The Best PS5 SSDs
Finding the best PS5 SSD can be daunting due to the wide variety of choices. Plenty of SSDs will work in the PS5 and provide a simple and hassle-free capacity upgrade for your game library, but which ones rise above the crowd? To narrow down the options, we've tested many drives in a battery of tests, including many models from our SSD benchmarks hierarchy. From these, we've picked the best SSDs for the PS5 based on performance and price at several different capacities.
Nearly any new drive you buy for the PC can also be used in the PS5, so you'll also find many of these same picks on our list of Best SSDs for desktop PCs. You can also use everything from a tiny M.2 2230 drive up to a longer M.2 22110 model in the PS5, but there's no real benefit from choosing the other form factors. M.2 2280 SSDs are ubiquitous and typically offer the best combination of value, performance, and capacity.
The PS5's internal SSD is a restrictive 825GB (or 1TB on the PS5 Slim), and after formatting, updates, and bloatware, it typically leaves you with about 670GB free for games. That's bad news because today's games are becoming larger with each new release, and you'll also need somewhere to store all the screenshots and video clips you gather while you play. Call of Duty, as an example, can use more than 200GB all by itself!
The good news is that Sony has an M.2 expansion slot where you can put a second SSD for the PS5, and the current system firmware allows you to use SSDs with up to 8TB of capacity. That's hopefully enough storage to satiate even the most demanding of gamers, but there are also far more affordable options, with modern 2TB and 4TB models being particularly attractive choices for the PS5.
The TLDR: Best SSDs for the PS5 (more info below):
| Header Cell - Column 0 | Best Pick | Alternate |
|---|---|---|
| Best PS5 SSD | WD Black SN850X SSD 2TB (Buy) | SK hynix Platinum P41 2TB (Buy) |
| Fastest SSD For PS5 | Samsung 990 Pro 2TB (Buy) | WD Black SN850X SSD 2TB (Buy) |
| Best High-Capacity SSD for PS5 | Acer Predator GM7000 4TB (Buy) | Samsung 990 Pro 4TB (Buy) |
| Best Cheap SSD for PS5 | Silicon Power US75 2TB (Buy) | Netac NV7000 2TB w/ Heatsink (Buy) |
Here's the quick list of the best SSDs for the PS5, but we have further breakdowns and testing results below. There are also similar drives in some cases, with effectively the same hardware, and we'll list those alongside our primary selections. When searching for the best SSD for the PS5, you'll want to be careful about which drive you pick. The Samsung 990 Pro and WD SN850X are great SSDs for the PS5, though pricing has been trending upward for the past several months — on all SSDs. The SN850X also comes as an SN850P that's just an overpriced SN850X with a different heatsink and PlayStation 5 branding.
We've broken things down by category, with our top picks being the WD Black SN850X, SK hynix Platinum P41, and Samsung 990 Pro. For capacity or budget minded shoppers, we also have the Acer GM7000, Silicon Power US75, and Netac NV7000. Which drive will fit your particular needs best depends on what you're after, so we list multiple alternatives for most categories and SSDs.
Best SSDs for PS5
WD took its popular Black SN850 SSD and turned it up to 11, but luckily the price isn't nearly so extreme. The current $124 price on Amazon for the 2TB model is a great deal, though other capacities may not be as attractively priced. The 4TB drive at $249 is worth a look for those who want more capacity; the 8TB drive at $549 is also worth a thought if you really want all the capacity you can pack into that M.2 slot — and it's now $300 off the original launch price.
The Black SN850X leverages an improved controller and newer flash to get the most out of the PCIe 4.0 interface, thus delivering excellent performance with the Sony PlayStation 5. Performance is improved across the board, and the drive comes with a heatsink option at all capacities. You'd be better served by a purpose-built PS5 heatsink, however.
