PLEASE READ THE UPDATE BELOW!!! As of June 2024, the compatible 1TB drives are showing up again on eBay at roughly $20 - $30 USD less than they were previously. This development has made this method a more attractive option again. UPDATE 2024-10-22: Unfortunately, the newer NVMe's that have shown up on ebay have newer firmware than the drives I have which apparently blocks the ability to use them as expansion cards. So, to make your own working drive you'll need to find an older one from a 2020 - 2021 console is my guess. I purchased my drives in 2022... but without a hard date to know what works and what doesn't it's better to be safe than sorry and just go with the official drives. This is a real crap move by Microsoft. Thanks to @zaneiken07 for bringing this to my attention.
@@theboysandme3141 It's definitely a more affordable method than the Seagate or WD drives. I do know that some people have had issues with this method, but I honestly think it comes down to the housing/adapter not working correctly. I've just finished editing a follow up video where I go over that, along with demonstrating that the drives I made work fine with the newest Xbox Series hardware. I'll be posting that video tomorrow.
Excellent Video Mental! This reminds me of the old XBOX ONE X/S SSD videos I used to make a few years ago! One day, I will try your method out for the Series X/S!
It worked great when I did it. Unfortunately the required 2 Channel NVMe's are really hard to find right now. It's so bizarre that they were readily available a year ago, only to be non-existent now. Make the conspiracy part of my brain wonder if Microsoft had been buying the up to wipe the market out, & to have them for their own refurb consoles. I've found some different adapters, ones with cables & 2280 NVMe size support, but unfortunately none of them down convert 4 channels to 2 channels. I wish MS would get their heads outta their ass long enough to realize that a proper adapter like that would be a huge consumer friendly move by them.
@caffeineentertainment it seemed like a good idea at first, but those prices like you said man, just never came down when the rest of the market sunk like a rock!
@@TheGameComplainers For the average person, it is a good idea, makes it really easy to add storage. The problem is the 2-channel niche drive requirement. Even going with this method... the 2 channel drives just never followed the massive price decline that the standard drives experienced. I would hope that Microsoft realizes it wasn't the best idea ever. They put themselves into a situation where I'm sure the NVMe in the consoles is costing them more money than it's worth, because of a) the 2-channel aspect and b) the 2230 form factor. If they had designed it a bit differently so that, a) they could have used a 2280 drive internally that leveraged all 4 channels and, b) added a secondary chip to support 4 PCI-E lanes to the external drive, overall I'd bet their BOM would have come down significantly enough to more than compensate for whatever their additional upfront costs would have been at launch to make those 2 changes. Even just having the standard 4 channel drive support would have helped a lot overall assuming they stayed with the 2230 form factor. The bonus of using a standard 4 channel drive is they'd have had almost identical throughput capability to the PS5 at 4800MBps, negating the "SSD" narrative hehe...
@@caffeineentertainmentAgreed! I hope MS learns this for their next console, but let's see. If the next console is still backwards compatible, they will have to keep the slot for this expanded memory. Such a mess, you nailed it right on the head when you said the PlayStation 5 did the storage best.
I upgraded the internal storage of my Series S with one of those drives. Moving the old 512GB internal drive to the expansion adapter gave me 420GB of usable space - 36GB less than the retail WD expansion.
That's great to hear. I was thinking about buying a Series S just to try that, now I don't have too! I'm curious as to what cloning software you used to clone the hidden partition on the Series S drive over to the 1TB (so the S wouldn't reject the drive) and what method you used. IE bit by bit, sector by sector etc.. ?
nice adapter and tutorial brands abuse the customers its like the adapter for nintendo switch also solves and issue with their games and storage on the console
Thanks for the feedback! It's really unfortunate that Microsoft decided to go the anti-consumer route of firmware locking the newer drives so that they don't work as an external. I've been looking for a way to extract the firmware from the drives that I have, thinking it might be possible to flash the newer drives with the older firmware. No success at this point, plus I would think that someone would have likely tried that by now. At this point, the only way you'll be successful using this method is if you can be sure you get a drive from a launch Series X. Or at least something from the eariest machines. I made my external drives in early 2022, but I have no idea how old the drives were at that time. So in light of that, I wouldn't recommend it, and it's just a safer move to get a Seagate or Western digital. Like I said, very anti consumer by Microsoft/Xbox. I really wish someone would build and adapter like I described in the video...
