USGamer: Xbox Series X Will Require Proprietary Cards to Expand Hard Drive Space (USB HDDs still supported for backups and playing BC games)

MegaManTrigger · Mar 16, 2020

zombiejames said:
edit: Forgot to make my point. The only way to initiate that change is to give developers consistent performance they can depend on always having. Allowing anyone to stick whatever random drive they find on Wish would defeat the entire purpose.

Again, I don't know why people here are assuming that you can't maintain some kind of control without proprietizing the hardware.

Darknight said:
You're living in a bubble or giving the average person way too much credit here. You're talking about a person who doesn't even know what M.2 is let alone NVME, or what the difference is between PCIe 3.0 and 4.0 let alone know the fact that having three chips is better than four chips for performance. These consoles are going to need a specific type of drive and given how there are so many different drives out there with different performance levels, people are going to look at the price and that will influence which drive they pick.

You bring up external hard drives; how many people use those over other external hard drives? Just because they exist doesn't mean people aren't using other drives instead. And again, Spider-Man on PS4 was directly held back because of this variance in performance.

The confusion and frustration is when people get confused by the specs and buy the wrong drive when having a proprietary solution immediately tells someone this will work. This is the better way to go to avoid problems and confusion. Leaving it up to the consumer, who isn't well versed in the nuances of SSDs, is not easier.

And you're greatly overestimating the stupidity of the average consumer, as well as the knowledge required. Don't get me wrong, communication and branding is key, which is exactly why I brought up the example of console-specific hard drives because it's easy to communicate that you should be using these ones. I wasn't trying to say that people don't use other kinds of drives, just that you can find other ways of controlling performance without resorting to proprietary hardware.

flyinj · Mar 16, 2020

I'm all for locking out SSDs that perform worse than the base hardware.

But it is going to be really frustrating 3 years into the console cycle when we can buy SSDs that are faster than the base hardware and half the price but are not allowed to use them.

Darknight · Mar 16, 2020

MegaManTrigger said:
And you're greatly overestimating the stupidity of the average consumer, as well as the knowledge required. Don't get me wrong, communication and branding is key, which is exactly why I brought up the example of console-specific hard drives because it's easy to communicate that you should be using these ones. I wasn't trying to say that people don't use other kinds of drives, just that you can find other ways of controlling performance without resorting to proprietary hardware.

I don't think I am at all. Hell, given what's going on, have you seen the toilet paper crisis?

If the branding of such products worked, those drives would be the best selling drives and the most common among gamers. They're not because people opt for the alternative. So having officially branded products that are certified to work aren't going to cut it. So you yourself are admitting people will use other options and because people use other options, you're going to have a varying degree of performance to have to deal with.

pixelation · Mar 16, 2020

PS VITA flashbacks.

Yerffej · Mar 16, 2020

flyinj said:
I'm all for locking out SSDs that perform worse than the base hardware.

But it is going to be really frustrating 3 years into the console cycle when we can buy SSDs that are faster than the base hardware and half the price but are not allowed to use them.

Why, three years in would there be such a jump? There are hardly any games on PC that take true advantage of an NVMe now that I'm aware of. Not to a significant degree compared to standard SSD anyway...I think. I feel like we are still in the early stages of finding out what they will do.

eathdemon · Mar 16, 2020

flyinj said:
I'm all for locking out SSDs that perform worse than the base hardware.

But it is going to be really frustrating 3 years into the console cycle when we can buy SSDs that are faster than the base hardware and half the price but are not allowed to use them.

one reasson is the lack of a external high bandwith standerd. ms doesnt want people opening the box.

Arthands · Mar 16, 2020

molnizzle said:
I think it's more that not all NVMe SSD's are created equal. If you're designing around the lowest common denominator, it doesn't matter if you let the users upgrade using their own hardware, since whatever they have will either be the same speed or faster. The SSD's in the new consoles are not the lowest common denominator.

That's another reason.

jaymzi · Mar 16, 2020

I can see these being really expensive to make up for how relatively cheap the Xbox Series X will be for the power you get.

KaiPow · Mar 16, 2020

packy17 said:
1TB of NVMe is close to $200 on PC. This is proprietary, so I expect it to be even more expensive.

