Seagate Game Drive Hub for Xbox 8TB USB 3.0 External Hard Drive STGG8000400 White

Pros: Storage space on my Xbox One has a been a huge problem for me. With the 500 GB model, with actually around only 400 GB of available drive space, and with games using usually 50 GB and even some like Gears of War 4 upwards of 100 GB. I can only have a few games installed at any given time and if I want to install a new game, I have to make space by uninstalling a different game. A high capacity storage solution is exactly what the X1 needs. Seagate gives us the most epic solution for storage space on the X1 to date. With 8 TB of hard drive space, you can have dozens of 50 GB games installed at any given time. With the USB 3.0 interface it even has the bandwidth to provide nearly the same hard drive bandwidth as the internal X1 hard drive. Which should allow for game play and load times to be as good or even better, at times, than with the internal hard drive.
This drives footprint is pretty small for an 8 TB external hard rive. It’s not as small as a portable external drive, but no bigger than it needs to be. This drive requires external power in order for it to work and it utilizes a USB 3.0 interface. It also has two USB ports that can be used as charge or power ports for your various controllers and other devices. It’s a nice looking piece of equipment, so it’s not something you’d be forced to hide. But it is small enough that if you do want to tuck it away, it shouldn’t be a problem. It runs quiet. The X1 power supply produces more noise than this game drive.
The price point on this drive is awesome. You’d be hard pressed to find any other 8TB storage solution with this drives performance for a similar price. This drive is designed for use with the Xbox, but it also works perfectly fine with Windows. At this point, if I wanted another external hard drive that wasn’t portable I would just purchase another one of these.
This drives bandwidth is pretty impressive. I tested it using several data drive benchmarks including Crystal Disk Mark, AIDA 64 and AS SSD. Using USB 3.0, each benchmark showed an average of 150-160 MB/sec sequential reads and writes on an empty drive tapering down to around 90 MB/sec once the drive approaches full capacity. This drive definitely favors USB 3.0, like almost all external drives tend to do. Transfer speeds between my laptop and this drive maintained between 60-90 MB/sec on file sizes up to 20 GB on USB 3.0, which is average for a good external hard drive on USB 3.0. Transfer speeds really suffered on USB 2.0, however. I typically see around 30 MB/sec USB 2.0 transfer speeds on most external hard drives, I own at least half a dozen different types. I saw speeds dip to between 10-15 MB/sec on transfers of file sizes around 5 GB average using this drive on USB 2.0. Which isn’t uncommon to see on some drives, but it is uncommon for most drives to perform like that consistently.

Cons: Well there is a pretty serious issue with this drive at this moment, given that this is supposed to be an external hard drive designed exclusively for use with the Xbox. I can plug the Xbox Game Drive into the Xbox One via USB port and the Xbox will see it. It lists it correctly, shows the correct amount of free space available on the drive and even shows the drives contents. However, as soon as I try to access anything on the drive it immediately causes my Xbox One to literally power down. The only possible explanation I can come up with for that is that since this is a prelaunch device, it’s trying to prevent it from being used before the official launch date. Either that, or there is a major driver issue causing the Xbox One to crash. I will try again in a couple days and update my review when I know more.

Overall Review: Overall I’m really happy with this drive. As a PC gamer primarily, I will still get great value from this drive even if it never works correctly on the Xbox One. Although, I am very confident my issue will be resolved soon. Under ordinary conditions I would give this drive 5 Eggs for great value and performance. But since it’s meant to be an Xbox Game Drive and it doesn’t currently work with the X1 I am forced to reduce it’s rating to 3 Eggs. Still, a great value for the PC. May be better after the official release.

Update:
I was able to get it working. I had to reformat the drive on my PC. I scanned the drive and a few sectors were corrupted. Don’t know how that happened. Works great now! Changing my rating to 4 Eggs.

Pros: Matching color scheme with Xbox One, fits right in without standing out.
Plug and play install on Xbox One, very simple.
Quiet drive overall and gives good read speeds over USB 3.0 connection.
Light isn’t too bright, a very nice looking enclosure.
USB hub, doesn’t take any ports up on the Xbox One essentially.
Good pricing!

