Review: Seagate 8TB Game Drive Hub for Xbox

With Xbox games getting larger every year, we face filling that internal drive in the console sooner than ever. Those older 360 and One games used to run you around 5-35GB+ a piece, and still do if you stick to these older titles. However, now the newest games have been climbing as high as 110GB+, with the average being around 70GB+. That can kill a 1TB drive pretty quickly. None of this is much a problem since all you have to do is add an external hard drive via one of the USB ports and you can continue on with buying new games. From there, you can expand using however large of a drive you see fit. Of course, going with something gigantic like an 8TB solution is a fantastic start.

There are quite a few options out there, so you won’t have any trouble finding anything, but what about a drive that was designed specifically for the Xbox. Made by one of the top companies in the game, Seagate’s Game Drive Hub is exactly that (8TB of that), and it falls under $200.

The Game Drive Hub is a USB 3.0 external solution that not only packs quite a lot of space for those games, but it looks fantastic sitting next to the console (although not “perfectly” matching in design).

Similar to most of Seagate’s external drives, As you can tell from the image, it features a two-tone color theme of white and dark gray, with an all plastic enclosure including small feet for it so sit firmly on. The back side contains your typical two points of connectivity, including your power source and the USB 3.0 cable that runs between the unit and the console.

On the front of the hub, there are two USB 3.0 ports for connecting other accessories too (controllers, your phone to keep it charged or even other external drives).

The USB 3.0 connection allows you to get a faster response time when loading games (for most games) vs the Xbox’s internal drive, despite the fact that the drive inside this hub is only 5400rpm. Downloading or transfering games to the drive doesn’t always feel faster than the internal drive, but you are least aren’t doing any worse (and are still getting over 100MBps). Once you get everything you need on it though, the games run quite a bit smoother. You won’t get much more performance without going SSD–but then your price also climbs way up.

With 8TB’s of space packed inside, it gives you plenty of space to wiggle around in, until the time comes to invest into the next big console. Although it most likely won’t store the advertised “200+” games you see on the box if you are pairing this with the Xbox One S or X, it will get you no less than 100 for sure (as I mentioned, these games are getting pretty large in size).

Like just about every drive we tested with it’s capacity, the price tag isn’t perfect for everyone but great for those willing to pay for this amount of space. Others might opt for a smaller option of around 4TBs until these become the new norm in their place. They aren’t over priced however, when comparing them to similar models, which doesn’t take much away from their score with us.

It does come with the USB 3.0 cable that runs between the drive and the console, along with some instructions inside in case you get lost. Everything you need to get going. Once you plug it in, Xbox walks you through what to do next. You will be transferring your games to it in no time at all.

Our Conclusion

Not only is Seagate one of our favorites, but they deliver yet another fantastic storage solution with the Game Drive Hub. Perfect for Xbox One S and Xbox One X consoles, allowing gamers to stay ahead of the game so that they don’t find themselves running out of space sooner than expected. It would be nice if the drive inside was 7200rpm, which would allow it to be the top choice for Xbox storage solutions. It would make the price more than reasonable and knock everyone else out the game. Sadly they didn’t go this route, so we will have to settle with it being “one of the top solutions” when it comes to capacity (just not “the top”). It’s fast enough to deliver your games quicker than the drive that comes inside of the Xbox, which improves on load times and reduces latency (obviously, this is quite important when it comes to gaming) enough for it to be noticable.

*Average price is based on the time this article was published

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