It’s still an inconvenience and I have a feeling most AAA or even AA are going to take up more memory than this generation did. 50GB to 100GB will probably be average. I think the new COD will be around 150-200GB’s at least and who knows with something like GTA6.
How much free space are you really getting on a Series S? 330GB’s? Maybe 400GB’s generously speaking? It’s not so bad if you are playing smaller games, but you know most gamers will want to play those larger AAA games. Also, I could of sworn I heard deleting games consistently eventually damages the SSD.
I wouldn't worry too much about SSD drive durability. For starters, new SSDs are far more durable than older models were, and even the older models were fine. A lot of the concern about SSDs was directed by the same type of people that were adamant that drum brakes were just as good as disk brakes.
These are my oldest SSDs, both bought at the end of 2015. One was my C: drive until I replaced it with an NVMe SSD drive. After that it was tasked with being a Fallout 4/modding drive, where I was constantly downloading and deleting mods for the game since 2015, 22.5TB worth of writes over a solid two years powered on since early 2016. I've turned my PC on just about once a day for 5 years. After work on weekdays, and in the morning on weekends, then shut down every night so everything can self-update.
The second oldest SSD is a drive that I use for typical gaming. I store all my game files on a large bulk drive. When I want to play one that benefits from the SSD, I copy it over from the HDD. When I'm done playing I delete it to make room for the next game. This drive doesn't have nearly as many writes as the other drive but close to the same hours.
It would make a lot more sense on the new consoles to just plug in an external HDD or SSD until the pricing for these new drives goes down. Moving games between bulk storage and the SSD is cheaper than buying another small SSD, as you can get a 6TB external drive for less than a 1TB expansion card. It's faster than re-downloading a game if you delete it and want to play it again later, and the long term effects of rewriting on SSDs are really exaggerated.
The formula below calculates SSD lifespan. The equation is write cycles x capacity, over SSD factor x data written per year. For example, we'll measure the Samsung 850 PRO, a TLC SSD with 1TB capacity.
Write Cycles = 3000
Capacity = 1TB (1000GB)
SSD factor: real amount of data to actual data written = estimate 5 Amount of data written to the drive per year = estimate 1500-2000GB.
Using these numbers, your equation will be 3000 (write cycles) x 1000 (GB capacity) / 5 (SSD factor) x 1750 (GB written to drive per year) = 342 years.
No one is saying that the SSD is going to be error-free for 342 years, or that the technology will exist anymore. But we can be reasonably certain that assuming these numbers, its oxide layer will last this long.
Learn how long your SSD will last and how to maximize their lifespan with our comprehensive guide.
www.enterprisestorageforum.com
It still has one feature I doubt the normal NVME drives have. You can pull it out and take your games to a friend's house. It's totally hot swappable. It's very console like. Pretty surprising coming from a PC company. Hopefully the price will improve with time. I don't see it being $200 3 years from now.
The drive in the new Xbox consoles appears to be a modified version of the new CFExpress card, which might explain it being so easily swappable. The CFE cards are made for use in media and recording devices like cameras. It has an identical interface and even the shell appears to be the same. The Xbox card adds a second casing around the base of the CFE card to use as a grip to pull the card from it's slot.
We explain the new kid on the memory card block
www.techradar.com
CFE cards are also very pricey. A 512GB CFE card with slower speeds than the Xbox memory card currently sell for more than the price of the Xbox Series X itself.
SanDisk 512GB Extreme PRO CFexpress Card Type B - SDCFE-512G-GN4NN : Amazon.ca: Electronics
www.amazon.ca
. Proprietary memory card vs open market storage again proven in terms of cost (and speed too this time) before the consoles are even out yet. I thought it would take a few months after launch at least...
