Xbox Series console owners who’ve been looking to expand their device’s on-board storage from the standard 512GB/1TB offerings now have a new option courtesy of Western Digital’s C50 Expansion Cards.
These expansion cards act as further internal storage, using a custom port with PCI Express 4.0 connections to plug directly into the motherboard.
Matching the 2.4GB/s data throughput speeds of the inbuilt item, games stored on the card act just as if they were stored internally, offering features like Quick Resume that aren’t available for external drives connected through the USB 3.0 ports.
Until now the only option for this custom storage expansion, was from Seagate who co-developed the system. This was initially available as a 1TB card only, but expanded to include 512GB and 2TB options too.
Western Digital is the first additional storage manufacturer to design these compatible NVMe cards, which are also officially licensed by Xbox, giving consumers further choice (and availability) for the first time.
Officially called the “WD_BLACK C50 Expansion Card for Xbox”, the WD option is available as either 512GB (also labeled as 500GB due to the difference between binary and decimal calculations of storage space) or 1TB cards, and at pricings similar to the matching Seagate items.
If you can find them, the Seagate Storage Expansion Card comes in at $89.99 for the smaller capacity 512GB card and $149.99 for the 1TB item. The WD card is the same price for the 1TB unit but $10 cheapar for the 512GB piece. For those only interested in the most storage possible, the $279.99 option from Seagate remains the only 2TB drive.
Alongside the slightly lower pricing, WD is offering a month’s subscription to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and a free WD-branded t-shirt for purchases made through its website. The cards look set to become available at external sellers in early July.
See more articles on Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X.
