Xbox Series S Teardown reveals an M.2 NVMe SSD – A potential upgrade path?

Thanks to a system teardown from “Modern Vintage Gamer, it has been revealed that Microsoft’s newly released Xbox Series S console uses an integrated M.2 NVMe SSD.    

Unlike Sony’s PlayStation 5, Microsoft’s low-cost system doesn’t utilise an integrated/soldered SSD on their console’s PCB, potentially allowing Series S users to upgrade their systems without Microsoft’s official Xbox Series X/S SSD storage cards. That said, Microsoft may have tied these internal SSDs to their systems to prevent user replacements. We do not recommend trying this!

Another fact that’s worth noting is that this SSD is a compact M.2 2230 device, making this drive much smaller than most consumer-oriented NVMe SSDs. This will make SSD replacement challenging, even if such replacements are possible on a system level. 

Microsoft likely designed their Xbox Series S console in this way to allow the company to release higher capacity Xbox Series S systems without redesigning their console’s PCB anytime in the near future. This could allow 1TB or larger Xbox Series S consoles to be created in the future, assuming that NAND pricing lowers enough to make such a system economically viable. 

You can watch Modern Vintage Gamer’s Xbox Series S teardown below.