WD also supports the SSD with a respectable five-year warranty that will let you game with peace of mind. It's a great match for the PlayStation 5, and while it can be a bit pricier than budget options, overall it's still our top pick. It's also fast for gaming on a PC, particularly with DirectStorage starting to become useful.
WD has taken the course of releasing an officially-licensed SN850P. That drive is a glorified heatsinked SN850X and should only be picked if you really want the PS5 logo on your heatsink for whatever reason. It's far less expensive to get a bare SN850X and add your own heatsink.
Read: WD Black SN850X Review
WD Black SN850X 8TB Review
The SK hynix Platinum P41 was one of the fastest SSDs around when it first launched in 2022. Today, it falls slightly behind a few other drives, particularly PCIe 5.0 drives on a desktop PC, but in the PS5 it still ranks as one of the fastest solutions. With a current price of $134 for the 2TB model, it returns to our PS5 SSD list as our top alternative pick, effectively matching the WD Black SN850X but at a slightly higher price.
SK hynix is one of the few companies that makes its own controller and NAND. The Platinum P41 uses the Aries controller with 176-layer TLC NAND, and it's a mature platform that performs very well in the PS5. It's also quite efficient, though some newer drives have now surpassed it in our MB/s per watt metric. You'll likely want to add your own heatsink, and SK hynix also offers its own Haechi H01 for just $10 that does a good job.
The P41 comes in range of capacities, from 500GB (why bother?) to 2TB. Sadly, there's no 4TB option. Check some of the other options if you want a 4TB (or 8TB?) drive. Also, the Solidigm P44 Pro uses the same hardware as the Platinum P41, and could be a potentially better value depending on pricing — right now, it costs $5 more, so the P41 wins.
Read: SK hynix Platinum P41 review
High-Capacity SSD for PS5
Acer has been around for decades, but it's not a name that immediately comes to mind when thinking about SSDs. That's changing, however, and the Predator GM7 and GM7000 are excellent entries into a crowded market. The GM7000 was one of the first SSDs to pair the Maxio MAP1602A controller with 232-layer YMTC TLC NAND for a potent combination of performance, efficiency, and perhaps most importantly: price. Right now, you can pick up the 4TB model for just $233 — $67 less than the Samsung 990 Pro alternative below.
In our testing, the GM7000 performed just as well as more expensive PS5 SSDs. The PS5 read speed test, as well as our copy to and from results, were practically indistinguishable from most other drives. The only missing element would be a heatsink, and the Sabrent PS5 heatsink or SK hynix Haechi H01 can easily fill that need, providing direct airflow access rather than putting the SSD under a cover.
Note that the Maxio MAP1602A doesn't include DRAM, and on Windows PCs it would use the HMB (host memory buffer) feature to get around this. But even in the PS5, performance was fine. We didn't specifically test the GM7000 4TB model, but the Lexar NM790 4TB, Lexar Play 2280 4TB, and Silicon Power US75 4TB (see below) use the same controller and NAND, while the Netac NV7000 4TB opts for a Phison E18 controller and 176-layer Micron TLC NAND.
What about 8TB SSDs? Technically, they can work in the PS5, but prices are often way too high to justify the added capacity. Just give a look at the 8TB M.2 drives listed on Newegg: The cheapest options start at $550, which is more than the cost of a PS5 — though it's slightly less than the new PS5 Pro.
Read: Acer Predator GM7000 Review
The Samsung 990 Pro ranks near the top in both our performance and overall metrics, and it's also a great option if you want a large and spacious SSD. Which isn't to say there aren't some potentially better options like the Acer GM7000 above, as the Samsung brand costs more. But paying extra for peace of mind isn't a bad approach.
The Samsung 990 Pro 4TB provides excellent performance. More importantly, it's available as a single-sided drive with 4TB — many 4TB drives will use both sides of the SSD, which could create issues if you try to stuff them into the PS5. Samsung's latest 236-Layer V-NAND is what allows for such a high capacity with just two NAND packages, and the drive generally runs cool.
