PS5 owners are now able to install additional storage onto their consoles, since the NVMe M.2 SSD slot has now been enabled via a recent firmware update. In fact, you can now read up on how to install a new NVMe drive into a PS5 via an official Sony guide, reports GamesRadar.
Living room with a Sony PlayStation 5 home video game console alongside a television, taken on Novemebr 3, 2020.
But of course, you can't just buy any SSD you see. The PS5 will always perform its best if you put the right hardware in it: storage drive included. As such, this article will serve as your guide to buying an M.2 drive for your PS5.
PS5 Internal SSD vs NVMe M.2: Speed Test
When Sony launched their current-gen console, their marketing focused a lot on how fast the PS5's SSD is. For the first time in gaming console history, games will load up in mere seconds rather than several minutes. But that's just the console's internal drive. What about an M.2?
According to DigitalFoundry via TheGalTimes, an NVMe M.2 generally performed faster than the PlayStation 5's internal SSD when PS4 games were tested via backwards compatibility. However, specific games such as "Ratchet & Clark: Rift Apart" could have some problems with loading times and frame rate drops.
This is mainly due to the game engine itself, but overall, the performance between the PS5's internal SSD and the one which was tested (a Samsung 980 Pro 500GB) was more or less similar.
TLDR: adding a new NVMe M.2 drive will give the PS5 faster storage in most cases. But this doesn't mean any NVMe drive you can get is compatible with your console. This then leads to the second part of this article.
A Samsung 950 Pro M.2 solid-state drive, taken on January 12, 2016.
Read also: Solid-State Drive Sales Predicted To Reach Unprecedented Heights
It Must Meet the Minimum Speed Limit
You can't just install any NVMe drive you buy onto your PlayStation 5 system because it has a minimum speed limit: 5,500 MB/sec, writes MightyGadget. Any M.2 drive that doesn't meet this minimum limit is a no-go. To make it a lot easier to choose, always look for a PCIe Gen 4.0 drive, and nothing else.
Here are a few examples to get you started. There are others like these with similar specs, which you'll have to identify yourself.
WD Black SN850 With Heatsink: If you want an SSD that works with your PS5 right out of the box, this is it. Western Digital confirmed that this M.2 SSD is PlayStation 5-compatible, with blistering speeds up to 7,000 MB/sec read and 5,300 MB/sec write. The only problem with it is that it's expensive, especially with the 1TB model.
Seagate FireCUDA 530 1TB With Heatsink: Seagate claims that this product of theirs is faster than the SN850. Not only does it regularly hit the 7,000 MB/sec speed mark, but it also often eclipses that, too. But of course, this could be corpo marketing stuff, so you'd best look at user reviews. The downside is that this particular model is hard to find right now.
Gigabyte AORUS Gen4 7000s: As a PCIe Gen 4.0 part, this Gigabyte drive is fast and PS5-compatible right out of the gate. Furthermore, it has 3D TLC NAND Flash memory which puts it far above any PCIe Gen 3.0 drive, even if they're the fastest in their class.
A Samsung 960 Pro M.2 2TB solid-state drive, taken on October 31, 2016.
Size Matters (Storage Capacity & Physical-Wise)
According to The Verge, the PS5 supports 2280-type SSDs. This is the dominant form factor in the market right now, which helps narrow your choices down a bit. Any reputable SSD maker will always put the form factor in their products' pages, which will be easy to see.
Another size requirement is on the physical side. According to Eurogamer, the entire drive with the heatsink and PCB should not exceed 11.25mm(0.442 cm), or it won't fit in the tiny slot that Sony has provided. Sure, you can buy something without a heatsink, but SSDs run, and they will run even hotter inside the PS5's SSD slot. And you should know by now that heat destroys electronics over time.
As for the storage capacity, a lot of storage space can't hurt anyone, right? If money isn't an issue, the biggest one you could buy is a 4TB NVMe. The cheapest and smallest capacity you can install is 250GB. At the end of the day, the choice is yours.
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This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by RJ Pierce
