Discovering the very best SSD for a PS5 would possibly seem to be a frightening job as a result of wide selection of selections, however the actuality is there are many SSDs for the PS5 that can present a easy and hassle-free capability improve in your sport library. We put a variety of the speediest drives by a battery of exams to search out the very best SSDs for the PS5 when it comes to each efficiency and pricing. Given that just about any new drive you purchase for the PC can be used within the PS5, you too can discover many of those identical picks on our listing of Finest SSDs for desktop PCs.
The PS5’s inner SSD is a restrictive 825GB, with formatting, updates, and bloatware usually leaving you with about 670GB free for video games. That is dangerous information, as a result of as we speak’s video games have gotten bigger with every new launch, and also you’ll additionally have to retailer all of the screenshots and video clips you collect when you play. Name of Obligation: Black Ops Chilly Warfare all by itself makes use of greater than 200GB! The excellent news: Sony has an M.2 enlargement slot the place you possibly can put a second PS5 SSD with as much as 4TB of capability. That quantity of capacious storage ought to satiate even probably the most demanding of avid gamers, however there are additionally extra inexpensive choices, like 1TB and 2TB fashions.
Fortunately, discovering a spacious PS5 SSD to enrich your console’s inner drive isn’t too tough — any PCIe 4.0 SSD that gives a minimal of 5,500 MBps of throughput over the NVMe interface makes the minimize to be used as a PS5 SSD, offered it comes with a heatsink that does not take the general peak above 11.25mm. You possibly can even add your individual heatsink to SSDs that aren’t marketed particularly for the PS5. You can even use among the finest exterior drives with the PS5 to retailer video games, however these are just for sport storage — you may want an inner enlargement drive to truly play the video games.
In the end, the very best drive in your PS is one that gives sufficient capability to carry your video games and knowledge at a worth you possibly can afford. That can assist you select, we have examined a variety of the highest SSDs in our labs — see the outcomes additional down the web page — and pulled out the highest performers for an inventory of the Finest PS5 SSDs.
The TLDR: Finest SSDs for the PS5
Why you possibly can belief Tom’s {Hardware}
Our skilled reviewers spend hours testing and evaluating services and products so you possibly can select the very best for you. Discover out extra about how we take a look at.
Finest SSD for PS5:
WD Black SN850X (opens in new tab)
Alternate — SK hynix Platinum P41 (opens in new tab)
Quickest SSD for PS5:
Samsung 990 Professional (opens in new tab)
Finest Excessive-Capability SSD for PS5:
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus-G (opens in new tab)
Alternate — Seagate FireCuda 530 (opens in new tab)
Finest Low-cost SSD for PS5:
Kingston KC3000 (opens in new tab)
Finest SSDs for PS5
WD has taken its in style Black SN850 SSD and turned it as much as 11, however fortunately the value is not practically excessive. The present $150 worth level for the 2TB mannequin is a steal, however be sure you verify present pricing. The Black SN850X leverages an improved controller and newer flash to get probably the most out of the PCIe 4.0 interface, thus delivering wonderful efficiency with the Sony PlayStation 5. Efficiency is improved throughout the board, and the drive comes with a heatsink choice.Â
WD additionally helps the SSD with a decent five-year guarantee that can allow you to sport with peace of thoughts. This drive is made for the PlayStation 5, however it’s a bit pricier than different choices, so you may have to preserve a watch out for gross sales. It is also tremendous quick for gaming on a PC, notably with DirectStorage on the horizon.Â
Learn: WD Black SN850X Overview
The Sk hynix Platinum P41 provides a superb mix of excessive efficiency and low pricing, making it among the finest SSDs for the Sony PS5, and you may at present discover the spacious 2TB mannequin for round $180. This drive has lengthy stood out as among the finest SSDs general, however you may have to price range for an aftermarket cooler earlier than you slap this drive into the PS5.
The Platinum P41 is accessible in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities and delivers as much as 7,000 MBps of sequential throughput, exceeding the PS5’s minimal specs. The drive additionally has a five-year guarantee and a stable 750 TBW endurance score, making it a prime choose for the PS5. Â
Learn: SK hynix Platinum P41 SSD Overview
Quickest SSD for PS5
In case you’re in search of absolutely the quickest drive for the Sony PlayStation 5 that cash should buy, the 990 Professional is your drive. The Samsung 990 Professional’s new {hardware} and new choices, together with a heatsink with RGB and a 4TB variant that arrives in 2023, have allowed Samsung to retake the SSD crown. Nonetheless, this drive comes with a comparatively excessive price ticket of $289, so you may pay fairly a bit for the privilege of proudly owning Samsung’s flagship.
