If you have questions, check here first as they may have been answered already. Update: Not sure of how recently this has happened but it appears Microsoft offers an offline update option which should bypass the need to run a script. support.xbox.com/help/hardware-network/console/system-update-solution/offline-system-update ✏What SSD did you use? www.sandisk.com/home/ssd/ssd-plus We used the 960GB variant ✏What is the spec of the SSD? SATA 3.0; sequential read up to 535 MB/s; sequential write up to 450 MB/s ✏The Xbox One uses SATA II . . . or is it SATA III Here's what we know . . . th-cam.com/video/bp5oMOboMzI/w-d-xo.html ✏Will this work on (other version of Xbox One)? We have yet to do so, but according to our sources, this process should work the same on all versions of the Xbox One ✏Is there an SSD size limit? Yes. The largest standard size it'll use is 2TB. You can go bigger but after 2 it gets a little wonky. And as far as we know, you can go as low as 500GB. ✏Can I use a (name brand) drive? As far as we understand, any SATA SSD that is within known size limits should work. ✏I heard Microsoft doesn't allow drive swapping. Microsoft allows replacement of the internal storage, they're just not going to make it easy. ✏What if I put something other than the Xbox files on the drive (Windows OS, random files, blank etc.)? Probably nothing? Let us know if you try and we'll do the same. ✏(External/Internal) is better because (X) A valid argument can be made for both methods. It's really a matter of preference. ✏PS4 makes it easier to do this. That seems to be the case. We definitely plan on giving it a go. ✏How would this perform with (other game, 360 game). We can only speak to the performance of the games tested. Though in most cases, you could likely expect similar results. ✏Can you fix my Xbox (or other console, PC, etc..). Sorry, no.. Of course, if you have a question not listed above, we will still do our best to answer them.
You don't have to clone the drive. You can put in an ssd formatted to ntfs, then just do an offline update. Only requires a 6gb thumb drive to get the files from microsoft website to your xbox. I used samsung 860 evo 1 tb. Unsure if other capacities work due to lack of funds for more drives. August 2020
@@LouisDuran It would appear the limiting factor is the interface. Even with an NVMe, there was no additional improvement. You can see that attempt here --> th-cam.com/video/ZU19bqftYiQ/w-d-xo.html
I’m happy that you ran 3 separate tests on each option, how it was presented in the graphs with separate sections. This was a very informational video and has helped make an informed decision
I installed an SSD into my Xbox One X early this year and changed the thermal paste (Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut) on the APU. I would like to say that my console runs really quiet even while gaming in some games.
Extremely Pleased to say that the upgrade process for me has been a huge success. Thanks for the videos and source guide link for xfix's channel for the tear down and powrshell script. The performance of my xbox has dramatically improved with load times even more so than my ps4 pro that also upgraded to an ssd.
Subbed! Content like this potentially saves us money and forces console manufacturers to improve their products. I hope you do a Series X external SSD test showing game load times and whether or not Quick Play functions. I'll be doing this test myself, but I don't film for TH-cam.
Test results for the PS4 Pro will be up soon. There are plans to do testing on the Series X as soon as it launches, we'll cover both the internal as well as the optional proprietary external SSD to see if it's worth it compared to a regular USB drive. PS5 will follow at a later date. Stay Tuned . . .
thanks for sharing these interesting results ... I am already using an external SSD and was wondering if I can speed up with an internal as well. Your results showed that it only significantly improves boot times - Thank you so much - you saved me a lot of work :) Kudos to you!
30 seconds might not seem like a lot but throughout a whole game that difference in load time will be noticeable. glad you showed the difference in several games
This is neat info. Thanks for making it. Now, did you or could you do a test on stuff like "texture pop in" and similar things where the SSD should really come in hot?
Easiest way is to simply clone the drive from the Xbox to the new SSD. Put in the cloned SSD and your good to go. If you do not have the docking station there are other ways to clone. That being said you can go to the Xbox website and download the software and put it on a Flash drive and install it that way. Xbox One S and X are easy they just need one download. The Original Xbox One is a little bit more tricky as it requires 2 downloads to complete. Good video I enjoyed it and this info I just posted I learned recently so it was probably not well known at the time of this video:P
The fact you added the comparison of the external as well.. is a massive help. I’m still going to exchange the internal with an SSD for my OneX because I’ll probably stare my external HDD between OneX and Series X as I’m assuming they will use the same format.
I think it's a pretty accurate video and well informative, I will swap the internal hdd with an ssd anyhow to hopefully improve significantly the boot time and the os response time, also I don't want to have an extra device attached to the console that somebody can hit and disconnect while it's on.
I'm very glad you did the 3-way comparison. While I have, in the past, done the difficult sector copies (using DD on the original Xbox back in the day), clones, mods, etc. As I have become lazier in my old age I am totally ok with just doing the USB external.
Appreciate the work you put into this video. I think the only benefit of having an internal ssd would be for the original Xbox One. That thing needed all the help it could get. Sad i had to part with it but getting myself the One X was worth it.
A very nice and thorough test indeed. I appreciate the detail and mentioning how you made sure to put it through system updates as people were once very worried about those issues. The only difference I really wanted to see was for download times and speeds, and if there was really a difference there or not when compared to an External SSD. But with the Series X hopefully being better in stock soon, I may just save my money and use it elsewhere instead. Maybe a NVMe for my PC or putting it towards a CPU or GPU upgrade, or even getting a Series X itself. Much appreciated though, definitely earned a sub from me for helping me save my money. 1.5 TB of external SSD storage is plenty for me.
Thanks, glad you found it useful! The reason we haven't done anything with download times is that, at least for now, our download speeds are the limiting factor. It may be worth looking in to as quite a bit of time has passed. However, there is an additional drive test now. On the Series X, we tested the speed to copy from the internal to various external drives in our latest video.
When you tested the External SSD, did you have the internal SSD installed or the internal HDD installed? I feel like there should be four tests total. An external SSD test for each internal drive, a test for the onboard SSD and a test for the Internal SSD. Did the internal SSD made the dashboard snappier? I'm wondering if it's worth replacing my Internal HDD for an Internal SSD.
