Western Digital Targets Gamers with My Passport X

With limited and slow growth in flash storage, portable hard drives are the next best thing as they provide mobility and much more storage comparable to internal drives. Western Digital has come up with a new portable hard disk that is targeted towards gamers but offers great features which would to every users’ liking.

My Passport X features a USB 3.0 port offering fast transfer speeds with a capacity of 2 TB. If a user owns an Xbox One, they are in for a treat as the internal storage for the console tops out at 500GB but with this portable hard disk they can increase it to 2.5TB.

This allows ample space for multiple titles to be stored on the drive.  A user can also choose to install their favorite games onto the hard drive and play them on their friends Xbox without the need of installing it on their console.

Tony Tate, VP and GM of Western Digital’s Content Solutions unit stated

Game file sizes are expanding to 36 GB per game and upwards, and are projected to continue growing. Console gamers are able to store on average only 10 games on the 365 GB out of 500 GB that is available on the on-board hard drive. The My Passport X portable drive delivers a fast and easy way to expand capacity and enables an expanded library of games on the go.

There is always the option of opening up the console and replacing the hard drive but that is not as convenient as using a portable hard disk. Unfortunately, Sony PS4 users won’t be happy to hear that the file structure in the hard disk does not support the PlayStation so it cannot be used with Sony’s latest console. You can use it for saved game files but that’s pretty much it.

The idea of storing most data on portable hard disks while retaining empty space on the internal drive is common amongst PCs but now it’s a possibility for console owners too. Considering the cost of the drive, consumers would be tempted to buy one of these. The hard drive costs about the same as two new console games, or in other words, USD 139. Today’s games take up a lot of space and considering the usability of My Passport X, it’s a good buy for Xbox console owners.