Cons: No cons that I can think of, overall really impressed.

Overall Review: You can save a few bucks on a 8TB drive, but this already has a very nice enclosure with a hub, I feel the few bucks higher is a good value over going another route.
Installation is very simple on the Xbox One, my only gripe is actually with Xbox itself in regards to externals. I’ll start by covering the good. Plugging in the external, you can immediately get started with formatting with a very simple step by step instructions on the Xbox and you’ll then be prompted when everything is ready to be used. The only gripe is that it would be nice to be able to have both old, and new externals plugged in and to migrate simply within that same menu rather than having to manually move games over. That is more an Xbox thing than this drive though, so it doesn’t discourage me from recommending this drive.

Pros: Great price for a large sized drive like this.
Came with 6 different power adapter plugs for different regions which was pretty surprising because you never see that with any product these days.
Matches the Xbox One design, assuming you get the white one.
Has a white activity light on the front which will blink during writing and be static when its just supplied with power. Windows 10 will shut off the drive after a certain amount of time has passed without activity.
The unit casing seemed to stay fairly cool during heavy transfers, only felt a little warm.
Doesn’t seem to be any lag or noticeable different speed wise between the internal Xbox hard drive and this drive.
Xbox auto detected the drive when I plugged it in and handled everything for setting up to move and install games onto the drive.
Read speeds when connection to a pc over USB 3.0 are great at 370MB/s.
The two front USB 3.0 are a nice addition, pass through works fine on the xbox, on the pc I tried with a flash drive and it detected the drive fine through it, write speed seemed a little slower then connecting it through a regular port though.

Cons: Write speeds are terrible, was consistently getting only 3.11MB/s when running it over USB 3.0.
Seems to be exactly the same as their regular drive but a different color and has xbox branding on it while charging $20 more for this product over their other drive.
Has alot of vibration and is a bit noisy.
No on/off switch to shut the drive off when not in use.

Overall Review: Overall this a pretty cheap for an 8TB external drive, about the same price of the MyBook 8TB.
Seagate never really got rid of that stigma of bad drives after all these year and still exists reading various reviews and user comments. They don’t make bad drives anymore so I wish people would stop spreading that around.
For PC use if you have a white themed pc then this is the drive for you, or if you want it to match your xbox one, if not then just get the regular black one.

Pros: Looks great
extra USB ports work, and are a very nice touch
Games are working well off this (~3tb on it now)

Cons: None so far

Overall Review: Why oh why does microsoft not have a “move all games” function. That would have saved me lots and lots of time, It literally took me hours to move 3tb of games from an older 4tb drive to this.

Also, having a small usb hub with a couple extra ports on an external drive is a feature that I’ve never thought of before, but us awesome. I ran game installs through the hub, and even did ~1tb of the transfer that way, couldn’t tell the difference. More easily accessible usb ports are a great thing. If only xbox controllers could re-charge AA batteries on their own, I’d be set!

Great product.

Pros: This drive is awesome not only do you get 8TB (7.3TB formatted) of storage but its on a premium drive built by Seagate, not some junky slow clunker drive used by other (seagate has as well in other external storage solutions) But they did not skimp here. Vast storage space is just a small part of it, this puppy shaved off an average of 5-6 seconds on load times. Biggest was a whopping 15 seconds faster. And couple all that with the ease of installing it and you have an ID10T proof method of vastly improving your Xbox experience.

Cons: Power cord and slight buzz noise is only con. Come on ppl big bulky plugs are a thing of the past.

Overall Review: If you like to keep your library of games available to play at any whim that pops up or are tired of having to uninstall a game to make room for another game this baby will serve you perfectly. And its at a very user friendly price point. 199$ easy setup and blammo. Dont think its a value just check the 8TB Barracuda Pro drive its 325$ alone lol

Pros: – 8TB of space!
– Simple installation
– Fast access times – game transfers and loading times
– Adds some easy to access USB ports

Cons: – It’s not SSD fast and it doesn’t claim to be!

