One of the big advantages the PS4 has over the Xbox One is that you can easily replace the stock 500GB hard drive. That may sound like a significant amount of space, but when Blu-ray games can be up to 50GB in size, the drive only ends up holding around 10 game installs — not enough space for someone who wants to live in modern times and lead an all digital gaming life.
Xbox One owners who wanted to lead that digital life seemed screwed, as they appeared stuck with the 500GB hard drive and a future of storage capacity management. However, it turns out you can replace the Xbox One’s hard drive, it’s just pretty difficult to do so.
The tech sadists over at iFixit got ahold of an Xbox One and promptly tore it to shreds. The team found that the box is made with standard off-the-shelf parts — most notably, the console uses a regular 2.5-inch SATA II hard drive.
This means that if you found a great deal on a hard drive for your PS4, you can get another and use it for your Xbox One. The catch, though, is that it’s not even remotely easy to install it, as you have to do your best tech sadist impression and rip your box open.
In order to reach the hard drive, you’ll have to rip apart the case, remove the console speaker and WiFi board, then unscrew and remove the chassis. From there, you’ll have access to the Blu-ray drive and the hard drive. The iFixit team found a*Samsung Spinpoint M8 ST500LM012 500GB hard drive with 5400RPM and an 8MB cache sitting inside the console, which can be purchased for around $55. It looks as though you’ll be spending around $80 in order to significantly upgrade your hard drive.
In the end, if you want to lead an all digital life for this new generation, the only way to avoid having to frequently manage your storage capacity is to grab your favorite spudger and screwdriver set, and*very carefully bust open your Xbox One. Consult the iFixit guide if you’re feeling courageous.
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