@@caffeineentertainment this is not new when i buy the x360 the usb or external drives only support up to 16gb of storage doing the method with the software of the console in that time was share files for 160gb 320gb and 500gb if you buy a compatible case for the internal hdd but for prevent data loss i buy the original drives and usb for x360 but they abuse with the prices maybe with a bios backup reader can be saved that firmware the process its like when you recover a motherboard or flash new nand memory for the m1 mac mini i recently download an iso of linux emulating the OS for the steamdeck but for instalation on pc with amd video card so everything its possible.
If you're getting an error, it really depends on that circumstances. As stated in the description of the video, the newest drives you can find on e.Bay are firmware locked to not work as external drives. In that case no, you won't be able to use it for games. It's a lousy move by Microsoft if you ask me. I do know of some issues whereby it's come down to a faulty housing, in those cases replacing the housing fixed the problem. All said though, unless you can be guaranteed that the drive you're purchasing is one of the early editions, it's not worth the risk at this point. Again, it's unfortunate, it's really not hard to do and would allow people to save a few dollars. Sadly Microsoft doesn't want people to be able to do that, and are forcing you to purchase their propriatary solution.
It's encouraging to see them coming down in price. They're still over $200 here in Canada, and I can buy a 1TB SSSTC for just over $100 CAD ($80 USD) now, along with the $15 CAD ($12 USD) for the housing. That said, I've heard that the make your own drives don't work on the newer Series consoles. I have one coming soon so I plan to try that out.
@@xXFULLFU210NXx Unfortunately I can't say definitively at what point in time these DIY drives quit working with Series consoles. I can tell you that they work fine with all 3 of the day 1 Series X consoles I have in my house. I've just heard from other content creators that the drives won't work with later versions. I'll see if I can find out more specifics on that... I was chatting with one guy quite a bit, i'll see if I can find out when he got his Series X. I'll have a new one in a couple weeks, and of course I'll test to see if the drive is functional with it. I'll post an update video once I have that console.
Just FYI... I got my new console, and I've tested my DIY expansion cards and all three work flawlessly. I'll be doing a quick video about that asap. As part of that vid I'll link to the drives that will work.
PLEASE READ THE UPDATE BELOW!!! As of June 2024, the compatible 1TB drives are showing up again on eBay at roughly $20 - $30 USD less than they were previously. This development has made this method a more attractive option again.
UPDATE 2024-10-22: Unfortunately, the newer NVMe's that have shown up on ebay have newer firmware than the drives I have which apparently blocks the ability to use them as expansion cards. So, to make your own working drive you'll need to find an older one from a 2020 - 2021 console is my guess. I purchased my drives in 2022... but without a hard date to know what works and what doesn't it's better to be safe than sorry and just go with the official drives. This is a real crap move by Microsoft.
Thanks to @zaneiken07 for bringing this to my attention.
Any way you can make one I’ll buy it I just don’t wanna pay 400$ cad for the 2tb card
@@theboysandme3141 It's definitely a more affordable method than the Seagate or WD drives. I do know that some people have had issues with this method, but I honestly think it comes down to the housing/adapter not working correctly. I've just finished editing a follow up video where I go over that, along with demonstrating that the drives I made work fine with the newest Xbox Series hardware. I'll be posting that video tomorrow.
Excellent Video Mental! This reminds me of the old XBOX ONE X/S SSD videos I used to make a few years ago! One day, I will try your method out for the Series X/S!
It worked great when I did it. Unfortunately the required 2 Channel NVMe's are really hard to find right now. It's so bizarre that they were readily available a year ago, only to be non-existent now. Make the conspiracy part of my brain wonder if Microsoft had been buying the up to wipe the market out, & to have them for their own refurb consoles.
I've found some different adapters, ones with cables & 2280 NVMe size support, but unfortunately none of them down convert 4 channels to 2 channels. I wish MS would get their heads outta their ass long enough to realize that a proper adapter like that would be a huge consumer friendly move by them.
@caffeineentertainment it seemed like a good idea at first, but those prices like you said man, just never came down when the rest of the market sunk like a rock!
@@TheGameComplainers For the average person, it is a good idea, makes it really easy to add storage. The problem is the 2-channel niche drive requirement. Even going with this method... the 2 channel drives just never followed the massive price decline that the standard drives experienced.
I would hope that Microsoft realizes it wasn't the best idea ever. They put themselves into a situation where I'm sure the NVMe in the consoles is costing them more money than it's worth, because of a) the 2-channel aspect and b) the 2230 form factor. If they had designed it a bit differently so that, a) they could have used a 2280 drive internally that leveraged all 4 channels and, b) added a secondary chip to support 4 PCI-E lanes to the external drive, overall I'd bet their BOM would have come down significantly enough to more than compensate for whatever their additional upfront costs would have been at launch to make those 2 changes. Even just having the standard 4 channel drive support would have helped a lot overall assuming they stayed with the 2230 form factor. The bonus of using a standard 4 channel drive is they'd have had almost identical throughput capability to the PS5 at 4800MBps, negating the "SSD" narrative hehe...
