Seagate Game Drive SSD Review: Fast Speeds For A Price

Seagate’s Game Drive SSD promises fast speeds with more storage

Seagate has been partnered with Microsoft since the launch of the Xbox One, and I myself purchased the first licensed Xbox Green HDD Game Drive from the company to give my console extra storage. Since then, Seagate has released many different forms of the Game Drive in different storage sizes but in a world where downloading digital has become the norm, the standard HDD just won’t cut it.

In comes the Game Drive SSD, which takes its form factor and sleek design of the latest Xbox One X. Available in many storage sizes starting at 500GB up to 2TB, it’s the premier accessory to have for all the 4K gaming content. SSD’s provide a faster read/write speed and even faster loading of highly intense games but all that comes at a price from Seagate. As of now, the 500GB SSD is found for $90 on Amazon and up to $300 for the 2TB.

Setup is fairly easy with just a simple USB-C cable plugging into the drive itself and USB-A to one of the Xbox One X USB ports. The drive will be read as a media drive and would need formatting to solely become a game drive. Once that’s done it’s on to moving your current content to the new SSD.

File transfers to the SSD were surprisingly quick but really didn’t shave that much time off when compared to saving on the Seagate HDD.

Times in  MM:SS format 

Copy of NBA 2K19 (56.14 GB) From Internal

Copy of Apex Legends (29.7 GB) From Internal

Loading times, on the other hand, received a massive upgrade and I was into main menus of games 10-30 seconds quicker than I would on the HDD.

NBA 2K19 Load Time: Start to Play Now Screen

Apex Legends Load Time: Start to Pressing A Into Home Screen

FIFA 19 Load Time

Aside from load times, another major improvement was actually loading game data faster in games like Overwatch and Black Ops 4 where loading into a game and selecting a character to use came into play. I was selecting my character and having about 6-8 seconds of silence before other players were even able to load into the game, something I never experienced before with a standard HDD.

The Seagate Game Drive SSD is a pricey investment but if you’re moving to an all-digital ecosystem and want the fastest gear possible to handle all the data then this is definitely a must get accessory for any console. If you’re just in the market for space, Seagates standard Hard Drives are also great value for the cost and will expand storage for all the titles you wish to save.