Hermitage Akihabara reported that a Chinese company has marketed an adapter that allows you to use certain M.2-2230 SSDs in the expansion slot of Microsoft's Xbox Series X and S consoles, allowing you to increase storage space more economically than to the purchase of the official accessory.
Photo Credit: Sintech Sintech's DIY CFexpress Card PA-CFEM2-C adapter can host an NVMe M.2-2230 SSD and connect it to a CFexpress interface type B. The unit is marketed specifically for Microsoft's latest game consoles, but you can also use it to create your own CFexpress Type-B card for use in appropriate professional DSLR cameras and card readers. The price of this adapter is only $ 29.99.
However, the product has a major limitation. While it can accommodate any M.2-2230 drive with a PCIe interface, the consoles are only compatible with select SSDs with a specific firmware and internal format. For example, Western Digital's WD Blue CH SN530 is naturally compatible with Microsoft consoles, as opposed to the WD Blue PC SN530. This could be why typical CFexpress 1.0 Type-B cards cannot be used to expand storage space. Unfortunately, it is currently unclear how many SSDs on the market are capable of meeting these specific requirements.
Photo Credit: Sintech Microsoft's Xbox Series X | S consoles leverage proprietary expansion cards available in the CFexpress 1.0 form factor Type-B using two PCIe Gen4 lanes (as opposed to the two PCIe Gen3 lanes required by the CFexpress 1.0 Type-B specification). As these items are currently only made by Seagate, they are quite expensive - around € 230-250 for the 1TB version.
Photo Credit: Sintech Sintech's DIY CFexpress Card PA-CFEM2-C adapter can host an NVMe M.2-2230 SSD and connect it to a CFexpress interface type B. The unit is marketed specifically for Microsoft's latest game consoles, but you can also use it to create your own CFexpress Type-B card for use in appropriate professional DSLR cameras and card readers. The price of this adapter is only $ 29.99.
However, the product has a major limitation. While it can accommodate any M.2-2230 drive with a PCIe interface, the consoles are only compatible with select SSDs with a specific firmware and internal format. For example, Western Digital's WD Blue CH SN530 is naturally compatible with Microsoft consoles, as opposed to the WD Blue PC SN530. This could be why typical CFexpress 1.0 Type-B cards cannot be used to expand storage space. Unfortunately, it is currently unclear how many SSDs on the market are capable of meeting these specific requirements.
Photo Credit: Sintech Microsoft's Xbox Series X | S consoles leverage proprietary expansion cards available in the CFexpress 1.0 form factor Type-B using two PCIe Gen4 lanes (as opposed to the two PCIe Gen3 lanes required by the CFexpress 1.0 Type-B specification). As these items are currently only made by Seagate, they are quite expensive - around € 230-250 for the 1TB version.