Had to replace a corrupted X HDD a few months ago so swapped in an SSD. Almost 4 months to the day the NEW one corrupted so bad my computer couldn't even read it. The OS is not very robust against failed updates, I have to say. Anyways, luckily the X is fairly easy to open up, so a couple hours was all it took to reformat and reinstall
So, just reformatted my internal dtove for thr 4th or 5th time. I'm about 90% sure that the 8GB NAND flash chip on the motherboard has bad sectors that are causing the catastrophic update issue that keeps crashing the internal drive. Happened with the 1910 update today. The chip I'm referring to is the SK Hynix H26M42003GMR 8 GB eMMC NAND Flash and I don't know if swapping it with a new one (not an easy process in itself) would even be possible.
I think I’m gonna do an internal SSD install after seeing these videos. The quieter operation, albeit marginally better performance in some areas over external, and preserving the clean look of the Xbox one x all sell it for me. Also I have a 1TB SSD to spare
Thank you for such a great video "series." Like many here I was looking into the update and going with a larger drive on the XB one X. With your results I don't see the hassle being worth it....now get it to support 4-6 tb internal SSD and I'm all in. With my research I run across some video's that explained games take a compressed file and decompress that using CPU and Memory. So... your equal times between HDD and SSD is that game play area. The HDD, SSD is not the limit and strictly CPU (AKA No difference even with better drive installed). Keep up the great video content! W.
Thank you! I've made a lot research and by the datasheet, Xbox does'n have a sata controller, It uses a USB 3.0 to sata bridge, what means that the rate limit of ~280MB/s, instead of ~500MB/s of a regular sata 3 SSD.
Interesting, That makes sense. That certainly gets us closer to the numbers we got in our test. It's too bad Microsoft doesn't share this information and we are relegated to deductive reasoning. Thanks for sharing!
@@RealNeatGames it's so sad. Sony did the same on PS4. I think that is some mandatory spec from AMD APU. The datasheet i found, everything was connected to USB 3.0 controller and this USB controller directly to AMD APU and southbridge.
@@RealNeatGames i'm trying to find it. I've found on my Chrome bookmarked pages, the site Eurogamer.net showing FailOverflow explaining this. www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-playstation-4-hack-confirmed-watch-the-linux-demo
Great test. I have all my games on an ext SSD and was wondering if I can get even better improvements with internal SSD. It turns out the diff is only 1-3 secs so I'm fine with that and won't bother.
Based on this my plan is to move my games to an external SSD, and just use the internal for the system. Doesn't seem worth voiding the warranty for what amounts to a small difference between internal and external SSD.
I fitted a 1TB SSD to a Xbox One X, primarily because the hard drive failed. Being that I'd have to take the old one out before putting it all back together, it made sense to do it. Took the time to clean, change the thermal paste and generally refresh the console. Also fitted one to a One S, but that's because I wanted more internal space and I had a spare 2TB SSD hanging around from a client who wanted a upgrade for the laptop and then cancelled. Simple.
Hey great video! I'm not planning on upgrading to next gen but I do plan on doing something like this if it improves the general system responsiveness. Did you notice load times between apps and going through the UI snappier and more responsive?
Not really. The only significant improvement noticed was in load times. However, no measurements were made beyond load times so there may be a slight improvement but not enough to draw ones attention.
I’m Really considering doing this to my 1X as well but I just got a gaming pc with a 1tb ssd. Good video and it makes me still consider doing it just for fun. Would you say it would be a big difference if I just buy an external one and go through the usb3 port?
Great Video, although not much of a difference in SSD connectivity I would much rather do it internally just because I'd like to take apart the console for learning experience.
The loading parts where the SSD didn't seem to help is almost certainly when the xbox wasn't reading from the drive like uncompressing textures into RAM or other large files that are compressed to save space.
Do you have the equipment to test the fps in warzone compared the internal HDD to a SSD? Because it loads and feels way better on even an external HDD. Even Textures also loading way faster. I bet there also is a FPS boost too!!
I've changed the default seagate 1TB from my XB1X with Samsung EVO 860 SSD, and the only bad part seems to be the latency recorded when you do it using the test from the settings menu. Before I was around 45-47 ms and now it's around 200 ms. But overall the OS feels a lot better in responsiveness and transition. The latency seems to be the only issue with an internal SSD.
If you get an external drive, the cable that comes with is good. If you don't have that, most USB cables should work fine, USB 3 (the blue plug) would be ideal.
My launch day Scorpio edition internal drive is faulty, so rather than pay Microsoft around £200 to replace it with whatever is on the shelf, I've decided to keep my mint Scorpio and replace the drive myself with a 500 GB SSD to get it back running and to help it run a little cooler without a mechanical drive. I went for 500 GB to keep the cost down and because I run my games from an external drive, so don't really need the internal storage. Got all the bits I need to do it and just need to make time to get it done now.
Has there been any progress on a definitive answer on the SATA interface? In my own opinion I believe it might actually be an SATA III interface. USB 3.0 performs at 4.8Gb/s while SATA III is 6Gb/s. Although your results were nearly identical between the 2 SSDs, USB 3.0 vs SATA II has a much larger performance gap than USB 3.0 to SATA III. While neither situation explains the near identical results, SATA III seems to me, to lend itself as the more likely candidate. Thoughts?
@@RealNeatGames I saw that link, but it was a year old and hoped you had made progress. I've been trying to find where the traces on the board go from the m2 location to their various end points but have been completely unsuccessful as well as being unsuccessful in determining the capacitor sizes needed. One with 500 ohm resistance maybe but that doesn't help very much.
Cool video man! I wonder if External SSD’s will be an option for Xbox Series X? I have a Game Drive 4 TB HDD... that for all purposes I think is broken. - I’m not really sure how I’d test it... but what I do know is I can’t run my Xbox One X when it’s plugged in. The console won’t recognize the controller when it’s plugged in, so I can’t even gauge if the console recognizes it. - And if I plug it in after I boot the console, the external drive isn’t recognized. Hoping SSD is more reliable. I had my Game drive for I think just under 2 years and now it doesn’t seem to work. Still powers on, but it’s not usable.
