Seagate 2TB Game Drive for Xbox - Black

For it's relative price and the amount of storage space received, this is great value - at todays prices (Jan 2022) it's cheaper than simply buying an internal 16tb drive and plugging it in.It's also surprisingly barebones despite it's appearance - not necessarily a bad thing if you want a lot of (relatively) fast storage at a reasonable price, but a bit of a downer if you want to migrate to USB-C or Wireless.The RGB is a nice (if unnecessary) addition, but ultimately cosmetic. The internal drive software lets you turn it off if you find it annoying.The drive has feet on multiple sides - allowing you to keep it mounted sideways or flat. It also has plenty of ventilation, unlike many external drives I have owned.There are USB ports on the front you can use to ... MoreFor it's relative price and the amount of storage space received, this is great value - at todays prices (Jan 2022) it's cheaper than simply buying an internal 16tb drive and plugging it in.It's also surprisingly barebones despite it's appearance - not necessarily a bad thing if you want a lot of (relatively) fast storage at a reasonable price, but a bit of a downer if you want to migrate to USB-C or Wireless.The RGB is a nice (if unnecessary) addition, but ultimately cosmetic. The internal drive software lets you turn it off if you find it annoying.The drive has feet on multiple sides - allowing you to keep it mounted sideways or flat. It also has plenty of ventilation, unlike many external drives I have owned.There are USB ports on the front you can use to help charge your devices. Also a welcome addition, which has helped me keep the clutter on my desk down.The internal drive is relatively quick - running consistent sequential writes at just above 250 mb/s for me. However ...The biggest drawback is really it's limited connections. Only a single USB-Micro B port is provided, and out of the box it connects via a USB Micro B-to-A cable. This can operate as a speed throttle - I only got maximum speed writes when plugged into my file servers sole USB-3 port.I've only been using the drive for a month, but thus far it seems reliable. There is an audible sound when the drive spools up, but I don't mind - this is an external drive that prioritises write speed over silence.Overall I would recommend it for the price, especially given the current cost of external hard drives!

I have used this drive for about two months. I use it solely to back up my games; I run the games from either Storage Expansion Card (SEC) or SSD.The only con about this drive is its speed; it is a mechanical drive, so it is slower than an SSD. The pro, of course, is its high gigabytes-per-dollar.If you intend to use one of these drives to back up your games, I recommend that you download your games directly to the drive, in the first instance, then copy the games to your SEC or SSD, whatever the case may be. This means that there will be a long download followed by a SHORT copy. If you were to download to the SEC or SSD first, there would be a long download followed by a LONG copy.

I bought this hard drive about 4 years ago with added insurance. I use this for my Xbox Series X hard drive and extend the amount to be able to download and play more games without having to dread uninstalling them. I do agree with some of the other customers reviews. After the year or second year. The device just randomly starts disconnecting itself, constantly reading and saying your device is ready and noone is touching it, constantly kicked me out of games installed on the external instead of internal. This I recommend since its in budget pricing and affordable. This would be good to use if you have a Xbox Series S or any console for Xbox less then 1TB. Use this to give it a little kick. I have since then upgraded to a 10TB hard drive, where I am now able to ... MoreI bought this hard drive about 4 years ago with added insurance. I use this for my Xbox Series X hard drive and extend the amount to be able to download and play more games without having to dread uninstalling them. I do agree with some of the other customers reviews. After the year or second year. The device just randomly starts disconnecting itself, constantly reading and saying your device is ready and noone is touching it, constantly kicked me out of games installed on the external instead of internal. This I recommend since its in budget pricing and affordable. This would be good to use if you have a Xbox Series S or any console for Xbox less then 1TB. Use this to give it a little kick. I have since then upgraded to a 10TB hard drive, where I am now able to install iver 300 games, DLC's, and plenty of room for game updates.

BEWARE AND KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GETTING

The external HDD does everything it’s supposed to and that’s great. It’s slim, has a green LED. And offers a crazy amount of storage. BUT !!!! THERE IS A CATCH!!! **YOU CAN NOT PLAY X|S GAMES OFF OF IT****. You will get a message telling you that the game requires faster storage. If you have a series X or S, be aware ! Any game that basically is modified to be X|S ready(the game icon literally has X|S on it) can not be played off of the hard drive. You can store it there and that’s it. So you will have to go through the trouble of still managing your internal storage if a new game drops or you want to play something else that needs to go on the internal. Some games that can’t be played off of itElden ringForza 5ProdeusJedi fallen orderCoD MWII(when it drops ... MoreThe external HDD does everything it’s supposed to and that’s great. It’s slim, has a green LED. And offers a crazy amount of storage. BUT !!!! THERE IS A CATCH!!! **YOU CAN NOT PLAY X|S GAMES OFF OF IT****. You will get a message telling you that the game requires faster storage. If you have a series X or S, be aware ! Any game that basically is modified to be X|S ready(the game icon literally has X|S on it) can not be played off of the hard drive. You can store it there and that’s it. So you will have to go through the trouble of still managing your internal storage if a new game drops or you want to play something else that needs to go on the internal. Some games that can’t be played off of itElden ringForza 5ProdeusJedi fallen orderCoD MWII(when it drops because it will be X|SETCSo for the price and holding storage and downloading older Xbox one games and such, it’s fantastic. Just please be aware of this catch as I’m sure most people did not catch this. Safe to assume that any game from 2022 and on will not be able to be played from this storage device. If you have a series S, I don’t recommend getting the other option because you basically could have gotten the series X with that money(NvME storage is like $200 or $300).I don’t really want to knock on the device itself, I just know Microsoft is being a bit schemy with this. There is no way they couldn’t have made faster storage. They just need you to buy the $200 one.I had to erase FH5 in order to get that many games on the Internal.

