[PS5] Internal SSD Expansion/Upgrade

[WanderingAries]

So I finally managed to get ahold of a PS5 without needing to sell a house. During my research on upgrading storage, I came across a few things that I don't think most people would necessarily think about that would greatly impact your gaming performance.

 

For those not aware, you need a very specific type of storage. Not only does it have to be electrically compatible, it must be within a certain set of physical dimensions. Unlike the PS4, it's not quite as simple as making sure your drive is less than 12mm high. On top of all this, you will likely want to get one with a heatsink (or install one yourself) to help extend the life of the drive.

 

 

I've pulled the following from the OFFICIAL SUPPORT PAGE.

 

Spoiler

Upgrade Your Software:

• Make sure the PS5 is running the latest OS version
• Make sure to update the Firmware on your SSD before installing into the console to achieve the best performance it can achieve

 

Storage Capacity:

• 250 GB - 4 TB

 

Drive Sequential Read Speed:

• 5,500MB/s or faster is recommended

 

Interface Type:

• PCI-Express Gen4x4 supported M.2 NVMe SSD (Key M)
• M.2 SATA drives are not compatible, so make sure it's an NVMe
• The Gen 4x4 is probably the most important thing after the interface type as it will directly affect the Max Speed of the drive

 

Socket Type:

• Socket 3 (Key M)

 

Socket Class (Affects Length):

• 2230, 2242, 2260, 2280, 22110

 

Installed Dimensions:

• Width: Up to 25 mm
• Length: 30/40/60/80/110 mm
• Thickness: Up to 11.25 mm (up to 8.0 mm from above the board, up to 2.45 mm from below the board)
• Keep in mind that the above dimensions Must take into account any heatsink installed onto the SSD or it may not fit

 

Game Performance:

• If you find the performance of a particular game to be problematic, then try moving it to the internal SSD as it may perform better on that drive

 

Top Rung Choices:

Spoiler

Here's what I found to be the best of those out there. The decision was harder than expected when I ordered mine as it came down to numbers I normally don't need to worry about with a normal desktop SATA SSD. Hint: Unless you want to mess with finding Both a heatsink and SSD and it's more cost effective, then I'd just buy the prepackaged like I did.

 

What I bought:

 

• SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS 980 PRO SSD WITH HEATSINK 2TB PCIE GEN 4 NVME M.2
• This drive won out for one simple reason, Endurance
• The drive is rated for 6,000 terabytes of writes before failure
• Modern SSDs already last for a good while before failure, but this was dramatically higher than my alternate
• It was initially a hard choice because the first alternate had better R/W speeds by a nice margin, but I look for long term
• It's rated for 7,000 Read / 5,000 Write
• 5 Year warranty.

 

What I Originally wanted to buy:

 

• SEAGATE - FIRECUDA 530 NVME 2TB M.2 INTERNAL PCIE GEN 4 X4 SOLID STATE DRIVE WITH HEATSINK
• This drive is rated to outperform all the others on the market in terms of R/W speeds and I would otherwise be willing to spend the extra $50 for it
• Unfortunately, it's only rated at 2550 terabytes of writes before failure
• Now I've almost never looked at that for my standard SSDs, but seeing that after setting up a comparison chart, my heart just sunk
• It's rated for 7,300 Read / 6,900 Write
• 5 Year warranty

 

3rd Runner-up:

 

• WD - WD_BLACK SN850 2TB INTERNAL PCIE GEN 4 X4 NVME GAMING SOLID STATE DRIVE WITH HEATSINK
• This one I dropped off my list pretty quickly after reading the two above because it's rated for 1,200 writes before failure
• Otherwise, it's pretty good at 7,000 Read / 5,100 Write
• While the original price is on par with the above, it's obvious that the first two are more popular because they're on sale everywhere
• 5 Year warranty

 

 

One last thing:

 

Spoiler

Oh and don't forget, you'll need a computer to upgrade the Firmware of your SSD before installation! I had to purchase this (cheapest I could get) in order to do it, but there are many different options including USB. I also found that I wasn't able to upgrade to the latest firmware without being on a newer OS for some reason even though I did it on the same PC hardware and used the same MFG software (version and all). When on Windows 7, the Samsung utility only saw the v3 firmware, where-as Windows 11 allowed access (somehow) to the v5 firmware (latest). IDK Why this was as the utility was literally the same version, but it mattered in this case.

