DF - Xbox Series X: What's The Best SSD Option For Back Compat Xbox Games?

Fake

Fake

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Do you really need to use the precious storage space of the Xbox Series X internal drive for running backwards compatible games? Or will standard SSDs connected via USB still do a good job? In this video, Rich runs a range of Xbox One X titles on the internal drive and stacks them up against SATA, NVMe and mechanical hard drive alternatives. The results are fascinating! BTW Rich says here that a PCIe 4.0 NVMe is essential for PC gaming - he misspoke here: a good SATA drive is still great in the here and now!
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Fake said:
Important note from Rich. I already put the right time. For those wondering, the time is 10:17
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I was just thinking about this, i'm gonna watch the video but i was thinking of just buying the expansion card, my 4TB HDD feels like its slowing down
 
A big cheap USB SSD would probably be the best bang for the buck for BC games on all platforms.

They really should hire an actor to deliver these videos, Richard is just too annoying. I'm distracted by day dreams of punching him too often.
 
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Using the Internal or External SSD for back compat games would be a waste in my opinion, even a USB SSD will be more than enough for the older games. Keep your internal and SSD slot for the new games built with the SSD in mind.

edit: i said SSD 4 times in that one little statement. I hate this acronym now.
 
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It's refreshing to see a strictly analytical video from these guys after all the synthetic dreamer fluff they've been putting out lately. DF STICK TO THIS, don't stray FFS, this is your FORTE.
 
LeftThumbstick said:
Using the Internal or External SSD for back compat games would be a waste in my opinion, even a USB SSD will be more than enough for the older games. Keep your internal and SSD slot for the new games built with the SSD in mind.

edit: i said SSD 4 times in that one little statement. I hate this acronym now.
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SSD SSD SSD SSD SSD SSD
 
Rossco666 said:
SSD SSD SSD SSD SSD SSD
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Too. much. SSD.

giphy.gif
 
Very informative video. SATA SSD seems to be the best bang-for-buck. I'd assume the XSS functions much the same having almost exactly the same CPU and same XVA, just a smaller 500GB internal SSD. I'll probably look for a deal on a 1TB SATA SSD and use it with the external enclosure I already have. Internal space should be for XVA accelerated games.
 
They read my mind with this video, I was really wondering how externally ssd would do with the back catalog on the series x!
Now I know it will work out really well.
 
Ive been using an external SSD with my One X for awhile now and never looked back. Some Games its a god send and others its just a nice bump. I will likely do whats suggested here and keep back compat stuff on the external and save the internal for Series X/S games.
 
Good video, more evidence that BC games loading slower then some people would have expected is because none of the Velocity advantages are being used. Same happens on PC, a 5GB/s NVMe is basically the same performance as a 500MB/s SATA SSD.
 
Always planned to keep my external I already use for the One X. Very little reason for all but a select few games to move to SSD.
 
Buying an external SSD at current prices is just dumb. I saw 12TB HDDs go for $220ish (and going down). Meanwhile you're barely getting a 2TB ssd for that much. Just swap games around when you're on your phone or have some other downtime. How often do people swap games around anyhow?
 
Nikana said:
Ive been using an external SSD with my One X for awhile now and never looked back. Some Games its a god send and others its just a nice bump. I will likely do whats suggested here and keep back compat stuff on the external and save the internal for Series X/S games.
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This is what I'm planning as well.

The one thing I do question about "Smart Delivery" is if it is possible to opt-out of a patch for a specific game. Say I have a game and I'm fine with it just living off of the external drive in the current form, if they do a free patch that requires internal SSD, can I no longer play that game on the external?
 
DaGwaphics said:
This is what I'm planning as well.

The one thing I do question about "Smart Delivery" is if it is possible to opt-out of a patch for a specific game. Say I have a game and I'm fine with it just living off of the external drive in the current form, if they do a free patch that requires internal SSD, can I no longer play that game on the external?
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I would assume that it would need to be on the internal drive if its been patched with support for X/S. The ID of the object being run on which device I would think takes priority over what drive its installed to.
 
I'm not impressed at all with those loading times on XSX. It's an improvement, sure, but still they take too long. Also apparently PS5 will be even worse since it's just running the game as usual or boosting something here and there.

I wanna see comparisons on nextgen multiplats.
 
Insane Metal said:
I'm not impressed at all with those loading times on XSX. It's an improvement, sure, but still they take too long. Also apparently PS5 will be even worse since it's just running the game as usual or boosting something here and there.

I wanna see comparisons on nextgen multiplats.
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No, not impressed at all. This will very likely be the case on PS5 as well. No need to invest in a new SSD I guess.
 
Nice. I will be looking for a good deal on a SSD on slickdeals before launch.

The question I have is will current gen games with a next gen patch be required to install on the internal drive? The DF video also only went into texture loading in-game so i'm assuming SSD/HDD type doesn't affect FPS on back compat games?

