xbox? Also, are they 'plug n play' or do you have to set them up or format them in a particular way? Can you download and install games to the hard drive and play them direct from it? I'm guessing if that is possible its best to go for an SSD?

Many thanks!

biron_w · 3 Dec 2022 at 09:15

The drive has to be USB 3.0. Apart from that you can use any external drive.

Draeger · 3 Dec 2022 at 14:35

Cheers!!! I kinda thought as much but wanted to check first :cool:

tribz · 3 Dec 2022 at 14:56

Draeger said:
As part of his Christmas I am looking at getting our son an external hard drive for his Xbox One. I'm unsure as to what to buy, can I use any external USB hard drive or does it need to be specifically for the Xbox? Also, are they 'plug n play' or do you have to set them up or format them in a particular way? Can you download and install games to the hard drive and play them direct from it? I'm guessing if that is possible its best to go for an SSD?

Many thanks!

SSD will give you more loading speed but less storage. If you have the series s or x and the game is optimised for s or x, it can be stored on the external drive but not played from it. Any non optimised game can be played from external drive

Draeger · 3 Dec 2022 at 15:38

tribz said:
SSD will give you more loading speed but less storage. If you have the series s or x and the game is optimised for s or x, it can be stored on the external drive but not played from it. Any non optimised game can be played from external drive

Perfect, thank you. He currently has an Xbox One so that sounds ideal. Cheers.