I'm surprised the boot up time isn't even faster with internal SSD. But navigating all the various menus, store etc. would surely be noticeably quicker with SSD as well?
if you optimize the drive in windows before you move it to the xbox, the boot time i've often gotten (ive testing it many times since the change) is between 26-32 seconds. form cold boot to desktop UI. navigating the menus is instant. almost no pause between my pressing a button and the menu moving. or loading.
I would love to see the Results for Borderlands 2 and 3. There are some scenarios where you have to close and start the Game on repeat. Farming a Sand hawk as an example.I don't need the comparison just the time you have. In case you own the Games of course. Oh btw i really like this video its more than informative. Good job
Would love to see an updated video comparing this time along side the series s for those debating updating but on the fence bc I think they’ll be similar times
We don't have the Series S, but we do have the X, with which we are currently testing. From a storage stand point, they should be similar performance since they both use the same drive technology. We are comparing it with the One X and OG Xbone, stay tuned.
I’m new to the channel. I am installing a Samsung Evo 1tb SDD internal (spending a lot of money) did I make a mistake? I see everyone doing external SSD but my HDD failed and I had no choice , it’s in the shop awaiting delivery, please tell me your thoughts (bottlenecking, too much money on a good SDD? Etc.) thanks in advance
Have you redone all these tests, since Xbox officially provided firmware from their website for clean installs on new/replacement hard drives , which was this year?
I'm wondering if you noticed gameplay being affected. Like, due to the SSD if pop-in is lessened or other graphical things that involved streaming from a local drive.
The Xbox (and I think the PS4 too but I'm not 100% sure off the top of my head) actually caps the I O speed. So peak throughout is the same no matter on the type of drive or how it is connected. The only part that gives you a speed increase with the SSD is the much reduced random read and write times. This will be why certain sections of loading won't have shown much or any difference. They will have been loading large files where the random read speed won't many much or any difference.
@@RealNeatGames Unfortunately I don't remember where I read it. With that knowledge though it becomes obvious how they can boast such a grand increase for the next generation. I don't know this as a fact but I'm sure the reason for limiting the bandwidth is to create parity between different types of drives and SATA vs USB3. So I don't personally mind so much that they did this. If you are wondering. From memory the data throughput that I remember I'd 60 megabytes/second for the Xbox One X, which you may remember actually boasted an increase in IO over the vanilla console. Which would put the One and One S at around 45 mb/s (I think, maybe 50?). If you run the numbers on load times that actually works out about right, given that One has around 5 gigs for developers and the X has 9 gigs. I did a little googling but on a quick search I couldn't find where I read about this. Take it with a pinch of salt as I have not seen it from official documentation. I just tend to absorb information like this and as I said running the numbers adds up give or take. Sorry I couldn't be more help though.
No worries. Yeah, there definitely going to lean into the loading on next gen. One part of the equation we're missing is we haven't tested other versions of the Xbox One. This makes sense though. We'll keep digging but this definitely gives us something to go on. Thanks for sharing!
These results are bloody impressive, actually, I wonder if you're not better off just putting an SSD into an X instead of upgrading to Series-X, and wait for cheaper discounts down the line, sure would be a hell of a lot cheaper.
Did you change the thermal paste for the one x? I placed liquid metal on mine a month ago and it does seem to run smoother in game. Thermalnconstraints are one of all console problems.
LM causes the copper on the heatsink to create an alloy. Gallium alloy fuses with copper. probably not a good idea, as you'll eventually damage the heatsink. you'll see benefits for maybe the first year possibly 2 but once its fully formed you'll have a new metal between the copper and chip sometimes this new metal can cause insulation keeping heat right where it is and over heating your system. I've not used another thermal paste on my system as of yet. but I'd use a High Thermal Conductivity paste. not Artic silver 5. because its only 8.9w/mk transfer conductivity this is quite poor for a high performance device. I bought Prolimitechs PK1 compund over 12 years ago i still have over 30g left. i use it on everything. its got a heat Conductivity of 10.2w/mk they have a nano particle version of their non conductive (electrically) paste now that transfers 11.2w/mk completely wipes the floor in performance to the standard paste on CPU coolers. I've used it for water cooling, GPUs and PS3s its always done a fantastic job and does zero damage to the components over time. i did my PS3 ... yikes 7 years ago, and it still runs under 55 degrees under load. when a paste is applied correctly. its can out do alot of other corrosive alternatives. (i've been a computer hardware maintenance technician for over 15 years)
Yeah uuh. If I change the internal drive with a SSD. Don't it need like a back up or some sort of date on it to begin with? System wise? Would love to put in a SSD and external SSD. But need to know if a have to do a copy or anything from the main HDD.
You do need to copy data over. Here is the link to the data transfer process --> th-cam.com/video/xBvGFUaOGB4/w-d-xo.html If you use this method, everything you need will be on the new drive.
Hello, can you help me figure this? I've got 2 SanDisk SSD Plus recently and decided to use one to run games on my Xbox One S. I bought a SSD/HDD (2.5) to USB 3.0 adapter from eBay - it does perform well, on computer, compling with the USB 3.0' speeds, however, even while it transferred games really fast from my original Xbox's HDD, the loading speeds aren't much faster. I've used a timer to count the time and, pretty much, the loading takes the same time as on HDD. This happens on all games i've tested yet I'm thinking that, even with the SSD plugged into the USB 3.0 ports, the console is pretty much using the internal HDD to load the game, even if i filter by "SSD" on the dashboard. Did you have to remove the games from internal HDD to make use of the SSD? Thanks for the help!
whats not covered in the script videos is that you need to optimize the partitions before installing it again into the Xbox. under windows. > go to file explorer. > this PC > right click any drive >select properties > Select tools > selection optimize ( may need to be pressed a 2nd time if admin rights are required) > optimize each of the partitions of the xbox drive one by one > reinstall drive to the xbox > profit. I did this and it changed my SSD boot time from 52 seconds to 27 seconds. from cold boot. and having instant on turned off.
