Xbox One Teardown Uncovers Replaceable Hard Drive
...but you'll void your warranty in the process.
The Xbox One launches tomorrow, but the team at iFixit has already managed to get ahold of Microsoft's console and void the warranty completely. A step-by-step teardown reveals all of the Xbox One internals, including an absolutely gigantic fan and a rather impressive repairability score. But one of the more interesting points is the simple, 500GB 2.5-inch SATA II hard drive--is it possible to upgrade the storage on the Xbox One?
The PlayStation 4 offers a fairly easy way to swap out hard drives, but Microsoft has secured the Xbox One HDD deep within the console, and you'll have to void your warranty by opening the lid and getting at the storage. But assuming you did open up the Xbox One--again, not recommended--physically installing a new 2.5-inch SATA II hard drive would be a fairly simple process. Considering the lack of support for external storage at launch, there's a legitimate reason for considering a swap.
Unfortunately, there's also no guarantee a new, unformatted HDD will actually work in the Xbox One. Microsoft has indicated external drive support is coming at a later date.