@@caffeineentertainmentAgreed! I hope MS learns this for their next console, but let's see. If the next console is still backwards compatible, they will have to keep the slot for this expanded memory. Such a mess, you nailed it right on the head when you said the PlayStation 5 did the storage best.
I upgraded the internal storage of my Series S with one of those drives. Moving the old 512GB internal drive to the expansion adapter gave me 420GB of usable space - 36GB less than the retail WD expansion.
That's great to hear. I was thinking about buying a Series S just to try that, now I don't have too!
I'm curious as to what cloning software you used to clone the hidden partition on the Series S drive over to the 1TB (so the S wouldn't reject the drive) and what method you used. IE bit by bit, sector by sector etc.. ?
I followed this:
th-cam.com/video/JDn4k1DxNV8/w-d-xo.htmlsi=8ePv_V0AS1025Et5
@@caffeineentertainment I used a program called Macrium Reflect. There's a tutorial video but TH-cam won't allow links.
@@zaneiken07 Thanks, I appreciate the info!
nice adapter and tutorial brands abuse the customers its like the adapter for nintendo switch also solves and issue with their games and storage on the console
Thanks for the feedback!
It's really unfortunate that Microsoft decided to go the anti-consumer route of firmware locking the newer drives so that they don't work as an external. I've been looking for a way to extract the firmware from the drives that I have, thinking it might be possible to flash the newer drives with the older firmware. No success at this point, plus I would think that someone would have likely tried that by now.
At this point, the only way you'll be successful using this method is if you can be sure you get a drive from a launch Series X. Or at least something from the eariest machines. I made my external drives in early 2022, but I have no idea how old the drives were at that time. So in light of that, I wouldn't recommend it, and it's just a safer move to get a Seagate or Western digital. Like I said, very anti consumer by Microsoft/Xbox. I really wish someone would build and adapter like I described in the video...
@@caffeineentertainment this is not new when i buy the x360 the usb or external drives only support up to 16gb of storage doing the method with the software of the console in that time was share files for 160gb 320gb and 500gb if you buy a compatible case for the internal hdd but for prevent data loss i buy the original drives and usb for x360 but they abuse with the prices maybe with a bios backup reader can be saved that firmware the process its like when you recover a motherboard or flash new nand memory for the m1 mac mini i recently download an iso of linux emulating the OS for the steamdeck but for instalation on pc with amd video card so everything its possible.
Awesome he is gonna be on @The Game Complainers
Tonights the night!
Does this allow you to play the games off it with an error?
If you're getting an error, it really depends on that circumstances. As stated in the description of the video, the newest drives you can find on e.Bay are firmware locked to not work as external drives. In that case no, you won't be able to use it for games. It's a lousy move by Microsoft if you ask me.
I do know of some issues whereby it's come down to a faulty housing, in those cases replacing the housing fixed the problem.
All said though, unless you can be guaranteed that the drive you're purchasing is one of the early editions, it's not worth the risk at this point. Again, it's unfortunate, it's really not hard to do and would allow people to save a few dollars. Sadly Microsoft doesn't want people to be able to do that, and are forcing you to purchase their propriatary solution.
$150 U.S. for the WD 1TB expansion.
It's encouraging to see them coming down in price. They're still over $200 here in Canada, and I can buy a 1TB SSSTC for just over $100 CAD ($80 USD) now, along with the $15 CAD ($12 USD) for the housing. That said, I've heard that the make your own drives don't work on the newer Series consoles. I have one coming soon so I plan to try that out.
When you say the newer series consoles what exactly are you referring to? Also could you please link to a suitable SSD?
@@xXFULLFU210NXx Unfortunately I can't say definitively at what point in time these DIY drives quit working with Series consoles. I can tell you that they work fine with all 3 of the day 1 Series X consoles I have in my house.
I've just heard from other content creators that the drives won't work with later versions. I'll see if I can find out more specifics on that... I was chatting with one guy quite a bit, i'll see if I can find out when he got his Series X.
I'll have a new one in a couple weeks, and of course I'll test to see if the drive is functional with it. I'll post an update video once I have that console.
Just FYI... I got my new console, and I've tested my DIY expansion cards and all three work flawlessly. I'll be doing a quick video about that asap. As part of that vid I'll link to the drives that will work.
@@caffeineentertainment that's great news! Thanks for that