Just wondering was your load time for Grand Theft Auto 5 just loading straight into story mode? Because I’ve tested my external Samsung 1tb 860 QVO and it loaded story mode in exactly 30 seconds from launching the game.
Impressive. We're still on the legal notice screen at 30 seconds. Sounds like there's something we could be doing differently. Is there anything else different about your setup or is it just the SSD?
Real Neat Games it’s literally just a 1tb Samsung QVO connected through a USB 3.0 to sata. Also about 400gb of space left on the ssd. I also have a 4tb external hard drive connected but that wouldn’t effect the ssd speeds.
Real Neat Games also if it would matter which it shouldn’t the ssd is connected to the back USB port not the front. But they are all the same speed so I would think that wouldn’t effect it.
Which hard drive is recommended, i.e. one with a fast write speed (the higher the better?) Or does the One X have a write limit? Sorry for my bad Englisch:(
I've been wanting to do a ssd upgarde with all the old generation systems for quite some time as they have better upload time for the games and it will be awhile before I get the new generation systems and I just enjoy playing my games and like doing stuff like this.
i have no idea how you optimized your SSD. but mine boots from cold boot in 27 seconds. I'm guessing you forgot to use the optimize option in windows after you transferred your drive over. or if it was installed fresh, I guess the xbox can't use Trim to optimize the drive after its first boot. First time i cloned my drive using Xfix's script, it was only a little faster than my original. similar to your drive results here. but after taking it out of the xbox and plugging it back into my pc, and optimizing the drive partitions one by one. i seen a huge boost in load times for everything. could also be the quality of the drive. Sandisk don't have a nand cache iirc. this may slow down access speed of the data.
Just wait until the games and operating system are designed with an SSD in mind. Measuring SSD speeds in naive situations always disappoint compared to theoretical speeds. This is because you need to implement low-level system drivers and low-overhead software APIs to read data blocks on the SSD efficiently. If you store your data in lots of individual files, there is huge waste in storage space and read bandwidth because files have to occupy a multiple of data blocks, which are like 4KB, 8KB, or bigger. For game data, it will make sense to use huge files with very large data blocks. You could just read an entire level straight off SSD into memory as just a long series of blocks with no wasted space and get perfect read bandwidth (gigabytes per second).
I've been having regular e105 problems with my one X (have reset it repeatedly to factory). Was thinking of upgrading the internal. (Already have an external SSD). But with the one X only having a SATA II connector to the HD, I wondered whether a 2.5 7200rpm HDD would be more cost effective, an improvement on the 5400rpm stock. Because SSD is system limited?
You make an interesting point. The console was not tested with a higher rpm HDD. It is possible that the gains seen in that could be comparable to an SSD given the circumstances. Due to having not tested, no assertions can be made by us. Should you decide to go that route, we would love to hear of your findings.
![The Wall Song ร้องข้ามกำแพง | EP.215 | พาเวล นเรศ - พูห์ กฤติน | 17 ต.ค. 67 [1/5]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/IUzrjuf60P4/mqdefault.jpg)
If you have questions, check here first as they may have been answered already.
Update: Not sure of how recently this has happened but it appears Microsoft offers an offline update option which should bypass the need to run a script.
support.xbox.com/help/hardware-network/console/system-update-solution/offline-system-update
✏What SSD did you use?
www.sandisk.com/home/ssd/ssd-plus We used the 960GB variant
✏What is the spec of the SSD?
SATA 3.0; sequential read up to 535 MB/s; sequential write up to 450 MB/s
✏The Xbox One uses SATA II . . . or is it SATA III
Here's what we know . . . th-cam.com/video/bp5oMOboMzI/w-d-xo.html
✏Will this work on (other version of Xbox One)?
We have yet to do so, but according to our sources, this process should work the same on all versions of the Xbox One
✏Is there an SSD size limit?
Yes. The largest standard size it'll use is 2TB. You can go bigger but after 2 it gets a little wonky. And as far as we know, you can go as low as 500GB.
✏Can I use a (name brand) drive?
As far as we understand, any SATA SSD that is within known size limits should work.
✏I heard Microsoft doesn't allow drive swapping.
Microsoft allows replacement of the internal storage, they're just not going to make it easy.
✏What if I put something other than the Xbox files on the drive (Windows OS, random files, blank etc.)?
Probably nothing? Let us know if you try and we'll do the same.
✏(External/Internal) is better because (X)
A valid argument can be made for both methods. It's really a matter of preference.
✏PS4 makes it easier to do this.
That seems to be the case. We definitely plan on giving it a go.
✏How would this perform with (other game, 360 game).
We can only speak to the performance of the games tested. Though in most cases, you could likely expect similar results.
✏Can you fix my Xbox (or other console, PC, etc..).
Sorry, no..
Of course, if you have a question not listed above, we will still do our best to answer them.
You don't have to clone the drive. You can put in an ssd formatted to ntfs, then just do an offline update. Only requires a 6gb thumb drive to get the files from microsoft website to your xbox.
I used samsung 860 evo 1 tb.
Unsure if other capacities work due to lack of funds for more drives.
August 2020
Do you think using an SSD with faster specs would have made a difference, or were you running into the limitations of the SATA3 interface?
@@LouisDuran It would appear the limiting factor is the interface. Even with an NVMe, there was no additional improvement.
You can see that attempt here --> th-cam.com/video/ZU19bqftYiQ/w-d-xo.html
Dude. You nailed what actually needed to be tested. Without this I'd be ripping console apart for no good reason. Sending you a free air guitar!
It’s really not that hard and the start up time reduction is well worth it
@@abasiczombie. Not to mention the drive will need to be replaced anyways when it dies. Might as well put an SSD in before it comes to that.
I'm going to install internal anyway. More sleek. Quiter, more reliable and also a good time to replace the thermal paste
I really appreciate that you waited until you determined stability before following up. And so many tests!