The Samsung 990 Professional’s efficiency is superb throughout the board, setting just a few new efficiency data, similar to with 4K random learn efficiency. In our testing, the drive was constant, power-efficient, and funky. The drive can be backed by a reliable guarantee and respectable help.
The competitors remains to be fierce, although, and the 990 Professional’s launch MSRP is larger than warranted. $20 additional for a heatsink and RGB is an efficient deal, although you will not be capable to see the bling when the SSD resides contained in the PS5.
Learn: Samsung 990 Professional OverviewÂ
Finest Excessive-Capability SSD for PS5
Sabrent’s Rocket 4 Plus is the primary SSD designed for DirectStorage with a personalized model of this firmware, so it’s optimized for future gaming on the PC. It additionally delivers stable efficiency within the Sony PS5, rating third in our testing, and comes with a 4TB mannequin choice, thus maxing out the PS5’s capability restrict of 4TB for an enlargement drive.Â
Nonetheless, newer drives just like the WD Black SN850X and Samsung 990 Professional are sometimes a bit quicker. Solely a type of drives at present has a 4TB mannequin accessible, although. This drive deserves a heatsink, but it surely’s at present offered individually. The MSRP on this drive, like with the SN850X and 990 Professional, can be a bit excessive at $299, so you may must pony up some additional money for this speedster.
The Sabrent PS5 heatsink is accessible individually. The first caveat is that considerably cheaper choices that can get the job executed with the PS5, however there are only a few accessible with a mix of such spacious capability and speedy efficiency.Â
Learn: Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus-G SSD OverviewÂ
The FireCuda 530 is accessible in capacities of as much as 4TB, is available in that small M.2 kind issue, and delivers unimaginable sustained write speeds for a flash-based SSD. Nonetheless, it wasn’t among the many prime performers on our listing, however the spacious 4TB of capability would be the essential draw for many customers seeking to fill their PS5 to the brim with video games. Â
Sporting Phison’s beastly, penta-core PS5018-E18 NVMe SSD controller and Micron’s quick 176-Layer TLC flash, the FireCuda 530 has a stable five-year guarantee and help service that features three years of information rescue. Nonetheless, its excessive efficiency, endurance, and knowledge rescue help add fairly a bit to pricing, making it a really premium purchase for the common gamer. The drive comes with an built-in heatsink.
Learn: Seagate FireCuda 530 OverviewÂ
Finest Low-cost SSD for PS5
The Kingston KC3000 is a high-performance PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe SSD that dishes out bleeding-edge speeds of as much as 7 GBps of learn and write throughput, together with as much as a million IOPS — all for an extremely inexpensive $90 for the 1TB mannequin. The drive dishes out loads of efficiency for the PS5, however the KC3000 is not as quick as competing drives in our benchmarks. Nonetheless, as we famous in our take a look at part, the variations between the quickest and slowest SSDs in real-world gaming are extremely slim, that means that the KC3000’s price ticket will draw within the worth seekers amongst us.Â
With a five-year guarantee and an unimaginable 3,200 TBW endurance score, the chances are that the KC300 will solider on for longer than your PS5. You can even discover this drive in a 4TB mannequin, too. This can be a price range drive, so you may must plan on shopping for a third-party heatsink.
Learn: Kingston KC3000 OverviewÂ
Benchmarks / How We Examined PS5 SSDs
| SSD | Benchmark Rating (MBps) | Console to Enlargement SSD (time) | Enlargement SSD to Console (time) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Samsung 990 Professional 2TB | 6558 | 2:12 | 12:41 |
| WD Black SN850X 2TB | 6531 | 2:12 | 12:47 |
| Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus-G 4TB | 6519 | 2:13 | 12:56 |
| SK hynix Platinum P41 2TB | 6507 | 2:12 | 12:49 |
| Kingston KC3000 2TB | 6497 | 2:13 | 12:49 |
| Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus-G 2TB | 6485 | 2:13 | 12:48 |
| Solidigm P44 Professional 2TB | 6462 | 2:13 | 12:48 |
| Seagate FireCuda 530 2TB | 6361 | 2:14 | 12:49 |
| Essential P5 Plus 2TB | 5620 | 2:16 | 12:47 |
A few of the finest SSDs for the PS5 are both particularly designed for the console, or include an built-in heatsink. Nonetheless, some drives don’t include a heatsink, so we equip them with the Sabrent M.2 NVMe heatsink for the PS5 (opens in new tab) to each meet the necessities for the PS5 and to make sure a degree enjoying area. We’ve discovered that this cooler is a good answer should you’re in search of an inexpensive, versatile, and easy-to-install answer.
