Storage Overviews

Several storage options are available on Xbox One, each with their own benefits and constraints. Apps may need to use a combination of different options depending on the apps’ requirements.

Connected Storage

Connected storage is designed to help apps save gameplay data, and other relevant app state for data, that will be used on Xbox One consoles and should roam between consoles. To help with saving that data and uploading it, the Connected Storage API is specific to Xbox One, and it works in combination with the Xbox One application model. Through the Connected Storage API, the following features are available:

• Apps can quickly save up to 16 MB of data at a time into a memory buffer in the system partition, which is then cached locally on the HDD by the system and uploaded to the cloud
• 256 MB per user/app of cloud storage
• Robust response to power failures—apps don’t have to deal with partial data being saved
• Data is automatically uploaded to the cloud, even when the app isn’t running
• Data is available across Xbox One consoles that are connected to Xbox Live
• Xbox Live handles cross-device syncing and conflict management without requiring involvement by the app

For more information about the Connected Storage API, see Connected Storage Overview.

Xbox Live Title Storage

The Title Storage service offers a cross-platform REST API for data storage with the following capabilities:

• Allows for data sharing across users, apps, and various platforms
• Supports binary, JSON and configuration files
• 250 MB per user/app of cloud storage
• 150 MB of per total global storage

Use of the service requires the following conditions:

• Xbox One console must be online in order to access
• All service interactions must be completed while the app is running; transfer of data is not completed automatically in the background.

Local Temporary Storage

On the console, an app has access to local temporary storage with the following characteristics:

• 2 GB of dedicated hard drive storage, accessible by the path T:\
• Contents of this storage may be evicted when the app is not running

For more information local storage, see Local Storage.

Persistent Local Storage

Games can request Persistent Local Storage (PLS) as part of their manifest. This ensures that they will have up to 4GB of guaranteed storage when they are launched. Note that PLS should never be used for game saves.

For more information about PLS and other local storage options, see Local Storage.

In this section

Local Storage
Describes the temporary local storage available to titles and how to access temporary locally stored data, installed game data, and the developer scratch partition.

Connected Storage Overview
The Connected Storage API allows Xbox One titles to save title data to local storage that is synchronized to the cloud whenever the Xbox One is connected.

Accessing Additional Storage for Development Scenarios
An external USB drive can be used as an alternative place to store files required during development. By moving the storage of these files from the hard drive to a USB drive, the file io performance of your title under development will more closely match the retail scenario.