The 4TB model now sells for $269 at Amazon (up from a low of $249 in late 2023), however, so pricing is definitely not as nice as it once was. Likewise, the 2TB drive now costs $159 (up from a low of $119 last Black Friday). And both of those prices are more of a potentially short-term sale for Black Friday, as they've been priced about 10% higher until recently. Still, many other SSDs that aren't even as fast cost more.
Do you want to save money and forego the Samsung name? There are other reasonable alternatives, including the WD SN850X mentioned above and our value picks below. But if you're looking for a solid 4TB drive to stuff full of games for your PS5, the 990 Pro remains an excellent choice.
Read more:
Samsung 990 Pro 4TB review
Samsung 990 Pro 2TB review
Best Cheap SSD for PS5
The Silicon Power US75 is another Maxio MAP1602A SSD, like the above Acer GM7000. Performance will be similar, and there's a 4TB option as well. But we're mostly interested in the 2TB drive that costs $100, or the 1TB drive that can be had for as little as $57, and there's also a 4TB model for $209 — that last is about as cheap as you can find for a 4TB drive.
Performance in our PS5 testing for the US75 was very good, landing in the upper portion of our results where just about everything hits the same speed limit. The important thing to note is that the 2TB drive currently costs $5 less than our alternative budget pick, though the two have swapped places plenty of times. If you just want a lot of decently fast and affordable storage for your PS5, the US75 is a great option.
Silicon Power has been around for quite a few years as a purveyor of inexpensive SSDs, though support and warranty service tend to less than what you'd get from a major brand like Crucial or Samsung. You get what you pay for, in other words. The Addlink A93 and Lexar NM790 mentioned above are viable alternatives here as well, depending on current prices, as they use the same controller and NAND.
Read: Silicon Power US75 review
We weren't blown away by the PC performance of the Netac NV7000 4TB when we tested it last year, but time and price changes can greatly influence our feelings — especially when considering a value SSD for the PS5. The NV7000 uses Phison's E18 controller with Micron 176-layer TLC NAND, both of which have been around for a few years now. That means fully-tuned firmware that's right at home in your console.
There are newer, faster, more efficient SSDs these days, but the NV7000 holds up well in our PS5 SSD testing, delivering a read test result of over 6,100 MB/s. It's also close to the top of the charts in our PS5 game transfer testing, averaging 2,457 MB/s when copying games to the NV7000 — and everything basically ties at around 250 MB/s when moving files to the internal PS5 storage. Most importantly, perhaps, is that the Netac NV7000 2TB at $105 only costs 5 cents per GB.
There aren't many PCIe 4.0 SSDs that can beat that price per GB, whether at 1TB, 2TB, or 4TB capacity. Sustained performance on the NV7000 was good as well, and in practical use there's little discernable difference between a drive like this and one that scores slightly higher on the (very short duration) PS5 storage read test. It's too bad that the 4TB model has become harder to find, with the similar sounding Netac NV7000-T using a different controller and NAND (it's the same combination found in the Acer GM7000 and Addlink A93 4TB, though, so it's not a bad option).
Prices have increased on all SSDs in 2024, so it's nice to find a 2TB drive that still costs close to $100. The NV7000 1TB costs $69, not nearly as enticing, and the 4TB model isn't stocked anywhere we could find, unless you count eBay where it typically costs over $300. Again, there's the NV7000-T 4TB at $215, but that's not a better value than the Acer GM7000 4TB listed above, considering it uses the same controller and NAND.
The cheapest 1TB PCIe 4.0 drives start at around $60, making 2TB drives like this the best overall value. But if you only need a 1TB drive, check out the Teamgroup MP44L, Addlink S90, Corsair MP600 GS, and Silicon Power UD90 that all use the Phison E21T controller with TLC NAND. We reviewed all of those prior to starting our PlayStation 5 testing, but they should still do fine. We'd try to steer clear of QLC NAND drives if you plan on filling the SSD to near capacity, though, which is about the only way to find something cheaper than the NV7000.
