Cheaper 500GB Xbox Series X SSD expansion cards possibly coming

Seagate may bring a cheaper 500GB Xbox Series SSD expansion card to the market in November.

It's been nearly one year since the Xbox Series X/S consoles released, and there's still only one way to boost high-speed PCIe 4.0 SSD storage for next-gen games: The expansive $219 1TB Seagate expansion card, which is 73% of an Xbox Series S' price tag. Sony's PS5, on the other hand, will support a wide range of third-party SSDs.

Now it looks like Seagate and Microsoft will offer a 500GB SSD expansion card for $155. French games site Xbox Squad recently spotted a listing on Micromania for a 512GB Seagate Xbox SSD expansion card for 155 euros. Now gamers won't have to jerry rig SSDs with PCIe-to-CFExpress converters.

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Microsoft actually confirmed lower capacity SSD expansion storage would be offered at some point. In an October 2020 podcast with Major Nelson, Xbox's Jason Ronald confirmed the news:

"I think, over time, you'll see this is a category that's really critical to us. You'll see multiple options and different form factors and different sizes," Ronald said.

"But what was really important for us is that we had a simple, easy-to-use option available day one. You can expect to see more options moving forward."

The Series X/S standardized storage is a convenient solution that packs in the same SSD tech used in the internal Series X/S hardware (4D SK Hynix flash memory, Phison E19T memory controller, 2.4GB/sec speeds over PCIe Gen4 x2) on a Type-B CFExpress card solution. The result is easy, dependable, and portable storage that won't overheat.

Neither Microsoft nor Seagate have announced or confirmed the existence of the 500GB memory card.