Overall Review: Yes, it requires a power adapter. It is hard to dock it an egg because of that due to it offering some USB ports and 8TB of space.

I would have preferred a black case, but that is just me (don’t have a white Xbox One).

Being an official product, I am confident that my library will be easily transferred to the Xbox One X when that arrives in November.

Install was really simple. Plug it in and let the Xbox take over, a few minutes later I had a massive drive waiting for me to move games over to it. A large library will take awhile to transfer, but the transfer speeds are faster than the 2TB Seagate expansion drive I was using previously. I was playing a few different games while the transfers took place.

If you need an expansion drive, assess your budget and see if this fits in to it. Do make sure you have a plug available for the power adapter though. If you’re looking at the 4TB offering, consider if you could use extra USB3 ports and double the storage.

There really isn’t too much more to say on this. Tons of storage and extra USB3 ports for Xbox One for $200 = 5 eggs!

Pros: * The Seagate 8TB Game Drive Hub for Xbox One is a massive storage device. It’s a USB 3.0 external HDD drive with two pass-through USB ports on it. Seagate nailed the timing of this product by coinciding it with Xbox’s release of their Game Subcription service “Xbox Game Pass” that allows a huge catalogue of games to be downloaded to your local Xbox and played. And now with Xbox One X taking pre-orders, maybe it’s time to future-proof and store the ever increasing size of games. But is there anything special about the Seagate Game Drive Hub? *

– Aesthetically, the Seagate Game Drive Hub is a beautiful looking device, sleek as a sports car. Taking into consideration that the device has a very similar white color to the Xbox One S, they are visually simpatico. The Seagate drive looks right at home next to my white Xbox One S, though the white on the device has more of a matte finish than the Console. Its black undertone also nails it. There’s also plenty of perforated ventilation holes at the top of the device that keep it cool and even while benchmarking, the device doesn’t become warm to the touch. There’s a cool led backlit Seagate logo on the front of the drive and on the back more ventilation holes, power port, and USB data connection. There’s also the certified “Xbox” Logo on the left side of the device, ensuring its compatibility. On the front of the drive, there’s two 3.0 USB pass-through ports. So even though the drive occupies a USB port on your Xbox, it frees up an extra one; in the end providing you with one extra USB port. It’s about 2lbs total and measures 4.6” by 1.6” by 7.8”. It comes with about a 4 foot USB cable and a bunch of international power outlet ports.

– Installation of the Seagate Game Drive Hub couldn’t be easier. It involves plugging it in: the Xbox will then immediately recognize it and treat is as expanded storage. You can then start storing movies, music, and games onto the massive drive. As I mentioned in the introduction, this drive is certainly overkill for just a gamer who buys Triple-AAA games and plays them only to move onto the next one. This device is for the Gameaholic and likely someone who is subscribed to Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Gold. You can start downloading any game you’d like to play in the catalogue and have plenty of capacity to do so. Just in case you’re wondering (because I did), you can’t simply subscribe to Game Pass for one month, download all the games you want, and let the subscription lapse. You will lose access to those games until you renew your subscription. Rats! Also, if you use your Xbox as an entertainment center, this will help keep all your media files in one place without worry of filling up anytime soon. I assume this would also be a great pickup for a Xbox “streamer” who wants to store their recordings of games on a local HDD to later be transferred, edited, and uploaded.

– The disk reads on my PC as 7.27TB of storage and in Disk management programs, it reads at 7.4TB. All in all, you get about 7.3 TB of usable storage. To see the speed of the hard drive(s) inside, I ran just two CrystalDiskMark Benchmarks on the drive. There’s nothing extremely surprising about the results, but in summary, it’s relatively fast and close to an internal 3.5” hard drive’s speed. See “Other Thoughts” for the data.