The Sony PS5 has an inner benchmark measuring how briskly the system can learn knowledge from the drive. That is probably the most important efficiency metric for gaming, as a speedy response time is liable for guaranteeing a easy gaming expertise. As you possibly can see within the ‘Benchmark Rating’ column above, the quickest PS5 SSD in our take a look at pool was 17% quicker than the slowest mannequin.Â
Nonetheless, different real-world exams present a lot smaller variations. As an illustration, our ‘Console to Enlargement SSD’ benchmark consisted of timing how lengthy it took to maneuver 4 video games totaling 175GB, Mass Impact: Andromeda, Assasin’s Creed Valhalla, Elden Ring, and Astro’s Playroom, from the interior PS5 SSD to the enlargement drive. We solely logged a distinction of 1 to 2 seconds for these transfers, exhibiting that the variations are slight.Â
We additionally examined this course of in reverse, shifting the 4 video games again to the interior drive for our “Enlargement SSD to Console” benchmark, however noticed just a few proportion factors of distinction between the drives. Nonetheless, this is because of a limitation of the interior PS5 SSD.Â
Likewise, in depth testing has failed to reveal significant variations between the drives — it is common to see a one-to-two-second distinction between drives in load instances. We’re experimenting with extra video games to see if we will discover higher examples. Nonetheless, different testing we have seen from a number of shops and innumerable exams of the very best SSDs for the PS5 on reddit signifies only a few significant variations, if any, for sport loading instances. Total, you may usually see a one to 2 second distinction in sport loading instances between the varied SSDs — that is not even noticeable in common use and will make a very good argument for merely deciding on probably the most cost-effective drive that meets the minimal specs.Â
Naturally, not all the drives that we take a look at will make the ultimate minimize for our listing of Finest SSDs for the PS5, however that does not imply these drives failed the take a look at, or would not be an ideal deal should you can catch them on sale. The Solidigm P44 Professional (opens in new tab) is a good SSD that delivered respectable efficiency in our PS5 SSD benchmarks, and given the slim distinction between the quickest and slowest SSDs on our listing, it may make an ideal drive if the value is correct. We are able to say the identical in regards to the Essential P5 Plus (opens in new tab), which did properly in our PS5 testing and in our evaluate.Â
Sony PS5 SSD Necessities
The Sony PS5 requires an M.2 SSD that communicates over the NVMe protocol. As well as, you may want a PCIe 4.0 x4 mannequin that may ship as much as 5,500 MBps of sequential learn throughput. The console helps 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, 2TB and 4TB fashions.
These small, rectangular drives seem like sticks of RAM, solely smaller, and the PS5 accepts each single-sided and double-sided variations. You will additionally want to make sure that your drive has a cooling answer pre-applied. These can include skinny copper warmth spreaders that seem like a label, or a full-fledged metallic heatsink with a thermal pad.
Sadly, not all the finest SSDs for the PS5 include a heatsink, however you should use your individual double- or single-sided heatsink. We advocate the Sabrent M.2 NVMe heatsink for the PS5 (opens in new tab). We’ve discovered that this cooler is a good answer should you’re in search of an inexpensive, versatile, and easy-to-install answer, however there are various choices in the marketplace. Simply ensure that they do not exceed 110 x 25 x 11.25mm.Â
M.2 SSDs are often 80mm lengthy by 22mm broad, described as dimension 2280, however some could also be shorter or longer, so be sure you get one which matches your slot. The PS5 helps M Key Kind 2230, 2242, 2260, 2280 and 22110. Some M.2 drives help SATA as a substitute of NVMe, however these are uncommon. Regardless, ensure that your SSD helps NVMe.
Sony has detailed directions on the right way to set up a PS5 SSD. As you possibly can see within the video above, putting in the SSD is a straightforward course of that solely requires a #1 Phillips head screwdriver. After you’ve got put in the SSD, you possibly can navigate by the menus to the ‘Settings>Storage>Set up Location’ space and alter it to your new SSD. All new video games won’t set up on to the SSD. To maneuver present video games to your new drive, merely spotlight the merchandise you need to transfer, press the Choices button, after which choose ‘Transfer Video games and Apps.’ Choose some other video games that you simply want to transfer within the checkboxes, then choose ‘Transfer.’Â
