I’m telling you the TV is faster and higher quality than the Xbox
This has not been my experience at all with my Smart TV and Xbox. I routinely use the Xbox for simple things like YouTube because the apps are noticeably slower to respond than the TV.
I’ve shucked probably 100s of those WD essentials and they just had a little SATA -> USB adapter on it. It’s been a few years but it doesn’t seem like they’d make a whole new PCB just to include USB.