Right, it'll be a luxury item but I would anticipate Microsoft taking a bit of a loss on profits just to have the recognition of 'check out this unique option that you can only get on an xbox series x'

flyinj · Mar 16, 2020

Out of curiosity, what was the reasoning Sony used for custom SD cards on the Vita? Were they faster than SD cards available at the time?

eathdemon · Mar 16, 2020

flyinj said:
Out of curiosity, what was the reasoning Sony used for custom SD cards on the Vita? Were they faster than SD cards available at the time?

no, they just wanted extras money. in this case, there isnt as workable external option for what ms wants to do.

Illusion · Mar 16, 2020

If the price is amazing and above expectations it will be fine.

If it's the Vita route Xbox Series X will suffer the same fate it did this gen.

bsigg · Mar 16, 2020

Illusion said:
If the price is amazing and above expectations it will be fine.

If it's the Vita route Xbox Series X will suffer the same fate it did this gen.

How could it be the Vita route when the console has a 1TB SSD standard?

flyinj · Mar 16, 2020

eathdemon said:
no, they just wanted extras money. in this case, there isnt as workable external option for what ms wants to do.

They have an external interface that works, otherwise they couldn't sell you an external SSD.

The question is how custom are the SSDs themselves, and in the future will we be able to connect our own SSDs to some device that interfaces with whatever external bus solution they are using.

Carbon · Mar 16, 2020

flyinj said:
Out of curiosity, what was the reasoning Sony used for custom SD cards on the Vita? Were they faster than SD cards available at the time?

Greed and to prevent Piracy. They weren't really faster than the top-tier SD cards.

eathdemon · Mar 16, 2020

flyinj said:
They have an external interface that works, otherwise they couldn't sell you an external SSD.

The question is how custom are the SSDs themselves, and in the future will we be able to connect our own SSDs to some device that interfaces with whatever external bus solution they are using.

arent external ssds just usb though?

MegaManTrigger · Mar 16, 2020

flyinj said:
They have an external interface that works, otherwise they couldn't sell you an external SSD.

The question is how custom are the SSDs themselves, and in the future will we be able to connect our own SSDs to some device that interfaces with whatever external bus solution they are using.

While that sounds like a good alternative. It could also be a potential bottleneck.

Iron Eddie · Mar 16, 2020

flyinj said:
Out of curiosity, what was the reasoning Sony used for custom SD cards on the Vita? Were they faster than SD cards available at the time?

Didn't they say because of security measures? It's also worth noting that the Switch had 1TB memeory cards that were up to $450.

SanDisk's 1TB Micro SD Card Is Perfect For Your Switch

bsigg · Mar 16, 2020

Walken said:
Didn't they say because of security measures? It's also worth noting that the Switch had 1TB memeory cards that were up to $450.

SanDisk's 1TB Micro SD Card Is Perfect For Your Switch

That isn't a Switch proprietary card, there isn't proprietary storage used there, it's just an expensive ass microSD card.

Imitation Of Life · Mar 16, 2020

MegaManTrigger said:
Thats not the issue at all. Idk why you and the other poster are trying to make it as if people don't want SSDs.

What people don't want is for options to be taken away bc of proprietary tech. For instance, being locked out of SSDs they already have because it's arbitrarily not what MS wants you to use.

If you need complete control of your parts play on PC.

etta · Mar 16, 2020

Walken said:
No.

"You can continue to use your existing USB 3.1+ external hard drives on Xbox Series X and you can run Xbox One, 360 and OG Xbox games directly from the external USB HDD," explains a Microsoft spokesperson. "Games optimized for Xbox Series X and the Velocity Architecture need to be run from the internal SSD or the Expandable Storage Drive."

Weird how people want the latest tech but aren't willing to pay for it. Looks to me Microsoft is giving out options. How much do you want this thing to cost because having a 2TB or larger internal HDD is just adding to an already impressive package.

That's fine, but then you think about how games are becoming 100-150GBs and then factor in reserved space for this quick resume feature, you'll be lucky to fit in 6-7 GTA/COD/Cyberpunk-type games.

gnexus · Mar 16, 2020

Just as long as they aren't crazy priced like the Vita memory, or the old 360 hard drives were...

Linkeds2 · Mar 16, 2020

There's a difference between proprietary for the need to maintain a standard performance.

than

proprietary because you just want to make money off people

I see this case being the former

Lunchbox · Mar 16, 2020

The console starts at only 1TB? No thanks, you gotta at least put 2 in there.

EvilBoris · Mar 16, 2020

Lunchbox said:
The console starts at only 1TB? No thanks, you gotta at least put 2 in there.

