General external expansion discussion? *spawn*

[Silent_Buddha]

So, they are basically just game cartridges.

...except they hold multiple games.
...and you choose what games are on them.
...and they don't come with a game already on them.

If you had enough money you could have a few hundred games installed.

I used to do this on my PC back in the late 90's early 2000's, except with hot swappable 3.5" HDD drive bays. Made swapping games at LAN parties easy.

Regards,
SB

 

[eastmen]

So, they are basically just game cartridges.

...except they hold multiple games.
...and you choose what games are on them.
...and they don't come with a game already on them.

If you had enough money you could have a few hundred games installed.

I used to do this on my PC back in the late 90's early 2000's, except with hot swappable 3.5" HDD drive bays. Made swapping games at LAN parties easy.

Regards,
SB

Digital Foundry said the same thing months ago during their trip to MS.

You'd be able to move them from system to system also.

We will see game sizes shrink a bit at the start of the generation

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Hopefully, that helps anybody who had any concerns.

If the consoles is writing to the expansion card and you yank it out, there will be a problem. Even with a journaling filesystem, this is not good. Even hot swapping drives you tell the OS to 'eject/dismount' so that any outstanding buffered I/O queues are read/written before the device is physically unavailable.

I'm sure the Xbox is no different.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

If the consoles is writing to the expansion card and you yank it out, there will be a problem. Even with a journaling filesystem, this is not good. Even hot swapping drives you tell the OS to 'eject/dismount' so that any outstanding buffered I/O queues are read/written before the device is physically unavailable.

I'm sure the Xbox is no different.

In Windows 10, by default, you no longer need to let the OS know you are removing an external drive.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...default-removal-policy-external-storage-media

So, Windows now defaults to Quick Remove which means that as soon as the file copy progress bar is completed it is safe to remove external media. A user can always go in and configure it the old way where writes to external media are cached and there is no guarantee that the disk writes have completed after the copy/move progress bar is completed (in which case you would be wise to use the Safely Remove Hardware tray tool).

Obviously if the user disconnects the drive before the progress bar is complete...well. What were they thinking?

It's possible to make a mechanism to lock the drive in the slot while writes are in progress or pending, but I'm somewhat doubtful that MS will go to the trouble of doing that.

If save data is stored on the internal drive by default then the only time there should be data loss on the external drive is during installation. If someone yanks out the drive while the game is installing then...what were they thinking? Likewise with copying data. Of course, this is assuming there is some kind of progress bar or notification that lets users know when the operation is completed.

Regards,
SB

 

[Sycologist]

I don't think there are any USB 4.0 chipsets to put in Series X.

What about 20Gbps USB C 3.2?

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/286537-usb-3-2-promises-20gbps-connections-arrives-this-year

 

[Silent_Buddha]

What about 20Gbps USB C 3.2?

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/286537-usb-3-2-promises-20gbps-connections-arrives-this-year

That could potentially give them enough bandwidth but USB adds some latency onto data transfer requests. Low latency was one of the key features for MS' implementation of their SSD, so I doubt that would be something they'd want to use.

While your average user won't notice when it comes to typical file transfers, 3D rendering benefits from guaranteed performance. USB would add an unwanted performance deficit bubble into a key technology used in next gen. rendering.

Regards,
SB

 

[Sycologist]

That could potentially give them enough bandwidth but USB adds some latency onto data transfer requests. Low latency was one of the key features for MS' implementation of their SSD, so I doubt that would be something they'd want to use.

While your average user won't notice when it comes to typical file transfers, 3D rendering benefits from guaranteed performance. USB would add an unwanted performance deficit bubble into a key technology used in next gen. rendering.

Regards,
SB

I don't mean for USB 3.2 to replace the external proprietary drive. I mean having it for faster loading of BC games and maybe Series X games that aren't demanding. I mean think about games like Fall Guys. Now imagine the same game with raytracing. Do you think it would need the speed and low latency of the proprietary XSX drive?

 

[BRiT]

The beautiful game Falconeer likely won't need it for loading textures. I think the dev said there's only 1 in the entire game. I may be misremembering it. Though maybe he loads other game assets quickly.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

In Windows 10, by default, you no longer need to let the OS know you are removing an external drive.

True, they could be using Quick Remove over the Performance policy on consoles.

If save data is stored on the internal drive by default then the only time there should be data loss on the external drive is during installation.

And patching. If you're downloading a patch, and some patches are getting a bit ridiculous in size, I would be expecting it to be writing patch data for the duration of the download at least.

