This is reserved for a future update
Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
Sony says its PlayStation 5 can load virtual worlds far faster than ever before, thanks to one of the fastest solid-state drives ever made but its also not a particularly big drive. Sony has confirmed to The Verge that you wont be able to expand that blazing-fast SSD storage on day one.
While the PS5 features a dedicated internal slot that can theoretically fit standard stick-shaped M.2 SSDs and an easy way to access it, the slot will apparently be disabled out of the box. [T]his is reserved for a future update, Sony tells The Verge.
If youve been paying close attention to PS5 news, this wont be a big surprise. PlayStation hardware architect Mark Cerny spent several minutes talking up the SSD storage expansion feature as part of his technical preview back in March, but he also said at the time that support was likely to be a bit past launch. (See 20:00 through 23:30 in the video below.)
Itd be great if that happened by launch, but its likely to be a bit past it, so please hold off on getting that M.2 drive until you hear from us, Cerny said.
Whats 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 Sonys I/O controller and Sony promised to do compatibility testing late this year to make sure.
Please hold off on getting that M.2 drive until you hear from us
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 wont fit into the PS5s drive bay.
I spoke to practically every manufacturer of a PCIe Gen4 stick drive there is only a handful and not a single one was able to tell me their drives will actually work with the PS5. Two suggested that Sonys compatibility testing program hasnt actually kicked off yet.
Several were optimistic, though, suggesting that their drives should meet Sonys requirements, and were hoping to test for ourselves as soon as we get a chance.
In the meantime, you might find yourself having to manage your PS5s internal storage carefully. The PS5s 825GB SSD drive may come with as little as 667GB of usable storage, according to leaks. Compare that to the size requirements for some PS5 launch games:
- SackBoy: A Big Adventure: 32GB
- Spider-Man: Miles Morales: 50GB
- Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Launch Edition (includes Spider-Man Remastered): 105GB
- Demons Souls: 66GB
- Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War: 133GB
If youre planning to buy all of these games, thats half your storage already accounted for. (Its worth noting that the Call of Duty games are notoriously storage-intensive, though.) And theyre not the only games available at launch.
Still, storage isnt going to be a unique problem for Sony since Microsoft also decided to go with solid-state drives for its 1TB Xbox Series X and 512GB Xbox Series S, which have 802GB and 364GB of space, respectively. A $299.99 Xbox Series S might not seem like such a deal once you add a $219.99 1TB expansion card.
The good news is that all of these consoles also support USB external storage, and Sony confirms to me that itll be available on PS5 on day one. Cerny has said its a good way to add lots of PS4 games to your PS5 since they dont need the faster-speed the SSD can unlock, and Microsoft will let you play Xbox One, Xbox 360 and OG Xbox games from USB 3.1 storage as well.
One last note: if youre thinking that buying a PS5 or Xbox with a disc drive means you wont need all of that internal storage, thats not the case. Since the PS4 and Xbox One, most big disc-based games have required you to install them to a drive. The disc just saves you from downloading all the bits and acts as your key.
Update, 1:31PM ET: Added confirmation (from our own review) that the Xbox Series S does have 364GB of usable storage.
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