Yes, you’re right. I often load into strikes before my fire team, and in many of them nothing can happen until everyone is present.

Lots of people play lots of Destiny alone, in activities that don’t depend on other people, though, so I wouldn’t say it doesn’t matter.

Yep. Given the amount of Destiny I’ve played over the past 4 months, it wouldn’t shock me if someone did the math and told me I’ve saved over an hour of loading time thanks to the X.

Lots of people play lots of Destiny alone, in activities that don’t depend on other people, though, so I wouldn’t say it doesn’t matter.

This wouldn’t really help most of the time in Destiny though would it? Any time you are playing with someone else, aren’t you at the mercy of the slowest loader? After all a crucible match can’t start until everyone’s map is loaded.

I often load into strikes before the rest of my fireteams (I have a One X), and the scripting doesn’t kick in until everyone else joins. Enemies won’t spawn, and sometimes there are barriers that prevent me from moving past a certain point.

Also, it occurred to me that I should try to make it 100% clear for anyone following that my current external drive is an especially slow one that I'm sticking with due to a need for space and a shortage of recreational spending money. Back when I had my other external drive, I would consistently load faster than people who were using the standard internal drive. So, external mechanical drives which are a speed improvement DO exist. Not as much as an SSD of course, but I don't want to give anyone the idea that any non-SSD is necessarily going to be a speed downgrade when that's not actually true.

I've heard people talking about getting a SSD to help with load times. Is this true? And if so, do people have some suggestions for on the cheap SSD's for an Xbox? Is it that difficult to set it up?

Something about the way this is phrased makes me think you're asking about internal drives? If so, I have no input on that, except that it's not necessary. USB3 is easily fast enough to take advantage of an SSD upgrade. Just get one of those and be done with it.

I will add that my personal opinion is that SSD speed is nice if you can afford it, but the cost per GB makes it not a great option for most. I'd have to lay out WAY more money than I'm comfortable with in order to get something that would actually hold all my currently installed games. But if you don't keep much installed locally, or are rich, go for it. :)

Every few months, Newegg (or stores like them) have a 1TB SSD on sale for $150. Yes, that's 3x the price of a standard HD... but the extra $100 is, say, 25 cups of Starbucks. For me, definitely worth it. (Way, way, WAY faster for booting up, for starting the game, for loading into content... one of these days I should run a test with someone with a standard drive, and calculate how much time the SSD saves me over the course of, say, a month.)

Setup is also trivial; as you say, running it as an external drive (Amazon sells completely functional 2.5" enclosures with USB3 for $10) means almost no setup at all. (One of these days I'll take on the chore of putting it inside; would make things more portable. But that's really not very important.)

That is a great find. Thanks! The 500 is only 16 bucks more cause it's 34% off! damn.

This turned out to be REALLY good timing. I just pulled the item up from my order history and grabbed their short link to the product page. I didn't pay much attention to the price until you mentioned it, but it's currently at its lowest recorded price on Amazon. Now I'm tempted to grab an extra one.

-Disciple

I think I'm going to take the plunge on this. Right now after I select The Tower and hit 'launch' I grab a book and start reading.

HAHAHA, I know how you feel. It wouldn't be so bad if the sound didn't start before the visual.

I've heard people talking about getting a SSD to help with load times. Is this true?

It made a huge difference for me on both the One X and the original Xbox One. I usually play on my OG Xbox One and I still load in faster than someone on a One X using the internal drive. I often load into strikes 10-15 seconds before the other two players, and since the enemies don't load in until all the players are there, I often get to get set up drop a grenade on the "spawn ball" of baddies that sometimes all spawn in on the same coordinates :p

...do people have some suggestions for on the cheap SSD's for an Xbox? Is it that difficult to set it up?

I threw one of these into one of these and it's working like a charm.

If you want to go cheaper, I think I'm running the 250GB version of that drive on my OG Xbox One. I want to say the lower limit is 200GB, but I could be wrong.

-Disciple

That is a great find. Thanks! The 500 is only 16 bucks more cause it's 34% off! damn.

I've heard people talking about getting a SSD to help with load times. Is this true?

It made a huge difference for me on both the One X and the original Xbox One. I usually play on my OG Xbox One and I still load in faster than someone on a One X using the internal drive. I often load into strikes 10-15 seconds before the other two players, and since the enemies don't load in until all the players are there, I often get to get set up drop a grenade on the "spawn ball" of baddies that sometimes all spawn in on the same coordinates :p

...do people have some suggestions for on the cheap SSD's for an Xbox? Is it that difficult to set it up?

I threw one of these into one of these and it's working like a charm.

If you want to go cheaper, I think I'm running the 250GB version of that drive on my OG Xbox One. I want to say the lower limit is 200GB, but I could be wrong.

-Disciple

I've heard people talking about getting a SSD to help with load times. Is this true? And if so, do people have some suggestions for on the cheap SSD's for an Xbox? Is it that difficult to set it up?

Something about the way this is phrased makes me think you're asking about internal drives? If so, I have no input on that, except that it's not necessary. USB3 is easily fast enough to take advantage of an SSD upgrade. Just get one of those and be done with it.

I will add that my personal opinion is that SSD speed is nice if you can afford it, but the cost per GB makes it not a great option for most. I'd have to lay out WAY more money than I'm comfortable with in order to get something that would actually hold all my currently installed games. But if you don't keep much installed locally, or are rich, go for it. :)

FWIW, I am also noticing longer load times. Transitioning between areas, but also just going into menus and stuff.

I'm in an especially good position to observe this. A couple of months ago, I switched from one external hard drive to another, because I came into possession of one that was twice the size of the old one. HOWEVER, it's also definitely slower (I don't know the internals of the new one for sure, but I'm convinced that it's got a 5400RPM drive in it, as opposed to my old 7200RPM unit). Consequence: even before Forsaken, I was taking noticeably longer to load into spaces than my teammates. This means that any additional slowdown is even more obvious. Switching out gear mid-battle is now a very dangerous proposition.

I've heard people talking about getting a SSD to help with load times. Is this true? And if so, do people have some suggestions for on the cheap SSD's for an Xbox? Is it that difficult to set it up?

I'm in an especially good position to observe this. A couple of months ago, I switched from one external hard drive to another, because I came into possession of one that was twice the size of the old one. HOWEVER, it's also definitely slower (I don't know the internals of the new one for sure, but I'm convinced that it's got a 5400RPM drive in it, as opposed to my old 7200RPM unit). Consequence: even before Forsaken, I was taking noticeably longer to load into spaces than my teammates. This means that any additional slowdown is even more obvious. Switching out gear mid-battle is now a very dangerous proposition.

https://xboxdvr.com/gamer/stabbim/video/59817745

Similar issues as Blue. I've not noticed any audio or graphic popping but long load times and about 30 second load times when transitioning to new parts of a map in game.

I'm running an original XB1 and have been suspicious of my ISP or network hardware.

The transitions between sections have been especially long. Might wait 15-30 seconds.