Seagate Game Drive 5TB Halo Master Chief Limited Edition Review

There's no shortage of amazing games to play these days, and with services like Xbox Games Pass, you can access hundreds of great titles at will. The only thing you're likely to run short on is storage space. Sure, if you've got a super faster internet connection, uninstalling and redownloading games all the time might not be much of an issue. However, having all the games ready to go certainly has some appeal. There are four gamers in my household and only one Xbox Series X. We've already expanded the main SSD with the Seagate 1TB Official Xbox Series X/S drive, giving us 2TB of ultra-fast next-gen storage. However, we are leaving that purely for new content. We don't need such a fast drive for OG Xbox, Xbox 360, or even Xbox One titles. Seagate Game Drive 5TB Halo Master Chief Limited Edition Review Step into the legend with the officially licensed, limited-edition Master Chief collectable Game Drive depicting Halo’s iconic hero. This drive offers up two variants, 2TB and 5TB, and we've got the 5TB one in the office today. That's a HUGE amount of storage for games. However, keep in mind that Xbox Series X/S games won't work on this drive, it's simply not fast enough for quick resume, etc. However, it's still a very fast drive in its own right, so even Xbox One X games will load from it as fast or faster than they did from the native console. Up to 5 TB capacity holds more games and loads them fastPlug-and-play setup gets you gaming in minutes — no tools requiredSleek, pocket-sized design and for seamless play on all Xbox consoles — wherever you goUSB 3.2 Gen1 (USB 3.0) delivers full-speed gaming, so you never miss a beatIncludes a slick collectable Master Chief die-cut vinyl sticker pack Packaging The box is seriously cool, albeit, I'm a total sucker for this kind of thing and a long-time Halo fan too. As you can see, the drive is resting behind a plastic window in the box, and there's a cool picture of Master Chief on the box and the drive. Around the back, you can see the drive connected to the Xbox One S, however, it's compatible with all modern Xbox's. In the box, you'll find some kick-ass vinyl stickers, the drive, and a lovely green USB cable. That's honestly all you need to get rocking, it's just plug and play! A Closer Look The quality of this drive is pretty impressive, and honestly, I wouldn't have expected anything less from Seagate. They've been in this industry longer than I care to look up. It has a sturdy weight to it and feels like it could survive a few knocks and bumps. However, this isn't some armoured drive, so ya know... take good care of it regardless. The graphics on it look absolutely fantastic. Keep in mind, this is something that's going to be sitting next to your console and likely on show. It does look cool though, and I'd be proud to show this off as part of my gaming setup. There's only one port on the drive, a Micro USB 3.0, and it's just plug and play. The cable does come included, but at least it's not proprietary and can easily and cheaply be replaced. Around the back, you have even more Master Chief graphics, with that funky UNSC logo. It's all tastefully done, they could have put more graphics on this, but I like that they didn't. The cable is really nice quality overall, with a quality braiding. The green is to match the main armour colours of Master Chief, a small detail, but it works well. Finally, when you connect the drive, a small LED indicator comes on to tell you it's on. They missed a trick now having the Xbox logo light up though, or the 117 on his armour. I'm being picky though, I think it looks great. Keep in mind, this is an NTFS formatted 5TB drive with a USB interface, so it should work on just about anything really. Xbox branded it may be, but any USB port should read the device, from PC to PlayStation, etc. You'll have a mighty 4.54 TB of space to save your games, and that is a LOT of games. It runs over USB 3.2 standard, but as with most drives, it's backwards compatible, but the speed will be capped by your interface if you plug it into a USB 2.0 or even 1.0 port. The drive is plenty fast too, and I was able to move data off the drive at around 5GB a minute. It's going to take a few minutes to shift some larger games, but keep in mind, this can't be used for Xbox Series X/S game installs. However, you can back them up to the drive, but would then need to move them back to the Series internal storage for use. It's not idea, but for mass storage and backup, it's perfect! Playing games from the drive feels pretty snappy, and actually, loading times are a little quicker than they were on the Series S. However, keep in mind that the Xbox Series X I'm using has a faster CPU, newer port standards, etc, so all of that will be helping too. It's a shame you still have to pick media or game storage only for your drives, but that's more Microsoft's fault that Seagate's. How Much Does it Cost? The Seagate Game Drive for Xbox 5 TB External Hard Drive Portable HDD Xbox Master Chief Edition is available from most major retailers. It's available on Amazon for just £139.99, which is about £20 more than a similar drive would be without the Halo stuff. That seems pretty reasonable to me, and actually, I didn't realise 5 TB drives had gotten this cheap. Overview The Halo theme of this drive is really cool, and let's be honest here, it's not easy to make mass storage exciting. Try shouting "COME QUICK KIDS, WE GOT A NEW MASS STORAGE DEVICE!" and watch them not move. However, slap a cool picture on there, and you've got something that feels more fun, and a lot more interesting as a gift too. Fortunately, if you're not into your Spartans, there are other themes available. They make some basic blank looking ones in black and white, and there's a really funky CyberPunk 2077 one out now too, but that costs another £10 for some reason. Build Quality It's pretty robust, but keep in mind it's designed to sit under your TV and it is a HDD so don't go juggling with it any time soon. However, it does look and feel like a quality product, and that's fair enough. I like the little details too, such as the matching green cable. It's not much, but it helps justify the extra £20 investment. Performance I'm really surprised with the performance actually, it does move data around a bit quicker than the Xbox One did, but again, the SSD on the Series X has the ability to max out the 5TB drive read and writes with ease. While it won't be usable for Series X/S enhanced games, off loading all your Xbox One and under games to this drive helps free up that super-fast SSD for modern titles. Should I Buy One? For most people, the 2TB model will likely be way more than enough. However, the price of HDD storage is so good these days that the 5TB model is a solid future-proofing investment. If you like to have 100-200 classic games installed, the Seagate Game Drive for Xbox 5 TB External Hard Drive Portable HDD Xbox Master Chief Edition is about the coolest way to get it done!