Cons: – I don’t find many flaws with the Seagate Game Drive Hub for Xbox One. Really, the only thing I can say is there is nothing special about it. But is that a con? I don’t think so. At least, not for an external storage device. It also has some extra stuff others might not, like the two extra front 3.0 USB ports so you don’t run out of device connections.

Overall Review: – Seagate’s Game Hub Drive is extremely well priced and competitive, considering this thing holds a whopping 7.3TB of space. If you require this much space, I couldn’t think of a better option for you. Primarily, this is for Gameaholics, people who want a large catalogue of games and use Game Pass and Xbox Gold. Also, for people who utilize their Xbox One as an Entertainment center. And lastly, Game recorders who record their gameplay to a local storage device. Personally, I’ve been juggling my 500GB of storage on my Xbox One S for a long time… now, I don’t have to worry!
– Also, I didn’t experience the slow speeds that the other EggXpert Reviewer mentioned (you can see the proof in the pudding by my tests below). Maybe I got lucky or he got unlucky with a faulty device. But it’s worth taking into account, nonetheless.

Below are the two tests I ran using CrystalDiskMark. I ran only one pass on both.
Test : 50 MiB [I: 0.0% (1.4/7451.9 GiB)] (x1) [Interval=5 sec]
Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 181.237 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 115.438 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 30.378 MB/s [ 7416.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 4.855 MB/s [ 1185.3 IOPS]
Sequential Read (T= 1) : 187.692 MB/s
Sequential Write (T= 1) : 159.590 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 14.637 MB/s [ 3573.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 2.686 MB/s [ 655.8 IOPS]
___________________________________________________________________________
Test : 500 MiB [I: 0.0% (1.4/7451.9 GiB)] (x1) [Interval=5 sec]
* MB/s = 1,000,000 bytes/s [SATA/600 = 600,000,000 bytes/s]
* KB = 1000 bytes, KiB = 1024 bytes

Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 181.464 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 161.122 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 1.703 MB/s [ 415.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 8.660 MB/s [ 2114.3 IOPS]
Sequential Read (T= 1) : 173.008 MB/s
Sequential Write (T= 1) : 143.417 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 0.805 MB/s [ 196.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 5.672 MB/s [ 1384.8 IOPS]

Pros: This is a Xbox One Game Drive Hub. meaning its not only a 8TB External Hardrive that works with Xbox One.. It Also serves as a USB hub to connect controllers, and additional external hardrives to the Xbox One. It is USB 3.0 and comes with a universal power adapter. The power adapter is 12 volt, 3 amps and appears to be well made. It is large enough to block an additional power connector on a standard power strip. The cord for the power adapter is 59″ long.. just under 5 feet. The included USB 3.0 cord is 47″ long. just one inch short of 4 feet. When you plug in the Gamedrive the Seagate Logo on the front will light up white, its pleasing and not overly bright, it also does not flash when in use so its not distracting.
When its connected to the Xbox one it will tell you the drive is unformatted. And it asks weather you choose to use it for media, or games and apps. If you choose for games and apps it will ask you to name the drive, then if you want games to install to it by default or not. It never showed a progress indicator showing when the drive was finished formatting so it was likely done in seconds. under system storage settings it shows after formatting the maximum capacity is 7.2TB.

Cons: writing speed is limited to about 30MB/s. that is a bit disappointing because it takes forever to install games.
however read speeds are not bad, about 190MB/s which is faster than the Xbox One S’s built in hardrive, which has a maximum read speed of about 115MB/s. I noticed load times improved for some games, but not others. most single player games i noticed a improvement of several seconds.

Overall Review: Although this drive is certified for Xbox One, It will also work for PS4 and PC. although on PS4 the Hub feature will not work. It does work for PC.
Overall its not a bad drive, and it’s not a bad price for a 8TB eternal. If you shop around you can save a few bucks on a 8TB drive, however it will not have a HUB built in which is compatible with Xbox One. It claims storage space for about 200+ games, well that depends on the amount of space your games require, most of the games i installed require about 50GB each. If that is your average game size, then you could install about 144 games because after formatting you have about 7.2TB storage space.