I’m happy that you ran 3 separate tests on each option, how it was presented in the graphs with separate sections. This was a very informational video and has helped make an informed decision
I installed an SSD into my Xbox One X early this year and changed the thermal paste (Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut) on the APU. I would like to say that my console runs really quiet even while gaming in some games.
What type and size is the SSD?
Same here! Used Artic Silver 5 and a Samsung QVO 1TB SSD. It’s super easy! And really quiet now!
Tyson Edwards Considering doing this since my hard drive just broke. Do you setup an ssd the same you would a hdd?
Is the internal ssd better than external ssd? If so, why is that?
Optimus Prime Xbox boots quicker
Thanks for doing this. Love my external, and knowing the internal only really impacts boot time reinforces my decision.
Extremely Pleased to say that the upgrade process for me has been a huge success. Thanks for the videos and source guide link for xfix's channel for the tear down and powrshell script. The performance of my xbox has dramatically improved with load times even more so than my ps4 pro that also upgraded to an ssd.
Subbed! Content like this potentially saves us money and forces console manufacturers to improve their products. I hope you do a Series X external SSD test showing game load times and whether or not Quick Play functions. I'll be doing this test myself, but I don't film for TH-cam.
Test results for the PS4 Pro will be up soon. There are plans to do testing on the Series X as soon as it launches, we'll cover both the internal as well as the optional proprietary external SSD to see if it's worth it compared to a regular USB drive. PS5 will follow at a later date.
Stay Tuned . . .
Swap both my OG ONE and ONE S but got lazy on the X, looks like I'm not missing out anything. Thanks for the video and all the test!
thanks for sharing these interesting results ... I am already using an external SSD and was wondering if I can speed up with an internal as well. Your results showed that it only significantly improves boot times - Thank you so much - you saved me a lot of work :) Kudos to you!
this was extremely helpful. the graphs u up. were just what i needed
Watching this after new gen has released, it basically makes it into an Xbox Series S with an optical drive
great review. for the ones with a short time, go directly to 04:35 so you can compare hdd times vs internal ssd and external ssd.
Thankful for your contribution boss - Subbed & Fan 4 Ever! 😎🍾🍻🤙🏼🔥
30 seconds might not seem like a lot but throughout a whole game that difference in load time will be noticeable. glad you showed the difference in several games
This is neat info. Thanks for making it.
Now, did you or could you do a test on stuff like "texture pop in" and similar things where the SSD should really come in hot?
We would definitely like to. We're trying to find a way to to test it reliably and consistently.
Easiest way is to simply clone the drive from the Xbox to the new SSD. Put in the cloned SSD and your good to go. If you do not have the docking station there are other ways to clone. That being said you can go to the Xbox website and download the software and put it on a Flash drive and install it that way. Xbox One S and X are easy they just need one download. The Original Xbox One is a little bit more tricky as it requires 2 downloads to complete. Good video I enjoyed it and this info I just posted I learned recently so it was probably not well known at the time of this video:P
It’s 2021 and I still find this helpful. Thank you! I have a 2GBps USB NVMe and I will stick with the external setup based on this.
N7 - ME One of the best games I ever played! Very useful content, thank you!
The fact you added the comparison of the external as well.. is a massive help. I’m still going to exchange the internal with an SSD for my OneX because I’ll probably stare my external HDD between OneX and Series X as I’m assuming they will use the same format.
I’m a little late to the SSD swap on my XBOX One X, but this video was very insightful. Thanks 👍
just wanted to say this video is ABSOLUTELY PERFECT. please make all of the videos for everyone 🤷🏼♂️
I think it's a pretty accurate video and well informative, I will swap the internal hdd with an ssd anyhow to hopefully improve significantly the boot time and the os response time, also I don't want to have an extra device attached to the console that somebody can hit and disconnect while it's on.
Excellent, truly excellent, I watch a lot of tech review/comparison vids on youtube, and this is one of the most clear ever - keep up the good work!
I'm very glad you did the 3-way comparison. While I have, in the past, done the difficult sector copies (using DD on the original Xbox back in the day), clones, mods, etc. As I have become lazier in my old age I am totally ok with just doing the USB external.
Nice video and easy to follow. Some good information here. Thank you for the upload.
I appreciate you doing this i've been thinking about doing it for a while but i didn't know if it was really worth it or not on console.
Upvote for the Mass Effect hoodie!😎 And yes, I cracked my system open and there is a big difference between HDD and an internal SSD!
Appreciate the work you put into this video. I think the only benefit of having an internal ssd would be for the original Xbox One. That thing needed all the help it could get. Sad i had to part with it but getting myself the One X was worth it.
A very nice and thorough test indeed. I appreciate the detail and mentioning how you made sure to put it through system updates as people were once very worried about those issues. The only difference I really wanted to see was for download times and speeds, and if there was really a difference there or not when compared to an External SSD. But with the Series X hopefully being better in stock soon, I may just save my money and use it elsewhere instead. Maybe a NVMe for my PC or putting it towards a CPU or GPU upgrade, or even getting a Series X itself. Much appreciated though, definitely earned a sub from me for helping me save my money. 1.5 TB of external SSD storage is plenty for me.
Thanks, glad you found it useful! The reason we haven't done anything with download times is that, at least for now, our download speeds are the limiting factor. It may be worth looking in to as quite a bit of time has passed.
However, there is an additional drive test now. On the Series X, we tested the speed to copy from the internal to various external drives in our latest video.
I know this is an old video but still helpful to me today. Thanks!
Thanks bruh, this was exactly what I needed to see to make a decision.
When you tested the External SSD, did you have the internal SSD installed or the internal HDD installed? I feel like there should be four tests total. An external SSD test for each internal drive, a test for the onboard SSD and a test for the Internal SSD. Did the internal SSD made the dashboard snappier? I'm wondering if it's worth replacing my Internal HDD for an Internal SSD.