What about 20Gbps USB C 3.2?

I thought you wanted USB4, which is 40Gbps?

 

[BRiT]

Speaking of ridiculous, the other day I noticed my One X had a 48 GB patch for a 46 GB game. I don't remember what the game was or what the patch was for. It finished amazingly quick, pulling down the update at 280 to 320 mbit/s and no additional time needed for "patching".

 

[Gerry]

Speaking of ridiculous, the other day I noticed my One X had a 48 GB patch for a 46 GB game. I don't remember what the game was or what the patch was for. It finished amazingly quick, pulling down the update at 280 to 320 mbit/s and no additional time needed for "patching".

It wasn't RDR2 was it? Had something similar happen - big patch lined up but actually got applied quickly. I can only imagine they'd screwed something up somewhere.

 

[BRiT]

I want to say it was for The Outter Worlds. Some said their Xbox One update was only 23 GB and others were saying 43 GB. I only remember the download speeds since I was wondering what the fastest the little Jaguars on speed could handle. Should be interesting to see what Xbox Series can manage on download patches.

BTW: I'm on a gigabit downlink connection.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

And patching. If you're downloading a patch, and some patches are getting a bit ridiculous in size, I would be expecting it to be writing patch data for the duration of the download at least.

It should be able to gracefully recover from interruptions in downloading an update or even when applying an update. I mean people's internet can go out during patching I've had my PC crash (those times when I've had one of the "bad" NV drivers installed) while Steam was downloading updates for games.

At the worst MS can internally note when a game has a patch queued and additionally when a patch has downloaded successfully and also when it has patched successfully.

If MS can't get this relatively simple thing corrected if someone yanks out their drive while a patch is downloading, god help us.

Regards,
SB

 

[Sycologist]

I thought you wanted USB4, which is 40Gbps?

I do but you said there are no USB4 chips available yet so USB3.2 is more realistic but still fast at 20Gbps.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

It should be able to gracefully recover from interruptions in downloading an update or even when applying an update. I mean people's internet can go out during patching I've had my PC crash (those times when I've had one of the "bad" NV drivers installed) while Steam was downloading updates for games.

Losing your internet connection won't corrupt the filesystem. If you remote a drive while the OS is writing filesystem data, you run that risk. The risk is probably pretty low with an SSD though. And a journaled filesystem will allow any aborted writes, even to the filesystem, to be undone.

 

[AzBat]

If the consoles is writing to the expansion card and you yank it out, there will be a problem. Even with a journaling filesystem, this is not good. Even hot swapping drives you tell the OS to 'eject/dismount' so that any outstanding buffered I/O queues are read/written before the device is physically unavailable.

I'm sure the Xbox is no different.

Yeah, what @Silent_Buddha said.

BTW, last week I was at my sister & bro-in-law's place & went to use their PS4's USB port to charge my phone. They are the only people I know that have one & I've only interacted it once before. So, anyway, I just thought it was like on my Xbox & you could just disconnect the external USB drive to connect my charging cable. However, that wasn't the case & it corrupted the whole hard drive & couldn't figure out to repair or format it. Oops. That's not how it works on Xbox. I disconnect & reconnect my external hard drive from console to console regularly without issue. If the console is saving something everybody knows not to disconnect, but you shouldn't have to do some grand "eject media" scheme on a consumer device like that.

Tommy McClain

 

[Arnold Beckenbauer]

Both X/S Series support max. USB 3.1 Gen. 1, https://www.xbox.com/en-US/consoles/xbox-series-s

Not really fast for 2020.

 

[BRiT]

Both X/S Series support max. USB 3.1 Gen. 1, https://www.xbox.com/en-US/consoles/xbox-series-s

Not really fast for 2020.

For anyone else looking for it, it's listed under Tech Specs >> Ports -- USB. 3x USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports

 

[cheapchips]

Both X/S Series support max. USB 3.1 Gen. 1, https://www.xbox.com/en-US/consoles/xbox-series-s

Not really fast for 2020.

It's fine since it's essentially BC only. If you want faster storage than a HDD you might as well get one of their SSD cards.

 

[Jay]

It's fine since it's essentially BC only. If you want faster storage than a HDD you might as well get one of their SSD cards.

I don't know the relative usb speeds but i wouldn't say its essentially for BC only.
Back up/restore current games could do with fast connections, especially if you've back upped to an ssd.

Even on here a lot of discussion around internal storage sizes and juggling next gen games