Read: Netac NV7000 review
Benchmarks / How We Tested PS5 SSDs
Some of the best SSDs for the PS5 are either specifically designed for the console, or come with an integrated heatsink. However, some drives don't come with a heatsink, so we equip them with the Sabrent M.2 NVMe heatsink for the PS5 to both meet the requirements for the PS5 and to ensure a level playing field. We've found that this cooler is a great solution if you're looking for a cheap, versatile, and easy-to-install solution. There are other similar heatsinks, like the SK hynix Haechi H01 that will work just as well (though apparently neither of those work with the newer PS5 Slim).
The Sony PS5 has an internal benchmark measuring how fast the system can read data from the drive. This is the most critical performance metric for gaming, as a speedy response time is responsible for ensuring a smooth gaming experience. As you can see in the 'PS5 Read Benchmark' column above, the fastest SSD in our test pool was 90% faster than the slowest model. Sony will even flag performance as being potentially inadequate if the read score is below about 4,000 MB/s. However, this read tests only takes a few seconds and basically shows the burst speed of the SSDs, so it's quite synthetic in nature.
Real-world tests show much smaller differences. For instance, our 'Copy to M.2' benchmark consists of timing how long it takes to move four games totaling more than 200 GB (we use Mass Effect: Andromeda, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Elden Ring, and Astro's Playroom) from the internal PS5 SSD to the expansion drive. In most cases, we only see a difference of a few seconds, and converting to MB/s the difference between the fastest WD Black SN850X and the Solidigm P41 Plus is only 10%. But then there's a pretty big step down to the Samsung 990 Evo and the various Phison E27T-equipped SSDs, followed by the Transcend 250H, and in dead last (for now) sits the Inland TN470 1TB — another Phison E27T drive. How much will this matter in terms of gaming performance? Probably not at all, but when you move a bunch of data from the integrated SSD to the M.2 drive, it will take longer.
On the flipped side, we also tested this process in reverse, moving the four games back to the internal drive for our "Transfer From M.2" benchmark. Here, the sustained write speed (and encryption/security protocols) of the integrated 825GB SSD becomes the limiting factor, and there's only a 5.6% difference between the fastest and slowest SSD we've tested. The current 825GB SSD only appears to write data at up to ~250 MB/s, and all of the M.2 SSDs are easily able to maintain read speeds much higher than that figure.
Likewise, real-world testing (i.e. launching games) has failed to expose meaningful differences between the drives — it's common to see at most a one to two second difference between drives in game load times. Other testing we've seen from multiple outlets indicates very few meaningful differences, if any, for game loading times. Overall, you're unlikely to notice the speed difference between most PCIe 4.0 SSDs and could make a good argument for simply selecting the most cost-effective drive that meets the capacity target that you want — 4TB and 2TB drives are particularly popular.
Naturally, not all of the drives that we test will make the final cut for our list of Best SSDs for the PS5, but that doesn't mean those drives failed the test, or wouldn't be a great deal if you can catch them on sale. The Solidigm P44 Pro is a great SSD that delivered respectable performance in our PS5 SSD benchmarks (it's the same hardware as the SK hynix Platinum P41), and given the slim difference between the fastest and slowest SSDs on our list, it could make a great drive if the price is right. The only thing we'd try to avoid is any SSD that uses QLC NAND, as those drives can slow down significantly as they're filled to capacity.
There's also no benefit at present to selecting any of the PCIe 5.0 SSDs, as they tend to use more power then PCIe 4.0 drives, making them a poor choice for the PS5. We originally tested the Crucial T700 2TB, which like all currently available PCIe 5.0 drives uses a Phison E26 controller with Micron TLC NAND. The PS5 initially limited read performance to around 4,100 MB/s on such SSDs, even though in theory they should be fully backward compatible with the PCIe 4.0 interface. Newer firmware has fixed the previously observed issue with reduced performance, as seen with the T700 2TB/4TB and T705 2TB Crucial drives, but given current prices there's no real purpose in using a PCIe 5.0 drive and we haven't tested other models.