Had to replace a corrupted X HDD a few months ago so swapped in an SSD. Almost 4 months to the day the NEW one corrupted so bad my computer couldn't even read it. The OS is not very robust against failed updates, I have to say. Anyways, luckily the X is fairly easy to open up, so a couple hours was all it took to reformat and reinstall
So, just reformatted my internal dtove for thr 4th or 5th time. I'm about 90% sure that the 8GB NAND flash chip on the motherboard has bad sectors that are causing the catastrophic update issue that keeps crashing the internal drive. Happened with the 1910 update today. The chip I'm referring to is the SK Hynix H26M42003GMR 8 GB eMMC NAND Flash and I don't know if swapping it with a new one (not an easy process in itself) would even be possible.
cryangallegos was this after error E102/105?
I think I’m gonna do an internal SSD install after seeing these videos. The quieter operation, albeit marginally better performance in some areas over external, and preserving the clean look of the Xbox one x all sell it for me. Also I have a 1TB SSD to spare
Dont use cheap SSD, best sata3 for One X are MX 500 and 860 Evo
I have a xbox one s with 480gb ssd external and the difference is huge nice vídeo!
Thank you for such a great video "series." Like many here I was looking into the update and going with a larger drive on the XB one X.
With your results I don't see the hassle being worth it....now get it to support 4-6 tb internal SSD and I'm all in.
With my research I run across some video's that explained games take a compressed file and decompress that using CPU and Memory.
So... your equal times between HDD and SSD is that game play area. The HDD, SSD is not the limit and strictly CPU (AKA No difference even with better drive installed).
Keep up the great video content!
W.
No
Thanks for this. I was wondering about internal SSD loadtimes.
Thank you! I've made a lot research and by the datasheet, Xbox does'n have a sata controller, It uses a USB 3.0 to sata bridge, what means that the rate limit of ~280MB/s, instead of ~500MB/s of a regular sata 3 SSD.
Interesting, That makes sense. That certainly gets us closer to the numbers we got in our test. It's too bad Microsoft doesn't share this information and we are relegated to deductive reasoning. Thanks for sharing!
@@RealNeatGames it's so sad. Sony did the same on PS4. I think that is some mandatory spec from AMD APU.
The datasheet i found, everything was connected to USB 3.0 controller and this USB controller directly to AMD APU and southbridge.
Can you share a link to the datasheet?
@@RealNeatGames i'm trying to find it. I've found on my Chrome bookmarked pages, the site Eurogamer.net showing FailOverflow explaining this. www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-playstation-4-hack-confirmed-watch-the-linux-demo
Cool, looks like an interesting read. Digital Foundry does good work. Well if you're able to find the other thing, just link it here.
Thank you for this information. Good video!
Perfect video dude! Thanks for sharing this :)
Wow thank you ! Best X SSD review on youtube!
Great test. I have all my games on an ext SSD and was wondering if I can get even better improvements with internal SSD. It turns out the diff is only 1-3 secs so I'm fine with that and won't bother.
Hi, cool video! If I have an SSD, how can I connect it to the xbox? Sata to USB 3.0 adapter? Or will that make things a lot slower? THX!
A SATA to USB connection should work just fine.
Thanks for this. Glad I went with an external SSD!
First time watching, I must have looked at it backwards. I watched it again and now it makes sense! lol
Based on this my plan is to move my games to an external SSD, and just use the internal for the system. Doesn't seem worth voiding the warranty for what amounts to a small difference between internal and external SSD.
Great video! Greetings from Brazil! 🇧🇷🎮
this system came with an SSD was a steal back in 2019 at $299
Great video with detailed test results.
Just subscribed too! Good luck with the channel!
I fitted a 1TB SSD to a Xbox One X, primarily because the hard drive failed. Being that I'd have to take the old one out before putting it all back together, it made sense to do it. Took the time to clean, change the thermal paste and generally refresh the console.
Also fitted one to a One S, but that's because I wanted more internal space and I had a spare 2TB SSD hanging around from a client who wanted a upgrade for the laptop and then cancelled. Simple.
Thanks for this information 👍 and good luck
Hey great video! I'm not planning on upgrading to next gen but I do plan on doing something like this if it improves the general system responsiveness. Did you notice load times between apps and going through the UI snappier and more responsive?
Not really. The only significant improvement noticed was in load times. However, no measurements were made beyond load times so there may be a slight improvement but not enough to draw ones attention.
I’m
Really considering doing this to my 1X as well but I just got a gaming pc with a 1tb ssd. Good video and it makes me still consider doing it just for fun. Would you say it would be a big difference if I just buy an external one and go through the usb3 port?
Which pc
Great Video, although not much of a difference in SSD connectivity I would much rather do it internally just because I'd like to take apart the console for learning experience.
Appreciate this, thanks. 👍
The loading parts where the SSD didn't seem to help is almost certainly when the xbox wasn't reading from the drive like uncompressing textures into RAM or other large files that are compressed to save space.
Do you have the equipment to test the fps in warzone compared the internal HDD to a SSD? Because it loads and feels way better on even an external HDD. Even Textures also loading way faster. I bet there also is a FPS boost too!!
Maybe? Don't have Warzone, but we could give it a shot with a game we do have.
This guys really thorough thanks your the my new tech advisor
I've changed the default seagate 1TB from my XB1X with Samsung EVO 860 SSD, and the only bad part seems to be the latency recorded when you do it using the test from the settings menu. Before I was around 45-47 ms and now it's around 200 ms. But overall the OS feels a lot better in responsiveness and transition. The latency seems to be the only issue with an internal SSD.
The initial load dumps the games run files into ram. The parts that are all identical in time for SSD vs. HDD are files being run off the ram.
Daniel Murray very insightful
THANK YOU !!! great video
Hats off to ya bud! 👍🏼
very helpfull ! thank you for explaining!!
Very informative video thank you. What is the best cable to connect the external ssd with the xbox? Thank you
If you get an external drive, the cable that comes with is good. If you don't have that, most USB cables should work fine, USB 3 (the blue plug) would be ideal.
Great video and analysis, thanks for doing the hard work so i dont have to😂👍
You my good sir earned my sub
My launch day Scorpio edition internal drive is faulty, so rather than pay Microsoft around £200 to replace it with whatever is on the shelf, I've decided to keep my mint Scorpio and replace the drive myself with a 500 GB SSD to get it back running and to help it run a little cooler without a mechanical drive. I went for 500 GB to keep the cost down and because I run my games from an external drive, so don't really need the internal storage. Got all the bits I need to do it and just need to make time to get it done now.