Edited January 27, 2022 by WanderingAries

[WanderingAries]

Not like anybody seems to be reading anything in groups, but here's what I recently did.

 

I originally went with the 2 Tb Samsung 980 Pro with the heatsink and had no issues with it beyond limited capacity vs my game library. Recently, I decided to go ahead and grab one of the 4 Tb 990 Pros, but this time with Out a built-in heatsink in favor of a highly praised Custom heatsink. I have no way to monitor temps and I never get the "system overheating" message, so I can't attest as to how effective it is or whether it was worth the purchase, but "I did the thing" as it were.

• 4 Tb Samsung 990 Pro
  • 
• ElecGear PS5 NVMe SSD Heatsink
  • 

The first thing I did was get out my "SSD to PCIe" adaptor (need to get a USB or easier to install version I think) and make sure the SSD's Firmware was current as I won't be yanking it out of the system anytime soon for testing upgrades. Then I did some basic health checks, confirming it was legit and new, etc. And then it was time to do the install. While the install was somewhat painless, I found that it's Really easy to lose track of the cooler's tiny components, so it's best to do that on something with like a white background and with a rim so that things don't roll away on you. The instructions are rudimentary, but also written kinda tiny. They talk about how it's best to put the included thermal pads on the chips themselves and how they can be cut, but I found them almost putty like, so I put the whole thing as one big strip. It won't hurt anything, but it's an option. They also give strain relief pads for under the SSD, so that was cool. Oh and don't forget to stow the parts that can't go back into the system in the cooler's packaging just in case you change it out later.

[Glacier Peak]

18 hours ago, WanderingAries said:

Not like anybody seems to be reading anything in groups, but here's what I recently did.

 

I originally went with the 2 Tb Samsung 980 Pro with the heatsink and had no issues with it beyond limited capacity vs my game library. Recently, I decided to go ahead and grab one of the 4 Tb 990 Pros, but this time with Out a built-in heatsink in favor of a highly praised Custom heatsink. I have no way to monitor temps and I never get the "system overheating" message, so I can't attest as to how effective it is or whether it was worth the purchase, but "I did the thing" as it were.

• 4 Tb Samsung 990 Pro
  • 
• ElecGear PS5 NVMe SSD Heatsink
  • 

The first thing I did was get out my "SSD to PCIe" adaptor (need to get a USB or easier to install version I think) and make sure the SSD's Firmware was current as I won't be yanking it out of the system anytime soon for testing upgrades. Then I did some basic health checks, confirming it was legit and new, etc. And then it was time to do the install. While the install was somewhat painless, I found that it's Really easy to lose track of the cooler's tiny components, so it's best to do that on something with like a white background and with a rim so that things don't roll away on you. The instructions are rudimentary, but also written kinda tiny. They talk about how it's best to put the included thermal pads on the chips themselves and how they can be cut, but I found them almost putty like, so I put the whole thing as one big strip. It won't hurt anything, but it's an option. They also give strain relief pads for under the SSD, so that was cool. Oh and don't forget to stow the parts that can't go back into the system in the cooler's packaging just in case you change it out later.

I got the 2TB as well back on a cyber Monday sale. Love how storage is dropping in price, both volatile and non-volatile. If only GPUs would do the same!

[WanderingAries]

1 hour ago, Glacier Peak said:

I got the 2TB as well back on a cyber Monday sale. Love how storage is dropping in price, both volatile and non-volatile. If only GPUs would do the same!

 

Heh, GPUs are one of the components I Don't tend to change much over time as I always overspec (future proofing). 😛  As it stands, I have the 3770k's APU, an EVGA 970 FTW (in it's box), and the upgrade for it, an EVGA 3060ti (because I wanted one last EVGA).