Seagate Gears 5TB Game Drive Review

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Seagate and Microsoft periodically team up to launch Game Drive solutions that match a new title coming to market. In the past, we have seen Halo and GoW feature limited-edition units and today that partnership carries on with the Gears 5 Limited Edition model.

With the Gears 5 solution, Seagate and Microsoft were able to match the aesthetics of the upcoming Gears 5 Xbox One Console to the new Game Drive solution. This new Game Drive includes redeemable codes for in-game weapon skins and supply drop for multiplayer and is the first 5TB Game Drive to the market.

Performance is slated to be comparable to past 4TB solutions and features USB 3.0 connectivity. With the 5TB capacity, this solution is capable of holding 150+ games. MSRP of the Game Drive Gear 5 in the 5TB capacity comes in at $149.99 with a one-year warranty. This solution is also available in 2TB capacity.

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Packaging shares both a Gears 5 theme but also the aesthetic of Xbox. We have capacity listed top right with DLC listed to the left.

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The back goes into more detail about game capacity and use.

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Included with the drive, we have a braided USB 3.0 cable and reading materials along with the DLC card.

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The front of the drive offers the Omen immersed in ice and snow with Xbox branding above.

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The back offers regulatory and capacity information down below.

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Useable capacity once setup with Xbox One is 4.5TB.

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Running a quick performance test, this solution performs on par with the Game Drive 4TB reviewed earlier in the year. 129 MB/s read, and 39 MB/s write.

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Running through a secondary benchmark, we see the drive performs better with larger file sizes as expected. Write performance starts at 60 MB/s and read starts at 135 MB/s.

As you can imagine, the Gears 5 Game Drive solution is on par in both build quality and performance as past Game Drive offerings. Aesthetics are one area I would say have been beefed up, especially being a fan of Xbox and Gears since the beginning the Ice over Omen makes for a solid looking drive.

Performance is typical of SMR drives with great read performance at 129 MB/s and write performance that would typically start at a higher rate and fall off as seen in testing, to 39MB/s. This shouldn't cause much of an issue for users that download games straight to the drive, however transferring games to this solution can take longer than expected.

Overall, with the Limited nature of this solution, its really going to be an enthusiasts market as any user that loves Gears of War will certainly want to pick up this drive.

Tyler's Test System Specifications

• Motherboard: ASUS Prime Z370 (buy from Amazon)
• CPU: Intel Core i3 8350K (buy from Amazon)
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance 32GB 4x8GB DDR4 3200 (buy from Amazon)
• Cooler: Corsair Hydro H115i (buy from Amazon)
• Case: Corsair Air 540 (buy from Amazon)
• OS Storage: Samsung 960 EVO 250GB (buy from Amazon)
• Power Supply: Corsair RM850x (buy from Amazon)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 (buy from Amazon)
• Wi-Fi NIC: ASUS PCE-AC88 (buy from Amazon)
• 10Gbe NIC: ASUS XG-C100C (buy from Amazon)
• Thunderbolt 3: ASUS Thunderbolt EX3 (buy from Amazon)