Of course, there are smaller games that can only take less than 7GB, but the most popular games, such as Halo 5: Guardians and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare take up between 50GB to 64GB of storage space — and even more as new updates are released –. This means that on average, most Xbox One owners can fit somewhere between 12 to 20 games using the console with 500GB of storage. Microsoft is also offering versions of its Xbox One console with 1TB internal hard drives, but it’s just a matter of time before they fill up too. Even more when considering all the games you can now get for free through the Games with Gold program, which not only includes Xbox One games, but Xbox 360 games as well that you can play through the Xbox One Backward Compatibility feature. To overcome the limited storage problem, every Xbox One include external storage support, which simply means that you can buy an external USB hard drive that the console can use to store new games and apps. As such, today in this guide we’ll go through the steps to set up a USB external storage on your Xbox One console and how you can properly move games stored in the internal drive to the new device.
Requirements
Although, you don’t need to buy an official proprietary Xbox One external hard drive, you need to buy a compatible storage that meets the following requirements:
Storage must use a USB 3.0 connection. If you’re connecting the drive through a hub, the hub has to use USB 3.0 or later technology. The hard drive must be 256GB or larger. If the device you’re connecting doesn’t meet the minimum requirements, then it will be treated as media storage for music and video only.
Set up a USB storage on Xbox One
You can use pretty much any external USB 3.0 hard drive you can find. Personally, I’m using a 3TB Seagate USB 3.0 external hard drive, which I used to use as my backup drive in my computer, as I recently bought a Toshiba 5TB Canvio (HDWC250XK3J1) to replace it. Keep in mind that in order to make drive usable to store new games and apps, Xbox One needs to erase and reformat the drive, which means that you will lose all the content on the drive, as such make sure to backup your data before connecting the external hard drive to your Xbox One. Now let’s get started with the set up: When you connect the external USB 3.0 hard drive to your Xbox One, the console should automatically, detect the new device and guide you through the process, which involves:
Manual external storage detection
If the console doesn’t seem to recognize the external storage, you can do the detection process manually:
Troubleshooting external hard drive
Installing update
If your Xbox One still unable to detect the drive, it’s possible that you’re not running the latest update, in which case you need to manually update your console:
Power management control
If the previous steps didn’t solve the issue, it could be a problem with the power management, more specifically with the Instant-On setting.
Additional troubleshooting steps
If everything fails, try to disconnect and reconnect the drive, try using a different USB port on the console, or try a full reboot by pressing the power button in the console for 10 seconds and then start the console again.
Move Xbox games to new external drive
After setting up the external hard drive on your Xbox One, only new games and apps will install automatically in the new drive. If the internal hard drive of your console is full, you will have to manually move games and apps to the new device. To do this, follow the steps below: Remember that when you’re in “My games & apps”, you should be able to see your entire games collection. If you’re only seeing a partial list, it’s likely because, you’re only showing games from one drive. If this is the case, select the Store device drop down menu, and select All.
How much storage space are you using in your Xbox One? How many games do you have installed? Tell us in the comments below. All content on this site is provided with no warranties, express or implied. Use any information at your own risk. Always backup of your device and files before making any changes. Privacy policy info.