Thank you great review
I heard Mass Effect style music so I looked up to the screen... Mass Effect hoodie!!
Good info here!
Nice pac-man ghost.
thx for the video, i was thinking about to exchange the internal drive, but know i let my system in the current state, external ssd ;-)
Thank you very much good information!
Has there been any progress on a definitive answer on the SATA interface? In my own opinion I believe it might actually be an SATA III interface. USB 3.0 performs at 4.8Gb/s while SATA III is 6Gb/s. Although your results were nearly identical between the 2 SSDs, USB 3.0 vs SATA II has a much larger performance gap than USB 3.0 to SATA III. While neither situation explains the near identical results, SATA III seems to me, to lend itself as the more likely candidate. Thoughts?
Everything we know up to this point you can find here > th-cam.com/video/bp5oMOboMzI/w-d-xo.html
@@RealNeatGames I saw that link, but it was a year old and hoped you had made progress. I've been trying to find where the traces on the board go from the m2 location to their various end points but have been completely unsuccessful as well as being unsuccessful in determining the capacitor sizes needed. One with 500 ohm resistance maybe but that doesn't help very much.
You may be confusing it with something else. The video in the link was posted last month.
Cool video man! I wonder if External SSD’s will be an option for Xbox Series X? I have a Game Drive 4 TB HDD... that for all purposes I think is broken. - I’m not really sure how I’d test it... but what I do know is I can’t run my Xbox One X when it’s plugged in. The console won’t recognize the controller when it’s plugged in, so I can’t even gauge if the console recognizes it. - And if I plug it in after I boot the console, the external drive isn’t recognized.
Hoping SSD is more reliable. I had my Game drive for I think just under 2 years and now it doesn’t seem to work. Still powers on, but it’s not usable.
Can't really speculate what may be causing your issues, but Series X will most certainly support external storage.
I'm surprised the boot up time isn't even faster with internal SSD. But navigating all the various menus, store etc. would surely be noticeably quicker with SSD as well?
if you optimize the drive in windows before you move it to the xbox, the boot time i've often gotten (ive testing it many times since the change) is between 26-32 seconds. form cold boot to desktop UI. navigating the menus is instant. almost no pause between my pressing a button and the menu moving. or loading.
I'm grateful for the information thanks
I would love to see the Results for Borderlands 2 and 3. There are some scenarios where you have to close and start the Game on repeat. Farming a Sand hawk as an example.I don't need the comparison just the time you have. In case you own the Games of course. Oh btw i really like this video its more than informative. Good job
Interesting idea. We'll see what we can do. And thanks for watching! Glad you like it 😄
Guy's a mass effect lover ♥️😁
Would love to see an updated video comparing this time along side the series s for those debating updating but on the fence bc I think they’ll be similar times
We don't have the Series S, but we do have the X, with which we are currently testing. From a storage stand point, they should be similar performance since they both use the same drive technology. We are comparing it with the One X and OG Xbone, stay tuned.
I’m new to the channel. I am installing a Samsung Evo 1tb SDD internal (spending a lot of money) did I make a mistake? I see everyone doing external SSD but my HDD failed and I had no choice , it’s in the shop awaiting delivery, please tell me your thoughts (bottlenecking, too much money on a good SDD? Etc.) thanks in advance
Samsung evo 860 1tb
great choice go ahead ;-)
Have you redone all these tests, since Xbox officially provided firmware from their website for clean installs on new/replacement hard drives , which was this year?
Not yet, but when the Series X comes out we will be revisiting this and comparing it.
I'm wondering if you noticed gameplay being affected. Like, due to the SSD if pop-in is lessened or other graphical things that involved streaming from a local drive.
That is a good question. Unfortunately, we couldn't find a good way to reliably test that. We may revisit that though.
How about heat? The Xbox One S is pretty much a space heater even when idle. Did you notice a difference there?
Good video, thanks
The Xbox (and I think the PS4 too but I'm not 100% sure off the top of my head) actually caps the I O speed. So peak throughout is the same no matter on the type of drive or how it is connected.
The only part that gives you a speed increase with the SSD is the much reduced random read and write times.
This will be why certain sections of loading won't have shown much or any difference. They will have been loading large files where the random read speed won't many much or any difference.
Do you have a link to any literature on that? We're very curious to know more about how the Xbox (and Playstation) loads games.
@@RealNeatGames Unfortunately I don't remember where I read it. With that knowledge though it becomes obvious how they can boast such a grand increase for the next generation.
I don't know this as a fact but I'm sure the reason for limiting the bandwidth is to create parity between different types of drives and SATA vs USB3. So I don't personally mind so much that they did this.
If you are wondering. From memory the data throughput that I remember I'd 60 megabytes/second for the Xbox One X, which you may remember actually boasted an increase in IO over the vanilla console. Which would put the One and One S at around 45 mb/s (I think, maybe 50?). If you run the numbers on load times that actually works out about right, given that One has around 5 gigs for developers and the X has 9 gigs.
I did a little googling but on a quick search I couldn't find where I read about this. Take it with a pinch of salt as I have not seen it from official documentation. I just tend to absorb information like this and as I said running the numbers adds up give or take.
Sorry I couldn't be more help though.
No worries. Yeah, there definitely going to lean into the loading on next gen.
One part of the equation we're missing is we haven't tested other versions of the Xbox One. This makes sense though.
We'll keep digging but this definitely gives us something to go on. Thanks for sharing!
Good video thanks
These results are bloody impressive, actually, I wonder if you're not better off just putting an SSD into an X instead of upgrading to Series-X, and wait for cheaper discounts down the line, sure would be a hell of a lot cheaper.
Did you change the thermal paste for the one x? I placed liquid metal on mine a month ago and it does seem to run smoother in game. Thermalnconstraints are one of all console problems.
Not this time. That definitely would be a good thing to test next.
