PS5

Sony says its PS5 can load virtual worlds far faster than ever before, and this because of the fastest solid-state drives ever made, but this is not a big drive. As per the company, users won’t expand that blazing-fast SSD storage on day one. A dedicated internal slot is there in PS5 that can theoretically fit standard stick-shaped M.2 SSDs, and it’s easy to access it; the slot will be disabled out of the box. This is reserved for future updates.

More insight from Sony – 

Mark Cerny, the PS hardware architect, spent several minutes as part of his technical preview back in March talking up the SSD storage expansion feature. He also mentioned that that support was likely to be a bit past launch at the time. Mark said, “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.” He further explained that not all M.2 SSDs are fast enough to keep up with the PS5 or compatible with Sony’s I/O controller, or thin enough to fit into the SSD bay.

At the very least, Mark suggested, off-the-shelf SSDs over a PCIe Gen4 connection would need to deliver more than 5.5GB/sec of bandwidth and not have a giant heatsink so large that they won’t fit into the PS5’s drive bay. He also shared that he spoke with every manufacturer of a PCIe Gen4 stick drive; not a single could tell that their drive would work with PS5. Sony’s compatibility testing program hasn’t started yet, as suggested by two. Many were hoping that their drive would meet Sony’s requirement, and they are waiting for their drive to be tested. 

PS5’s internal storage, the users, might themselves have to manage carefully. According to leaks, the PS5’s 825GB SSD drive may have 667 GB of usable storage. Sony has confirmed that one day it will support USB external storage.