The news that a major new platform update for the PS5 had gone into closed beta testing today held many little secrets and tidbits — including the ability to turn that irritating beep the console makes on startup (though nothing about turning the lights off yet, unfortunately). Reading over the patch notes, the thing that jumped out at me was the buff to expanded storage capacities on m.2 solid state drives.
To date, the PS5 has supported up to 4TB of expanded storage, which is added to the machine via a bay beneath its faceplates. Accessing this bay and adding expanded storage neither hurts your PS5 console nor voids your warranty. Sony is quite happy for you to do it. I installed a 2TB m.2 drive in my PS5 myself. It’s very easy to do. I even made a TikTok about how to do it.
And I thought that a 2TB drive was plenty big. It’s served me well so far, taking up only half of the PS5’s total expanded storage ceiling. The biggest drive you could put in a PS5 was a 4TB m.2 NVMe SSD.
With this new beta update, that 4TB limit has now been expanded to a whopping 8TB. That’s quite a bit of storage for a console, but in an era where install sizes are now routinely getting up to 120GB, it feels like future-proofing that’s arrived on time.
Blindingly fast and incredibly small, m.2 solid state drives in these larger capacities are still not the cheapest of storage solutions — and they need to sit within the range of drives the PS5 is compatible with for proper use. So, with that in mind, and my word it took me a minute to get to the point of this article:
Let’s take a look at what an 8TB m.2 drive will currently cost you if you want to get one for your PS5.
Some cheap solutions exist for those looking to get a drive, any drive, into their PS5. I’ve seen the odd 2TB m.2 SSD compatible with the PS5 for $200 or less. You are, of course, taking your chances with drives that cheap. Maybe get a PS Plus subscription and make sure all your saves are uploaded to the cloud as a backup.
If you want to go straight to 8TB of storage, I did find a few options while casting around Amazon and a couple of my usual haunts for PC parts.
PNY CS3140 8TB M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe Gen4 SSD
Price: $1749
Sabrent 8TB Rocket 4 Plus NVMe 4.0
Price: $1,599.99
SABRENT Rocket 4 Plus SSD with Heatsink 8TB
Price: $1,629.99 (Comes with a heatsink, which is useful)
Corsair MP600 PRO XT 8TB Gen4
Price: $1,849.68
Mushkin Gamma Gen 4.0 – 8TB
Price: $1,912.48
As you can see, outfitting your PS5 with the bleeding edge of m.2 SSD storage isn’t exactly cheap. In fact, this storage alone is currently worth more than a PS5 console by itself. PC enthusiasts are, of course, no strangers to this kind of lopsided pricing on parts — the PC I’m writing this article on has a graphics card worth 3.37 PlayStation 5’s. We develop a bleak sense of humour about these things as a way to cope. Console owners unused to such swings and roundabouts may be surprised by the steep asking prices.
Obviously, the above pricing will drop substantially over the rest of the PS5’s life, so it isn’t like you have to dive in right away if you’re not flush with cash (and who is right now). As I said earlier, this is future-proofing. This ensures the PS5 can support larger storage sizes now and into the future as the rest of its lifecycle plays out.
Thoughts? Have you already upgraded your PS5’s onboard storage? Do drive prices surprise you, or are they about what you expected? Get in the comments and let me know.
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