thanks Digital foundry; We learned about the new 2.0 firmware update for PlayStation 5 in advance, which unlocks all the features of its built-in M.2 NVMe expansion slot, allowing anyone to use up to 4TB of NVMe storage to upgrade their PS5. Once this update is online, you will no longer be trapped by the relatively small 650GB internal SSD of the PS5.
For this preview, Digital Foundry only tested one SSD, which is 500GB Samsung 980 Pro Because it is one of them The best solid state drive On the market and eliminates the need for expansion slots Minimum requirements, Detailing PCIe Gen 4 drives and 5500MB/s or higher read speed.
Another requirement is to add a built-in heat sink to any NVMe SSD that enters the expansion slot, because its location is isolated from the PS5 cooling fan to prevent any fresh air from entering the M.2 slot. This is completely different from the M.2 SSD installed on the PC. Due to the PC’s chassis fan, the M.2 SSD almost always has passive airflow through the drive.
Since the Samsung 980 Pro is not equipped with a heat sink, Digital Foundry added a custom Aorus copper heat sink to the drive before plugging it into the PS5. But for testing purposes, Digital Foundry also tested the drive without a heat sink to see if there were any measurable performance differences.
The requirements of the 4th generation are quite high, but it is necessary for the performance of PlayStation 5 games. Most PS5 games rely on dynamically streaming assets into the game, which requires a lot of speed and bandwidth from the storage drive.
This is why a much slower external storage solution that allows PS4 backward compatible games to run via USB connected to the console, because PS4 games usually load all their assets into the system RAM before performing any other operations.
In order to test the drive, Digital Foundry conducted a test Ratchet and Clank: Rift Valley Because the game creatively uses portals that allow Rachet to instantly move from one location to another, it is considered one of the most densely stored games on PS5.
Digital Foundry found that Samsung 980 Pro can drop more than PS5’s internal storage with less FPS when passing through the portal. These FPS drops are very small, only one or two FPS, but it is enough to make the 980 Pro ahead of the PS5’s built-in SSD, giving it a slight advantage.
Next, the 980 Pro was tested on many PS4 and PS5 games to test game loading time. Overall, the 980 Pro proved to be slightly ahead of the PS5’s built-in SSD when loading PS4 backwards compatible games (such as The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Final Fantasy 15 and Fallout 4), a few seconds faster.
However, PS5 specific games tested by Digital Foundry found that the performance is the same as or worse than the built-in drive. Battlefield V shows that the load time performance is swapped between the two drives, and the built-in storage is a few seconds faster than the 980 Pro. But for Jedi Fallen Order, the load time between the two drives is the same.
Surprisingly, the 980 Pro performed very well when the radiator was abandoned. The loading time is usually comparable to the PS5’s built-in SSD, only a little slower than the 980 Pro with a heat sink. However, these are only loading times, so we are not sure if the 980 Pro will overheat when actively used in games.
Digital Foundry finally tested the internal game transfer between the two drives, and the results of the two drives were significantly different. Moving the 100GB game Cyberpunk 2077 from the internal SSD to the 980 Pro resulted in a completion time of only 1 minute and 11 seconds. Up to 1.42 GBps transfer speed.
When moving the same game from the 980 Pro to the internal SSD, the results are quite different, resulting in a transfer time of 7 minutes and 18 seconds. This is equivalent to a transfer speed of only 230 MBps, which is only faster than a 7200RPM hard drive.
We don’t know why moving the game to the internal SSD is so slow, but we suspect this may be a bug with the new firmware, as it is still in the testing phase.
Either way, it is great to see that Sony is now committed to enabling PS5 expansion slots for all game consoles, allowing gamers to use more than 600GB of drive space to play PS5 exclusive games without making any compromises.
