Xbox Series X external storage tests: USB HDD vs. SSD vs. NVME

By now, you probably know that to play next-gen Xbox Series X games, you need to store them either on the internal SSD or the official $220 Seagate 1TB expansion card. When it comes to backward compatible games, however, you can load them from an external USB drive. And if you don’t want to redownload an Xbox Series X game later, you can even store them on external media. But how fast is that process? And what about load times?

Well, I put those questions to the test using Assassin’s Creed: Origins. That game is 49GB, so it’s a fairly large install. I tested moving it between the internal drive to different external USB storage solutions. I also loaded it from the internal storage to compare that to an external USB hard drive, SSD, and even an NVME drive in an enclosure.