You can buy an expansion, 1tb of ssd will set you back $170 right now

flyinj · Mar 16, 2020

Linkeds2 said:
There's a difference between proprietary for the need to maintain a standard performance.

than

proprietary because you just want to make money off people

I see this case being the former

They are shipping with a top of the line SSD, and also making it proprietary.

Making the drive proprietary doesn't make it cheaper than current top of the line SSDs that have similar performance. It makes it more expensive.

Is there anything these drives can do that is different than a comparable high end SSD currently on the market?

Iron Eddie · Mar 16, 2020

etta said:
That's fine, but then you think about how games are becoming 100-150GBs and then factor in reserved space for this quick resume feature, you'll be lucky to fit in 6-7 GTA/COD/Cyberpunk-type games.

We don't even know how many games it can resume from. Not sure what to tell you but they are giving you options to either use a standard HDD without the new features or optional propreitary cards that we don't know the price of yet. Chances are Sony won't be releasing a internal HDD over 1TB for the PS5 either all due to costs.

bsigg said:
That isn't a Switch proprietary card, there isn't proprietary storage used there, it's just an expensive ass microSD card.

So how much is the cheapest 1TB card that can be used on Switch with the same speeds as what these new Series X cards will use or the internal hard drive of Series X?

EvilBoris said:
You can buy an expansion, 1tb of ssd will set you back $170 right now

But I want at least a 2TB included and I don't want to pay over X amount for the console, lol.

sibarraz · Mar 16, 2020

I feel that this isn't comparable with the vita at all, with the 1tb model you could still have a good chunk of games installed. With the base vita model with the 4gb memory you couldn't do that much before filling the memory with digital games

Also, as long as this propietary cards doesn't have the stupid prices that the vita memory cards had , it shouldn't be an issue imo

bsigg · Mar 16, 2020

Walken said:
So how much is the cheapest 1TB card that can be used on Switch with the same speeds as what these new Series X cards will use or the internal hard drive of Series X?

There isn't anything like that. An NVMe SSD is wildly different than a microSD card.

Yerffej · Mar 16, 2020

gnexus said:
Just as long as they aren't crazy priced like the Vita memory, or the old 360 hard drives were...

I really don't see how they won't be, given what an NVMe of that size costs. This being a shrunk down, proprietary version of that...

Craymond · Mar 16, 2020

I mean an SSD that is the same as onboard sounds pretty good

YukiroCTX · Mar 16, 2020

I don't think this is much of an issue. I've worked around 500 GB even as a full digital user in particular with the internet infrastructure of high speeds and unlimited makes it easy to work within the storage confinements. Those without good internet still have MS providing external backups,I feel for the majority, there's not really much reason for the need of 7 games installed all at once even with the suspend/resume feature so those who seek more storage should pay an amount without hampering the user experience for the majority.

Vita was a situation that wasn't just because it was expensive, it was absolutely necessary for save files and the performance was barely better than what was on the market so it was a hidden cost.

ZeoVGM · Mar 16, 2020

Illusion said:
If it's the Vita route Xbox Series X will suffer the same fate it did this gen.

No it won't. That isn't the same thing at all.

Iron Eddie · Mar 16, 2020

bsigg said:
There isn't anything like that. An NVMe SSD is wildly different than a microSD card.

Which is faster? I would imagine over time others than just Seagate will be able to sell them as long as they meet the criteria. I think we need to be prepared these will likely be at least $199 and Microsoft (or Sony for that matter) won't want to put anything larger than a 1TB in to have a reasonable price at launch.

bsigg · Mar 16, 2020

Walken said:
Which is faster? I would imagine over time others than just Seagate will be able to sell them as long as they meet the criteria. I think we need to be prepared these will likely be at least $199 and Microsoft (or Sony for that matter) won't want to put anything larger than a 1TB in to have a reasonable price at launch.

The NVMe drive is faster by a crazy magnitude.

The fastest speed I can find on a SD card is 90MB/s

The internal drive and expandable storage for the Series X have a lower bound of 2.4 GB/s, and can go up to 4.8GB/s. It's not even close.

scrapple · Mar 16, 2020

Microsoft doesnt want people opening up their systems...

this was the best solution for a high speed drive

SnakeXs · Mar 16, 2020

ZeoVGM said:
No it won't. That isn't the same thing at all.

jUsT lIkE vItA i NeEd tO bUy mAmArY cArD tO pLaY gAmEz At AlL!

Iron Eddie · Mar 16, 2020

bsigg said:
The NVMe drive is faster by a crazy magnitude.

