News hardware & software 22 September 2021, 14:53

Even Cheap SSDs Work With PlayStation 5

A week ago PlayStation 5 received support for M.2 SSD drives. It turns out that even the slowest models work well with the console.

A week ago, PlayStation 5 users had the opportunity to download a major system update. One of the novelties that it introduced was support for M.2 SSD drives with PCIE 4.0 interface. Sony noted that they must meet certain criteria and have proper cooling. The company also published a list of suggested devices compatible with the console. It turns out, however, that even the cheapest drives with a PCIE 4.0 interface work with the PS5.

Such conclusions were reached by creators of the Digital Foundry channel, who decided to test the operation of the slowest SSD that can be connected to the Sony console. They chose the Western Digital SN750 SE, a model that does not even come close to meeting the official requirements for data transfer speeds. The suggested value is 5500MB/s, while the SN750 SE boasts a speed of 3200MB/s.

Nevertheless, this wasn't a huge obstacle. Playing with such a slow drive turned out to be not particularly troublesome. Loading times were only fractions of a second longer compared to those recorded with the recommended hardware. The case was similar with the differences in game performance. Most often they were limited to imperceptible drops in fps number.

The exact test results are presented in a table originally published on Eurogamer.

	Factory PS5 825GB drive	WD SN750 SE 250GB	WD SN850 1TB
Ratchet and Clank: Boot	00:00:07.000	00:00:09.950	00:00:08.180
Ratchet and Clank: Load #1	00:00:01.500	00:00:01.750	00:00:01.530
Ratchet and Clank: Load #2	00:00:01.370	00:00:01.480	00:00:01.380
Ratchet and Clank: Load #3	00:00:01.950	00:00:02.180	00:00:01.930
Control: Access Save Game	00:00:10.800	00:00:10.750	00:00:10.380
Control: Dead Letters Fast Travel	00:00:10.620	00:00:10.620	00:00:10.530
Control: Ventilation Fast Travel	00:00:13.530	00:00:13.300	00:00:12.920
Ghost of Tsushima: Load #1	00:00:02.950	00:00:03.010	00:00:02.880
Ghost of Tsushima: Load #2	00:00:02.650	00:00:03.750	00:00:02.450
Cyberpunk 2077: Load #1	00:00:14.870	00:00:13.500	00:00:13.270
Cyberpunk 2077: Load #2	00:00:22.670	00:00:23.020	00:00:23.120

So this is good news for gamers who want to save some money on buying an SSD for their console. As you can see, they do not have to worry about the requirements published by Sony.

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