Seagate’s Astro Bot Limited Edition HDD combines reliable storage with playful design — here’s how it stacks up in our review

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While Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 took home Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2025, the previous year’s winner was a bit of a surprise: Astro Bot, a single-player action-adventure and platformer.

Team Asobi, the developers, and Sony Interactive Entertainment, the publisher, achieved a significant success in the gaming industry.

A few months ago, Seagate – the data storage company famous for its Xbox game drives – launched a special Astro Bot hard drive. While made for PlayStation 4 and 5, it also works with PCs.

I’ve been testing this hard drive with my computer for the past few days. It’s a fantastic piece for collectors, but it might not be ideal if you’re looking for a fast drive to improve your gaming performance.

We received a sample of this product from Seagate for review. Seagate did not have any influence on the review and hadn’t seen it before it was published.

Astro Bot Limited Edition Game Drive review

This Astro Bot hard drive has a really attractive design, particularly for those who love the little robot character.

The device’s design, on the front, back, and sides, strongly reflects the game’s aesthetic. It features Astro Bot posed confidently before a planetary backdrop, creating a look that’s similar to ‘2001: A Space Odyssey,’ but with a more charming and playful feel.

I especially like the design on the bottom of the device – it cleverly makes it look like Astro Bot’s blue eyes are watching you from within the game drive.

Not only is this portable drive sleek, but it also provides a generous 5TB of storage – enough room for up to 60 or more games, depending on their size.

This game drive is incredibly portable because it’s small enough to fit in your hand. Plus, its compact size means you don’t need to worry about finding extra space for it on your desk.

The drive costs $159.99 and is available at stores like Seagate and Best Buy. The special Astro Bot design adds to the price, as similar 5TB Seagate drives without the theme cost about $20 to $30 less.

Seagate Astro Bot Limited Edition Game Drive review — WHAT’S IN THE BOX?

Inside the box, I discovered the Astro Bot hard drive, along with a USB-A to micro-B cable, two instruction manuals, a QR code for registration, a free 14-day PlayStation Plus trial code, and a set of five cute Astro Bot stickers.

Not stellar performance, but not a black hole either

Like most Seagate portable drives for gaming, this one features a small light that illuminates when it’s connected and actively working.

Instead of the familiar green light found on Seagate’s Xbox hard drives, this one shines blue to fit with the white and blue design of the Astro Bot drive.

I plugged this cute HDD into my gaming desktop and ran a few read and write speed tests on it.

During its initial test, the drive typically reached read speeds of about 148 megabytes per second and write speeds of 145 megabytes per second.

Initially, the read and write speeds never dropped below 140MB/s. However, like most traditional hard drives, performance decreased noticeably with subsequent tests, becoming much slower by the third and fourth runs.

This device doesn’t deliver top-tier gaming performance, but it’s far from bad. It provides solid transfer speeds that are perfectly fine for older PC games or titles that don’t require a powerful graphics card.

When choosing a drive for PC games, it’s generally best to aim for a read speed of at least 120MB/s. While most hard drives don’t reach this, some of the fastest ones can achieve speeds of 200MB/s or even more.

This device offers respectable transfer speeds that can certainly keep up with PC gaming.

If you’re choosing storage, traditional hard drives (HDDs) are much cheaper than solid-state drives (SSDs), but they’re significantly slower. HDDs are also more delicate because they have moving parts – spinning disks – that can be damaged by drops or impacts. SSDs, being solid-state, are much more durable.

Traditional hard drives (HDDs) for gaming typically reach speeds of about 200MB/s. Solid state drives (SSDs) are much faster, offering speeds from 2,000 to 7,000MB/s, making them ideal for today’s demanding games. However, if you’re mainly playing older games or just need extra storage space, a hard drive is still a good and cost-effective choice.

If you’re able to spend a bit extra, an internal or external solid state drive (SSD) could really improve your gaming experience. However, if you’re trying to save money, a traditional hard disk drive (HDD) will give you much more storage for the same amount of money.

Seagate Astro Bot Limited Edition Game Drive review: My final thoughts

✅You should buy this if …

You want a large amount of storage space but don’t want to spend the high amount for an SSD
You love Astro Bot and want an external hard drive for your game files
You’re looking for a compact hard drive that doesn’t take up a lot of room but offers plenty of storage space

❌You should not buy this if …

You’d prefer faster storage solutions like an external or internal SSD
You don’t particularly care about Astro Bot or this design

It can be tough and expensive to find enough storage for all your games. Luckily, traditional hard drives (HDDs) are much cheaper than solid-state drives (SSDs) and work well for storing games you don’t need to load quickly, like older titles or games that aren’t very demanding.

This special edition Astro Bot hard drive is a really fun and cute addition for gamers or anyone who loves its space-themed design. It’s small and portable, so it won’t take up much space on your desk or in your bag. If you need more storage for your PC games, this is a great option, as long as an SSD isn’t a better fit for what you’re looking for.

Game Drive FAQ

How fast should an HDD be for gaming?

For gaming, a hard drive should ideally read data at speeds of at least 120MB/s, though top-performing models can reach over 200MB/s.

Is it better to have an SSD or HDD for gaming?

Whether you need an SSD or HDD depends on the games you play. New, demanding games really benefit from the faster speeds of an SSD. But for older games or those with simpler graphics, a traditional HDD usually works just fine.

What are good SSD speeds for PC gaming?

Modern solid state drives (SSDs) come in various speeds, but for a smooth gaming experience, your main game drive should ideally read data at around 2,000MB/s. While some drives can reach speeds up to 7,000MB/s, that extra speed usually doesn’t make a significant difference for most games.

2025-12-14 17:12