Microsoft appears to be readying new Xbox expandable storage options from other manufacturers. A new Western Digital 1TB expansion card for Xbox Series S / X consoles has been spotted early on Best Buy, priced at $179.99. It’s the first time we’ve seen Xbox expandable storage that’s not manufactured by Seagate.
Cheaper Xbox expandable storage cards are on the way
A new Western Digital Xbox expandable storage card has been spotted at Best Buy, and it’s cheaper than the current Seagate option.
A new Western Digital Xbox expandable storage card has been spotted at Best Buy, and it’s cheaper than the current Seagate option.
is a senior correspondent and author of Notepad, who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years.
Microsoft originally launched Xbox expandable storage cards nearly three years ago with its Xbox Series S / X consoles. The 1TB cards were priced at $219.99 and manufactured exclusively by Seagate. While we’ve seen 512GB and 2TB options appear from Seagate, prices have stubbornly remained high, despite similar storage for PS5 consoles dropping significantly.
An additional manufacturer for Xbox expandable storage is much-needed and will hopefully help push prices in the right direction. Best Buy’s listing (which has now been removed) of the Western Digital C50 1TB expansion card is $40 less than the Seagate model. At $179.99 it’s still hugely overpriced for 1TB storage, especially when you can find a Samsung 980 Pro 1TB PCIe Gen4 drive for $79.99 right now.
Microsoft decided to go with proprietary storage for its Xbox Series X / S consoles, which makes the installation a lot more consumer friendly. But pricing has suffered with only a single manufacturer. Sony opted for a rather standard M.2 SSD expandable storage slot instead, which allows PS5 owners to use a variety of drives on the market. You can even use slow PCIe Gen4 drives on the PS5.
It’s not clear when Western Digital’s new 1TB expansion card for Xbox will be available. The Best Buy listing has no preorder dates, so we’ve reached out to both Western Digital and Microsoft to comment on the listing.
Update, April 2nd 6:30PM ET: Best Buy has now removed the listing.
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