Big disappointment

I’ll start by saying I’m about as computer savvy as it gets. I eat Windows, Mac, and Linux for breakfast. I can leap tall drive arrays in a single bound. That said, the instructions clearly say to go to a link to download the Seagate Toolkit to change the LED colors using your PC. First I decided to see if it supports Mac and there is a Seagate toolkit for Mac to my surprise. However, after installing it, I found there was no option to enable/disable status LED or change colors like the online instructions for the toolkit say. So I thought maybe it was a Mac only thing so I tried Seagate Toolkit for Windows. No option to enable/disable the status LED or change colors there either. So either I’m stupid or the option just isn’t there. I’ll vote for the latter. I did ... MoreI’ll start by saying I’m about as computer savvy as it gets. I eat Windows, Mac, and Linux for breakfast. I can leap tall drive arrays in a single bound. That said, the instructions clearly say to go to a link to download the Seagate Toolkit to change the LED colors using your PC. First I decided to see if it supports Mac and there is a Seagate toolkit for Mac to my surprise. However, after installing it, I found there was no option to enable/disable status LED or change colors like the online instructions for the toolkit say. So I thought maybe it was a Mac only thing so I tried Seagate Toolkit for Windows. No option to enable/disable the status LED or change colors there either. So either I’m stupid or the option just isn’t there. I’ll vote for the latter. I did connect it to my Series X and transfer 800 gig from my old external storage to this drive. Transfer speeds were pretty average, so it appears to at least work as a hard drive. Of course, on a Series X/S you can’t install X/S games on it because it’s not Seagate’s special sauce module, but it works for storing older Xbox One games. Time will tell if I end up losing all of my games because every Seagate drive I’ve ever owned in the past has crashed and burned early.

BuildYourOwnExternal SsdStorage or be disappointed

This drive is absolutely garbage. The case is definitely a usb 3.1 speed but the drive inside is once again a 5400rpm 2.5 not a solid state drive or nvme nand drive etc. They could have at least used a 7200rpm drive for better read/write speeds installs larger than 25GB will take close to an hour its laughable that they actually recommend this for use with a xbox series console right on the box. Just avoid any external microsoft/xbox branded external storage that isn't a solid state.Oh and if the drive sits idle for too long the reader blades start clicking mad crazy and becomes unresponsive for several minutes until you attempt to run a file stored on the drive.The green led light and case will also experience their own set of problems from the idling.

Do not get if you have Xbox series S/X

I made the mistake in getting this external hard drive as I have an Xbox Series S. You cannot play newer games when they are on this hard drive. In order to play, you have to move the game from the hard drive to the internal. Thought I did something wrong and after the return deadline was up, finally realized the limitation of this hard drive.I also got this one to try and save some money because the other seagate expansion card is so expensive. Ended up buying that one any way because that is what I really needed smh. Hope this helps.