The fastest speed I can find on a SD card is 90MB/s

The internal drive and expandable storage for the Series X have a lower bound of 2.4 GB/s, and can go up to 4.8GB/s. It's not even close.

I guess that was the point I was trying to make in preperation for what these cards will cost and these things still aren't cheap. I can see why Microsoft didn't include a larger drive.

ZeoVGM said:
No it won't. That isn't the same thing at all.

It will be much easier to manage the 1TB Series X than you could without a memory card for Vita.

RoKKeR · Mar 16, 2020

Honestly it seems like this is the best solution for the kind of performance we are getting. Being able to store games on an HDD and then transfer means I might not even need one of these.

King Metal Zel · Mar 16, 2020

bsigg said:
How could it be the Vita route when the console has a 1TB SSD standard?

Mandatory installs. That's how.

bsigg · Mar 16, 2020

King Metal Zel said:
Mandatory installs. That's how.

So use an external USB drive to act as...storage....and move older games to the internal if you want to play them?

Or delete older games?

Imitation Of Life · Mar 16, 2020

etta said:
That's fine, but then you think about how games are becoming 100-150GBs and then factor in reserved space for this quick resume feature, you'll be lucky to fit in 6-7 GTA/COD/Cyberpunk-type games.

Why would you need 6 or 7 of those games loaded at once?

Faenix1 · Mar 16, 2020

bsigg said:
So use an external USB drive to act as...storage....and move older games to the internal if you want to play them?

Or delete older games?

Next gen games will probably be 100 gigs, minimum. Having to swap sounds like a right pain in the ass.

King Metal Zel · Mar 16, 2020

bsigg said:
So use an external USB drive to act as...storage....and move older games to the internal if you want to play them?

Or delete older games?

Constantly moving/deleting old games is a pain though. The reason I bought a cheap 4TB external HDD for my PS4 is to not have to worry about that anymore. But I could only justify that because it was cheap HDD tech. With proprietary SSDs it's gonna be hella expensive to avoid the hassle.

bsigg · Mar 16, 2020

Faenix1 said:
Next gen games will probably be 100 gigs, minimum. Having to swap sounds like a right pain in the ass.

So set the game to transfer and launch it via xCloud and play via streaming until it's complete.

King Metal Zel said:
Constantly moving/deleting old games is a pain though. The reason I bought a cheap 4TB external HDD for my PS4 is to not have to worry about that anymore. But I could only justify that because it was cheap HDD tech. With proprietary SSDs it's gonna be hella expensive to avoid the hassle.

This won't be a problem exclusive to MS. Setting a minimum standard of what devs have to work with in the internal storage means those games need to be equally handled on any additional storage option.

How MS and Sony handle the shuffling of content is of importance more now than ever since external drives simply won't be able to do more than hold a game.

Smashed_Hulk · Mar 16, 2020

This is pretty much the best available solution to use for external SSD storage that will run Series X games. You cannot get the performance standard MS set via USB. You just can't and adding a slot where you can add a standard m2 nvme drive isn't a good solution either. This is a clean and simple solution that works. It is proprietary, but there's no other option.

You still have the option of using a USB drive as a place to store your games, you just can't run Series X titles off them. You'll need to transfer the game from the USB to internal or external SSD to run it, which is fine IMO. Transferring games isn't going to take forever.

ILikeFeet · Mar 16, 2020

the problem with the vita card comparison is that the vita's solution was completely unnecessary. at least here, the nvme card is crucial.

FacelessSamurai · Mar 16, 2020

King Metal Zel said:
Mandatory installs. That's how.

All games have mandatory installs now. No way you could run it off the disk as it used to. No way will you ever get more than 1TB internal because of costs, soin the end the NVMe in custom enclosure is the best solution.

Cant wait to see the meltdowns when it turns out Sony has a similar solution. I somehow really down they'll be like: open this little hatch here and install your own NVMe!

Iron Eddie · Mar 16, 2020

Imitation Of Life said:
Why would you need 6 or 7 of those games loaded at once?

The new Quick Resume feature. The demo showed games not even optimized for the new hardware took on average 6 seconds to load going from one game to another.

MegaManTrigger · Mar 16, 2020

Imitation Of Life said:
If you need complete control of your parts play on PC.

What kind of stupid gate-keeping nonsense is this?

That's like saying: "if you need right to repair on your devices, go buy a car and be a mechanic instead"

USGamer: Xbox Series X Will Require Proprietary Cards to Expand Hard Drive Space (USB HDDs still supported for backups and playing BC games)

"I'd buy that for a dollar!"

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