LM causes the copper on the heatsink to create an alloy. Gallium alloy fuses with copper. probably not a good idea, as you'll eventually damage the heatsink. you'll see benefits for maybe the first year possibly 2 but once its fully formed you'll have a new metal between the copper and chip sometimes this new metal can cause insulation keeping heat right where it is and over heating your system. I've not used another thermal paste on my system as of yet. but I'd use a High Thermal Conductivity paste. not Artic silver 5. because its only 8.9w/mk transfer conductivity this is quite poor for a high performance device.
I bought Prolimitechs PK1 compund over 12 years ago i still have over 30g left. i use it on everything. its got a heat Conductivity of 10.2w/mk
they have a nano particle version of their non conductive (electrically) paste now that transfers 11.2w/mk
completely wipes the floor in performance to the standard paste on CPU coolers. I've used it for water cooling, GPUs and PS3s its always done a fantastic job and does zero damage to the components over time. i did my PS3 ... yikes 7 years ago, and it still runs under 55 degrees under load.
when a paste is applied correctly. its can out do alot of other corrosive alternatives.
(i've been a computer hardware maintenance technician for over 15 years)
Yeah uuh. If I change the internal drive with a SSD. Don't it need like a back up or some sort of date on it to begin with? System wise? Would love to put in a SSD and external SSD. But need to know if a have to do a copy or anything from the main HDD.
You do need to copy data over. Here is the link to the data transfer process --> th-cam.com/video/xBvGFUaOGB4/w-d-xo.html
If you use this method, everything you need will be on the new drive.
Hello, I would like to install ssd on my xbox one x, just exchange the HD for the SSD or do I need to install any drive on the ssd before?
Hello, can you help me figure this?
I've got 2 SanDisk SSD Plus recently and decided to use one to run games on my Xbox One S. I bought a SSD/HDD (2.5) to USB 3.0 adapter from eBay - it does perform well, on computer, compling with the USB 3.0' speeds, however, even while it transferred games really fast from my original Xbox's HDD, the loading speeds aren't much faster. I've used a timer to count the time and, pretty much, the loading takes the same time as on HDD. This happens on all games i've tested yet
I'm thinking that, even with the SSD plugged into the USB 3.0 ports, the console is pretty much using the internal HDD to load the game, even if i filter by "SSD" on the dashboard. Did you have to remove the games from internal HDD to make use of the SSD? Thanks for the help!
whats not covered in the script videos is that you need to optimize the partitions before installing it again into the Xbox.
under windows.
> go to file explorer.
> this PC
> right click any drive
>select properties
> Select tools
> selection optimize ( may need to be pressed a 2nd time if admin rights are required)
> optimize each of the partitions of the xbox drive one by one
> reinstall drive to the xbox
> profit.
I did this and it changed my SSD boot time from 52 seconds to 27 seconds. from cold boot. and having instant on turned off.
Just wondering was your load time for Grand Theft Auto 5 just loading straight into story mode? Because I’ve tested my external Samsung 1tb 860 QVO and it loaded story mode in exactly 30 seconds from launching the game.
The time shown is from pressing 'A' on the Xbox game select menu to the moment the character is playable. The game is set to auto load story mode.
Real Neat Games really? My Xbox one x loads into story mode in 30 seconds from clicking launch and that’s straight into story mode
Impressive. We're still on the legal notice screen at 30 seconds. Sounds like there's something we could be doing differently. Is there anything else different about your setup or is it just the SSD?
Real Neat Games it’s literally just a 1tb Samsung QVO connected through a USB 3.0 to sata. Also about 400gb of space left on the ssd. I also have a 4tb external hard drive connected but that wouldn’t effect the ssd speeds.
Real Neat Games also if it would matter which it shouldn’t the ssd is connected to the back USB port not the front. But they are all the same speed so I would think that wouldn’t effect it.
Which hard drive is recommended, i.e. one with a fast write speed (the higher the better?) Or does the One X have a write limit?
Sorry for my bad Englisch:(
Write limit shouldn't be a factor since the interface is the bottleneck here. Any mainstream brand of SSD should be fine.
Crucial MX 500/ 860 Evo 😉
I've been wanting to do a ssd upgarde with all the old generation systems for quite some time as they have better upload time for the games and it will be awhile before I get the new generation systems and I just enjoy playing my games and like doing stuff like this.
i have no idea how you optimized your SSD. but mine boots from cold boot in 27 seconds. I'm guessing you forgot to use the optimize option in windows after you transferred your drive over. or if it was installed fresh, I guess the xbox can't use Trim to optimize the drive after its first boot.
First time i cloned my drive using Xfix's script, it was only a little faster than my original. similar to your drive results here. but after taking it out of the xbox and plugging it back into my pc, and optimizing the drive partitions one by one. i seen a huge boost in load times for everything.
could also be the quality of the drive. Sandisk don't have a nand cache iirc. this may slow down access speed of the data.
Just wait until the games and operating system are designed with an SSD in mind. Measuring SSD speeds in naive situations always disappoint compared to theoretical speeds. This is because you need to implement low-level system drivers and low-overhead software APIs to read data blocks on the SSD efficiently. If you store your data in lots of individual files, there is huge waste in storage space and read bandwidth because files have to occupy a multiple of data blocks, which are like 4KB, 8KB, or bigger. For game data, it will make sense to use huge files with very large data blocks. You could just read an entire level straight off SSD into memory as just a long series of blocks with no wasted space and get perfect read bandwidth (gigabytes per second).
Very well done
I've been having regular e105 problems with my one X (have reset it repeatedly to factory). Was thinking of upgrading the internal. (Already have an external SSD).
But with the one X only having a SATA II connector to the HD, I wondered whether a 2.5 7200rpm HDD would be more cost effective, an improvement on the 5400rpm stock. Because SSD is system limited?
You make an interesting point. The console was not tested with a higher rpm HDD. It is possible that the gains seen in that could be comparable to an SSD given the circumstances. Due to having not tested, no assertions can be made by us. Should you decide to go that route, we would love to hear of your findings.