Game storage HD

Believe it or not, I didn't actually purchase this drive for the Xbox. That said, anyone that understands how the new Series X|S works, you will understand that (at the time of this review) Microsoft has not authorized any external drives to actually RUN games, but you can STORE them on these drives. I'd recommend you get the 1TB SSD model though, not the 4TB HDD that I'm running. Seagate is one of the only vendors authorized to make the Expansion Card for the Series X|S -- so if RUNNING games from additional storage is what you are after, make sure you get that drive. Storage here is fine. :)For me, I wanted to drive to connect to my M1 Mac Mini. As much as I'd love to add 4TB of NVMe, that's entirely cost-prohibitive - roughly $650+ if I took that path. Besides, ... MoreBelieve it or not, I didn't actually purchase this drive for the Xbox. That said, anyone that understands how the new Series X|S works, you will understand that (at the time of this review) Microsoft has not authorized any external drives to actually RUN games, but you can STORE them on these drives. I'd recommend you get the 1TB SSD model though, not the 4TB HDD that I'm running. Seagate is one of the only vendors authorized to make the Expansion Card for the Series X|S -- so if RUNNING games from additional storage is what you are after, make sure you get that drive. Storage here is fine. :)For me, I wanted to drive to connect to my M1 Mac Mini. As much as I'd love to add 4TB of NVMe, that's entirely cost-prohibitive - roughly $650+ if I took that path. Besides, I'm using this as storage primarily. So yes, this drive works just find on PC or Mac (or Linux). You may need to format to use it how you like.The drive is extremely quiet, and ironically I'm replacing a 10TB Backup Plus/Game Drive hub from Seagate. Out of the box, the old drive was clickity-clackity and sounded faulty. Controls for drives like this are limited on a Mac, so it would fire up and grind and ding and I just had had enough. I was hesitant to go with another Seagate, but I already had a 2.5" form factor running as a Time Machine Backup in the same 4TB capacity. It's been incredibly quiet by comparison, and this new drive is no different.Even after moving 1.7TB of data the unit stayed cool (barely warm even). The limits of the drive are the mechanical side, not the USB 3 side. While I'd like to push the throughput higher, Blackmagic gave it a 120MB/s write and 108MB/s read speed on every test I threw at it. Since this is mostly my music library and OneDrive/Dropbox local storage, it's not the end of the world. I can always move files to the internal SSD or my external SanDisk Extreme SSD if speed is necessary, such as movie editing.The biggest downside is that the Seagate Drive Toolkit tells me there is a Driver available, but it requires me to lower the security of the M1 Mac to authorize it on macOS 12.x Monterey. I temporarily did this thinking it would install or update the driver and then I could flip it back, but that didn't change anything. It really only appeared to tweak the on/off status of the Green LED bar on the front and the white status LED on the back. As soon as I put my Mac back into the enhanced security mode, it flagged the driver extension and I lost those options. I'm okay with that but it is annoying.Can't speak to longevity, but as I mentioned I own several of the prior generations of this same 4TB drive (STDR400901 from Dec 2016 and STEA4000407 from Nov 2018). The older one runs almost non-stop during the day for my Time Machine backup, while the other is the White Xbox Game Drive and stored and ran most of my XB1X games for years. Both drives have been rock solid, so I assume this one will be too. The only drive that wasn't was the bulkier 3.5" Backup Plus model, which sounds like an old dot-matrix printer most of the day.Should you get it? YES... as long as you are only needing it for storage. You will not run games or bandwidth intensive transfers and be happy. Get the SSD model if you want that.

Gotta love it!

First off, I would like to disclose that I am an employee of Best Buy Co, Inc, but I have not received this product at a discount. This is a solid storage drive. It works well to store my games that are not Series X|S optimized. I have mine plugged into my Series X. The LED light bar on the front of the drive is cool, although it can be annoying if your room is dark, especially at night. One thing I’ve noticed about the drive, and I don’t know if it is the Xbox or the drive doing it, but after the Xbox has been in standby mode for a couple of hours, the drive will shut off, only turn on for about 10 seconds, then shut off for another 10. It’s constantly cycling power, which gets annoying, especially when I am trying to sleep. I do not know if it is the Xbox that is ... MoreFirst off, I would like to disclose that I am an employee of Best Buy Co, Inc, but I have not received this product at a discount. This is a solid storage drive. It works well to store my games that are not Series X|S optimized. I have mine plugged into my Series X. The LED light bar on the front of the drive is cool, although it can be annoying if your room is dark, especially at night. One thing I’ve noticed about the drive, and I don’t know if it is the Xbox or the drive doing it, but after the Xbox has been in standby mode for a couple of hours, the drive will shut off, only turn on for about 10 seconds, then shut off for another 10. It’s constantly cycling power, which gets annoying, especially when I am trying to sleep. I do not know if it is the Xbox that is cycling it’s USB power, or if it is the drive itself. Aside from it not being an SSD, that is my only gripe. If you can find this drive on sale, it is a great deal. Even when it is at full MSRP, it is not a bad deal at all considering it is USB 3.2 and boasts 2TB of storage. All in all, this is a solid little storage drive, and I would recommend to anyone looking for a price friendly way to store non-Series X|S Xbox games.

Solid portable drive!

I picked this up not for gaming, but for a photo media library. I take lots of pictures and wanted a drive that was able to transport, and transfer photos quickly - even perhaps edit directly off of the drive.I store my Photos library and import directly to the drive when attached to my laptop. It works great, and have had no issues with the imports. The drive speed and controller have been great for moving lots of individuals files quickly as opposed to larger files and lesser volume.The look of the drive is pleasant - minimalistic and doesn't draw attention when on the go, but the colors are a great feature for ambience or for setting the tone of work/ whatever may be going on.I've not been a Seagate user for some time, perhaps 10-15 years now, but have ... MoreI picked this up not for gaming, but for a photo media library. I take lots of pictures and wanted a drive that was able to transport, and transfer photos quickly - even perhaps edit directly off of the drive.I store my Photos library and import directly to the drive when attached to my laptop. It works great, and have had no issues with the imports. The drive speed and controller have been great for moving lots of individuals files quickly as opposed to larger files and lesser volume.The look of the drive is pleasant - minimalistic and doesn't draw attention when on the go, but the colors are a great feature for ambience or for setting the tone of work/ whatever may be going on.I've not been a Seagate user for some time, perhaps 10-15 years now, but have found this drive to be a solid contender among the options available and will keep an eye out for other options as my needs grow.