Edit-Looking into it more it appears you do have to run internal for next gen patches.
 
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Insane Metal said:
I'm not impressed at all with those loading times on XSX. It's an improvement, sure, but still they take too long. Also apparently PS5 will be even worse since it's just running the game as usual or boosting something here and there.

I wanna see comparisons on nextgen multiplats.
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Perhaps the expectations you had for BC games where too high. It seems like loading on average is at least cut in half. There are exceptions of course but this is a great bonus.

On the contrary, I believe ps5 is going to load them even quicker. Neither XSeries nor PS5 are taking advantage of rdna2 on BC games, so I would expect PS5 to load the data in the same just faster due to its faster SSD and integrated dram. We will see of course, not too long to wait.
 
Insane Metal said:
I'm not impressed at all with those loading times on XSX. It's an improvement, sure, but still they take too long.
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Well, what do you expect? Those games were developed with current gen specs in mind so you only get the average HDD to SSD improvement. You won't see the benefits of next gen SSD speeds in games until you play games that were developed with those next gen features in mind.
 
So a decent SATA SSD with a good USB 3+ Interface.

Would have been cool if the consoles also had a little 2.5" sata bay.
 
I am really hoping the with the consoles moving to ssd laptops will finish going that way and manufacturing can kill small hdd to focus on ssd. Then maybe we'll see ssd prices come down soonish.
 
AgentP said:
A big cheap USB SSD would probably be the best bang for the buck for BC games on all platforms.

They really should hire an actor to deliver these videos, Richard is just too annoying. I'm distracted by day dreams of punching him too often.
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How very dare you speak ill of Wichard, the guys a legend!
 
Cool.
Console+ expansion card for next-gen and patched games and my Samsung T7 1Tb external SSD for the non-patched back compat games.

Impressive how the change CPU impact the loading times.
 
I already have my games on an external Samsung SSD so it looks like just plugging that in will be fine and save the internal drive space for XSX games.
 
I think I'm gonna buy an additional SATA SSD with USB 3.2 gen 2 enclosure for PS5.

PS5 has 10 gbps USB ports so it can saturate SATA III easily. USB 3.2 Gen 2 should be capable of 800+ MB/s
 
Very helpful video. Thanks.

Looks like I'll be purchasing an external USB SSD for BC games and keeping internal use for SX games only.
 
AgentP said:
A big cheap USB SSD would probably be the best bang for the buck for BC games on all platforms.

They really should hire an actor to deliver these videos, Richard is just too annoying. I'm distracted by day dreams of punching him too often.
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I strongly disagree. I like them
 
Copying 172.2GB over 3.1Gen USB at 625MB/s should take 5min+. The asus enclosure is capable of 3.2Gen USB Speeds 2x625MB/s and any nvme released in the past 5+ years is capable of saturating the USB3.1 port, even a gen1 nvme. The samsung 860 or 870 QVC is utter shit, even inside a PC. DO NOT BUY.

The actual speeds of each device were (Call of Duty Warfare 172.2GB)
HD
34min31s | 12s per GB | 83MB per second or only 13% of USB3.1 5Gbps

SATA SSD
17min33s | 6.11s per GB | 163MB per second or only 26% of USB3.1 5Gbps

NVME
11min6s | 3.86s per GB | 260MB per second or only 41% of USB3.1 5Gbps

Reading from the external, nvme and sata were equally fast at 8min25+ (2.93s per GB | 341MB per second or 55% of USB3.1 5Gbps. Again, how can an nvme read so slow? At just 341MB per second?

hypothetical situation (best case scenario, might drop over duration)

At 160MB/s, the samsung would take 106min to fill 1TB
At 260MB/s, the asus+nvme drive would take 65min to fill 1TB
At 83MB/s, the ext. HD would take 205min to fill 1TB
At 2,400MB/s, the seagate card would take 7min to fill 1TB

The usb controller of the XSX has to be terrible or that nvme is utter shit, but there is no nvme drive out there, only capable of writing at 260MB/s.

Did Digital Foundry on purpose select shitty drives? :pie_confused:
 
S0ULZB0URNE said:
The Seagate and internal are the only way to get BC games enhanced and I don't recall DF mentioning this 🤷‍♂️
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Yeah they did. They said that if a game doesn't have the necessary programming to take advantage of the new hardware specific to the Series S and X, then you'll only see regular HDD to SSD gains, without the new stuff like Velocity Architecture.
 
A bought two Sabrent USB3.1 adaptors (UK) meant to be in stock on the 20th but came yesterday so 🤷‍♂️

Got my old SSD, Crucial 512GB connected to the XB1X and works fine. May take my seagate 2tb (backup plus 2.5") out of its enclosure and use the other adaptor see if I can boost it a tad as it's just USB3.0.
 
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