Xbox One’s June update brought one of the most wanted features to the underdog console i.e. ability to use an external hard drive for storing games. Many gamers are generally weary about storing their games on external hard drives because of a misconception that external USB connection is slower than having an internal hard disk drive.
This misconception today has been put to rest. Thanks to a Neogaf user Hawk269, who recently tested his external Seagate 4TB hard drive against stock internal hard drive of the Xbox One. During his tests he recorded that Ryse: Son Of Rome loads 16 seconds faster than when stored internally. Other users who are part of the BETA: Preview program are also reporting similar gains with other games.
Many tech enthusiasts are claiming that the reason behind the minor boost is that the hard drive used in Xbox One is a slow 5400RPM SATA II hard drive. The SATA II connection is limited to 3Gbit/s (300MB/s) transfer speed. On the other hand, USB 3.0 connection used in Xbox One has a higher limit of 5Gbit/s (625MB/s). This means that connecting an external hard drive to Xbox One via USB will not limit your transfer speed, it will actually raise the limit.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
