Upgrade your Xbox Series X and PS5 with an external drive

Now that Xbox Series X® and PlayStation 5® have been launched, many fans are excited about the new game releases and looking at external SSDs to support their expanding gaming libraries. That may lead you to wonder what external SSD to use with your PS5 or Xbox Series X. Long story short: 

• Sony PlayStation 5 games can only be played directly from licensed drives. According to Sony, you can use an external drive to store PS5 games and to play PS4 games.
• Xbox Series X games can be stored on a third-party drive. Players must copy them to the internal drive or expansion card to play them.
  

Sony chose a custom-built 825GB internal SSD for its storage device. The PS5 has an impressive throughput of 5.5GB/s of raw data, and up to 9GB/s of compressed data. This gets you fast load times when booting up and overcomes many streaming and data bottlenecks from previous Sony consoles. 

Similar to the Microsoft Xbox Series X, Sony chose to only allow PS5 games to be played directly from licensed drives. But, like the Series X, you can play PS4 titles from third-party devices like the X10 Pro, essentially using it as an external hard drive for a PS4.

Sony really brought their A-Game with the PS5. It is powered by a custom version of the third gen AMD Ryzen processor using Zen 2 architectures like the Xbox Series X. The CPU runs at 2.23GHz on 36 computer units, offering 10.28TFLOPs. While this may be getting a little too technical for the average user, what this means in practical terms is that the PS5 is designed for advanced features like ray tracing -- a performance-intensive lighting technique that was previously reserved for high-end gaming PC GPUs. 

To make that even simpler, the PS5 offers amazing graphics previously unavailable in console gaming. So, you can get great graphics on your console, and when you pair that with PS5's ability to support resolutions up to 8k on an HDMI 2.1 compliant display, you will see incredibly smooth game play. So, the days of trying to compare a PC vs Console are becoming less and less in terms of graphics.

Unlike previous consoles, the Xbox Series X is designed to only allow new gameplay from its internal drive or a licensed external drive. But this doesn't mean you are stuck with the internal storage. A third-party SSD like the Crucial X10 Pro can be used like the Xbox’s extra storage expansion. 

1. Series X games can be stored on a third-party drive. Players will need to copy them over to the internal drive or expansion card in order to play them. 
2. Since Series X is backwards compatible with all Xbox 360 and original Xbox titles, an external SSD like the Crucial X10 Pro is a great place to store older games that you still want to play. This is perfect for gamers who want to keep expanding their libraries rather than sacrificing old favorites to make way for newer titles. The chances are that you have built up a substantial library of games from previous generations, so plenty of storage in an external SSD is a must. 
3. The Crucial X10 Pro is a high-quality, fast, affordable option when compared to licensed expansion cards that can cost quite a bit more per terabyte.

The Xbox Series X is impressive, from its 4K gaming at up to 120 frames per second to its super-fast load times. With its AMD internals, the X uses Zen 2 and RDNA 2 architectures and is 2x more powerful than the previous generation of Xbox One. The Series X comes standard with a super-fast 1TB internal NVMe SSD and has a slot for a proprietary NVMe card. 

The Xbox Series X is backwards compatible with Xbox One hardware, so luckily there is no need to buy new accessories. The Series X is also backwards compatible with every generation of Xbox games. So luckily, your oldie-but-goodie gaming library is still going to work on your new console.

We would venture to say that if you are like us and eyeing a new Xbox Series X or PS5 console, you already have an extensive gaming library for the previous gen consoles. And like us, you still enjoy playing them. While you can’t store the latest releases on a Crucial X10 Pro, you can move your previous library for less than buying an expansion card or licensed external drive. And, if we are lucky, Sony and Microsoft will listen to gamers and allow the use of third-party storage devices. Fingers crossed. 

With speeds up to 2,100MB/s¹, the Crucial X10 Pro is considerably faster than other portable SSDs and portable HDDs.¹ Store with confidence on the Crucial X10 Pro.

The Crucial Pro Series, featuring the X10 Pro and X9 Pro, are high-performance portable SSDs designed to enhance storage capacity and gaming experience for Xbox and PlayStation users. The X10 Pro offers impressive read and write speeds up to 2,100 MB/s, available in capacities of 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB, and boasts an IP55 rating for dust and water resistance. Meanwhile, the X9 Pro provides read and write speeds up to 1,050 MB/s and comes in various sizes of reliable storage for large gaming files and media. 

Both SSDs are compact, lightweight, and compatible with Xbox and PlayStation consoles, making them versatile options for gamers. Their high-speed performance ensures faster load times and smoother gameplay, significantly expanding gaming libraries without storage concerns. Overall, the Crucial Pro Series offers an excellent combination of speed, capacity, and durability, ideal for gamers looking to enhance their gaming setup.