What is the Biggest Hard Drive You Can Put in an Xbox One S?

As a fellow gamer who loves nothing more than firing up the latest title on my Xbox, I know the frustration of getting a "storage full" warning when trying to install new games. Modern triple-A games easily take up over 50GB, quickly filling up the measly 500GB or 1TB drives that come standard in the Xbox One S.

If you‘re looking to increase your storage capacity, this ultimate guide covers everything you need to know. We‘ll explore the limits for both internal and external hard drives, recommended products to buy, expected game storage needs going forward, and how future storage technologies like SSDs can impact loading times. Time to boost your Xbox One storage to hold more games than you can play in a lifetime!

Internal Drive Limit – 2TB Max

The Xbox One S uses a standard laptop-sized 2.5” SATA HDD, either in 500GB or 1TB capacities depending on model. This internal drive is user-replaceable, allowing you to swap it out for a larger drive up to 2TB. While it‘s possible to format a larger 3TB or 4TB drive to work, only 2TB will be usable as per Microsoft‘s limitation.

Replacing the internal drive isn‘t too difficult with some handy screwdrivers. But be aware that cracking open your console does void the warranty. While 2TB doubles your stock storage space, it still isn‘t that much considering modern games. Read on to see how external USB drives are likely a better (and easier) option.

Average Game Sizes 2023

To get an idea of real-world storage needs, let‘s examine some popular games and their ridiculously huge installation footprint:

As you can see, the average for triple-A titles pushes or exceeds 100GB. With Call of Duty ballooning up to 175GB, you‘ll be able to fit at most 8-12 average sized games on the internal 2TB drive.

External USB Hard Drives – Up to 16TB!

Thankfully, Microsoft made storage expansion super simple with support for external USB 3.0 hard drives. And unlike the 2TB limit for internal drives, you can use USB enclosures up to masssive 16TB each!

I personally love the Seagate Game Drive Hub for Xbox, with 8TB providing tons of extra space at a reasonable cost. Another great budget-friendly pick is the Western Digital 4TB Elements portable drive. Or for those needing the absolute max capacity, the 16TB Seagate Exos enterprise HDD stores an insane number of games – though it comes at a steep price.

With USB hard drives, you simply plug into your Xbox One S and it automatically prompts you to format and use it as extra game storage. Much easier than cracking open your console, that‘s for sure!

Oh, and using a USB hub you can hook up two extra hard drives simultaneously. So go ahead and pick up a cheap hub to unleash storage capacities up to 48TB!

Predicting Xbox Game Sizes in 2024 and Beyond

Game file sizes will only continue ballooning going forward. So while even 8TB seems plenty generous right now, what about in a few years?

As you can see based on the trend of 5 years‘ 25% annual growth, we could average around 175GB per game by 2026. So future-proof yourself with the largest capacity drives you can buy today!

SSD Benefits – Lightning Fast Load Times

While HDDs offer abundant storage for a low cost, SSD drives feature much faster data speeds. External USB solid state drives attach and work just as easily while making load times snappier.

Certain games with larger levels or saving tons of data can definitely benefit from the lightning quickness of SSDs. For example:

• The Witcher 3 saves and loads cut from 15 seconds on an HDD down to 8 seconds on an SSD.
• Fast travel in games like Borderlands 3, Fallout 76, Destiny 2 is dramatically faster on SSD storage.

Now SSD prices have dropped significantly in recent years. For example, Crucial‘s portable X8 1TB and 2TB external models deliver over twice the speeds of typical hard drives for under $100/$200. And Samsung‘s T5 portable SSD touts read speeds up to 540 MB/s at similar prices. Connect either to your Xbox One via USB 3.0 and marvel at the velocity!

While these SSDs are on the more affordable side, higher performing options from Seagate and Western Digital still demand premium pricing. But expect speeds and capacities of USB SSDs to keep improving while costs decline over the next 5 years.

Owning All Xbox One Generation Games? That‘ll Be 48TB, Please!

As this generation of Xbox consoles starts to sunset, an interesting thought experiment – how much space would be needed to store EVERY Xbox One/Series X|S game released since 2013 at a max 100GB average size?

Well according to Wikipedia, there have been around 1375 games released. At 100GB each that still comes out to a staggerring 137,500 GB, aka 137.5 TB!

Obviously owning every single game is overkill bordering on hoarding. But it illustrates how quickly storage needs are evolving. So invest wisely in external solutions allowing 16TB drives to comfortably ride out this generation and the next.

With the complete picture on Xbox One S storage – internal vs. external, HDDs and SSDs – now you can optimize your gaming powerhouse to store an epic library certain to provide endless entertainment through the next decade and beyond!

Over to you – what size and type of expanded storage will meet your gaming needs both today and for the future? Let‘s keep the gaming discussion going!