Tips for Finding the Best SSD for the PS5 in 2024
Which SSDs are compatible with the PS5? Luckily, finding a spacious PS5 SSD to complement your console's internal drive isn't too difficult — any PCIe 4.0 SSD that provides a minimum of 5,500 MB/s of throughput over the NVMe interface can be used as a PS5 SSD, provided it comes with a heatsink that doesn't take the overall height above 11.25mm. In fact, even slower SSDs will also be perfectly fine (PCIe 4.0 is still required), though the PS5 may warn you about the potential for reduced performance if you opt for such a drive.
Do you absolutely need a heatsink for a PS5 SSD? Sony says yes, and you can easily add your own heatsink to SSDs that aren't marketed specifically for the PS5. You can also use one of the best external drives with the PS5 to store games, but these are only for game storage — you'll need an internal expansion drive to actually play the games.
What size of SSD should you buy for the PS5? You might be fine with a 1TB drive, but we recommend selecting a 2TB or 4TB model due to the current low pricing trends for these models. Besides, who wouldn't want more storage for extra games?
Ultimately, the best drive for your PS is one that provides enough capacity to hold your games and data at a price you can afford. To help you choose, we've tested a number of the top SSDs in our labs — see the results further down the page — and pulled out the top performers for a list of the Best PS5 SSDs.
Sony PS5 SSD Requirements
The Sony PS5 requires an M.2 SSD that communicates over the NVMe protocol. Officially, you'll need a PCIe 4.0 x4 model that can deliver up to 5,500 MB/s of sequential read throughput. In practice, you can use slower SSDs, and you'll just get a warning that performance may be inadequate — note that PCIe 3.0 models are explicitly prohibited from working. The console supports 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB and 8TB models.
These small, rectangular drives look like sticks of RAM, only smaller, and the PS5 accepts both single-sided and double-sided versions. You'll also need to ensure that your drive has a cooling solution pre-applied. These can consist of thin copper heat spreaders that look like a label, or a full-fledged metal heatsink with a thermal pad.
Not all of the best SSDs for the PS5 come with a heatsink, but you can easily use your own double- or single-sided heatsink. We recommend the Sabrent M.2 NVMe heatsink for the PS5, which actually replaces the outside SSD panel on the PS5 with a heatsink, giving the SSD access to nice cooler air from outside the system. We've found that this cooler is a great solution if you're looking for a cheap, versatile, and easy-to-install solution, but there are many options on the market. For instance, TeamGroup has its new TForce AL1 heatsink, which operates similarly, coming to market soon.
Just make sure the SSDs don't exceed 110 x 25 x 11.25mm. M.2 SSDs are usually 80mm long by 22mm wide, described as size 2280, but some may be shorter or longer. The PS5 supports M Key Type 2230, 2242, 2260, 2280 and 22110. Some M.2 drives are also SATA interfaces instead of NVMe, but those are rare and would not be listed as being PCIe 4.0 compliant. Regardless, make sure your SSD supports NVMe.
Sony has detailed instructions on how to install a PS5 SSD. As you can see in the video above, installing the SSD is a simple process that only requires a #1 Phillips head screwdriver. After you've installed the SSD, you can navigate through the menus to the 'Settings→Storage→Installation Location' area and change it to your new SSD. All new games will now install directly to the SSD.
To move existing games to your new drive, select the internal SSD, highlight the item you want to move, press the Options button, and then select 'Move Games and Apps.' Select any other games that you would like to move in the checkboxes, then select 'Move.' As noted in our above testing, moving from the integrated SSD will generally be much faster than moving to the integrated drive.
