PS5 won’t support expanded SSD storage at launch
Was confirmed in March
For some gamers, even the idea of a 1TB drive in their PlayStation seems far fetched — between games like Call of Duty, which are notorious for their large file sizes (Black Ops Cold War takes up 133GB) and an MMO, like Final Fantasy XIV, it’s easy to see how you can ride that internal storage limit reasonably quickly. Where at least on PS4, there is a 1TB option, the custom SSD on PS5 offers 825GB SSD of space, and some reports say between the system and Astro’s Playroom, you’re actually left with 667GB.
I frankly find this hard to believe as no modern computing OS takes up nearly that much space, and it’s not as if the PlayStation system is a fully-fledged operating system, nor is Astro’s Playroom a massive game. So take the reported available space with a grain of salt but even at 750GB, for some, this could be a limiting factor.
Enter the expandable storage capabilities of PlayStation 5. Like PS4, PS5 owners will also be able to remove the internal drive and replace it with some bigger. The only caveat is that support for expanded SSD storage won’t be available upon launch. Though perhaps disappointing, this isn’t news at all. PS5 System Architect Mark Cerny told us as much back in March during The Road to PS5 showcase.
It’d be great if that happened by launch, but it’s likely to be a bit past it, so please hold off on getting that M.2 drive until you hear from us.
Sean Hollister from The Verge:
What’s the holdup? As Cerny explained, not all M.2 SSDs are fast enough to keep up with the PS5, thin enough to fit into the SSD bay, or compatible with Sony’s I/O controller — and Sony promised to do compatibility testing late this year to make sure.
At the very least, Cerny suggested, off-the-shelf SSDs would need to deliver more than 5.5GB/sec of bandwidth over a PCIe Gen4 connection, and not have a giant heatsink so large that they won’t fit into the PS5’s drive bay.
I spoke to practically every manufacturer of a PCIe Gen4 stick drive — there are only a handful — and not a single one was able to tell me their drives will actually work with the PS5. Two suggested that Sony’s compatibility testing program hasn’t actually kicked off yet.
Several were optimistic, though, suggesting that their drives should meet Sony’s requirements, and we’re hoping to test for ourselves as soon as we get a chance.
For those who look forward to upgrading their PS5 SSD, having a larger drive installed on day one removes the hassle of needing to redownload games. That said, the upside is that with SSD and improved network capabilities of PS5, downloading a game and getting your old saved files is a much faster process, and you won’t have to spend half a day just starring at a status bar.
That said, as Mark Cerny stated, if there are larger drives you’re looking at, even if they have a sweet Black Friday sale price, it’s best to hold off because once PS5 does support expanded storage, it’s unclear which drives will be compatible and which drives won’t be.
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