Deal: Get Western Digital’s 1TB Xbox Series X|S Storage Expansion Card for Just $99

Microsoft has made it quite expensive to augment the storage of its Xbox Series X|S consoles with just two series of expansion cards from Seagate and Western Digital. If you’ve been on the fence, Western Digital’s 1TB storage expansion card is currently down to $99.99 on Amazon and Best Buy, which is its lowest price ever (via The Verge).

Amazon previously sold this card for $157.99, and it was $149.99 on Best Buy, so you’ll be saving at least $50. Amazon is also offering a $12 discount on the 512GB model, which is now priced at $67.99. However, the 1TB card is much better value for just $32 more.

These Xbox Series X|S storage expansion cards are plug and play, so you can hot swap them between consoles. The cards also match the performance of the consoles’ internal SSDs, and they’re the only solution for running current-gen games on external storage. It’s still possible to store Xbox Series X|S games on slower hard drives or SSDs, but they won’t run until you transfer them back to the internal storage or one of these officially licensed Xbox expansion cards.

It’s not rare these days to see games taking close to 100GB of storage, or more. The upcoming S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, which is now available for pre-loading ahead of its launch on November 20, takes no less than 146.6 GB on my console. If you like juggling between a lot of games on your Xbox, this 1TB expansion card will definitely let you keep more games ready to play.

It still remains to be seen if Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox consoles will maintain compatibility with these cards. Sony went with a more flexible (and affordable) solution on its PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro with a standard M.2 SSD bay, allowing gamers to install any supported SSD inside the consoles. However, the plug and play aspect of the Xbox storage expansion cards is certainly more convenient.