PS5 SSD expansion tested: see the results

Both consoles reached the market with the promise of storage expansion, but unlike previous generations, this generation uses SSDs (a storage device far faster and more expensive than a regular HDD). Microsoft offered a proprietary SSD as its solution, meaning it can only be used on the Xbox Series… while Sony took another approach, betting on an SSD that uses the same standard as PCs.

Sony recently released the 2.0 Beta update that enables the use of the device, and Digital Foundry, as usual, ran several tests. Check them out:

We used a Samsung 980 Pro SSD, the 500 GB model in this case, although these results should apply to the high-capacity 1 TB and 2 TB variants too. In fact, we bought this SSD when the PS5 launched specifically for this use case, as it met Mark Cerny’s specifications for NVMe drives laid out last year, and with a bandwidth of 6,500 MB/s it exceeds Sony’s minimum spec of 5,500 MB/s. It is also a PCI Express Gen 4 model, another essential spec point. The only thing we needed to add was a heatsink, although you can use it without one if you wish. We used a spare Gigabyte Aorus heatsink we had on hand, but very cheap equivalents are available to buy on Amazon;

Digital Foundry reports that after installation the SSD is formatted by the system, which then runs a speed test to confirm it matches the recommended specs. After that, it is time for game tests!

Digital Foundry concludes:

The extra downside to this is how PS5 transfer speeds compare with the Xbox Series X. It is worth emphasizing that repeated tests on Xbox gave a highly variable range of results. Even when restarting the machine or disconnecting from the internet, transfer times varied, something to keep in mind. Transferring Cyberpunk from the Xbox’s standard SSD to a Seagate expansion card, the best case puts the average transfer speed at 0.69 GB/s and, in the worst case, 0.42 GB/s when transferring the exact same data. In every case, it is much slower than the PS5 transfer test to its M.2 expansion. Meanwhile, the reverse journey on Series X, transferring Cyberpunk from its Seagate expansion card to its internal SSD, gives a transfer rate of 0.67 GB/s at best and 0.55 GB/s at worst. A mixed bag of results, then: writing to the Seagate storage card was much slower than copying a game to the M.2 drive on the PS5. However, when copying the data back to the internal SSD, the Xbox Series X was always significantly faster.

In the end, the firmware 2.0 storage expansion feature does exactly what it should, and a crucial piece of hardware is finally unlocked, allowing users to add to the PS5’s standard 667 GB of internal drive storage. And while this is a beta in which delivery quality may change with the official release, the results on our specific M.2 SSD are encouraging. The Samsung 980 Pro is fast enough to handle demanding PS5-exclusive titles such as Ratchet & Clank, and it performs exactly like the PS5’s standard drive in its delivery of high-bandwidth scenes. On top of that, there is the load time advantage. Most games in our test suite, from The Witcher 3 to Fallout 4, all run with a marginal lead on the 980 Pro. We have no performance loss and only a gain in overall storage. In terms of functionality, it is great to see that external USB drives still work alongside this M.2 SSD expansion. The only remaining issue, as far as the front end of the PS5, is that we need a decent copy function for flexibility.

Source: Digital Foundry