A quick and dependable SSD in your PS5

One of many PS5’s most tasty options is its upgradeable M.2 SSD, however there is a catch: it must be quick. It’s because the PS5 has DirectStorage-like expertise, and a sluggish SSD simply will not work. Consequently, PS5 house owners on the lookout for PS5-friendly SSDs must be fairly cautious, and that is the place Seagate’s Recreation Drive PS5 NVMe SSD is available in. It is made for the PS5, is formally licensed by Sony, and provides 1TB and 2TB fashions.

The 1TB mannequin of the Recreation Drive is a bit pointless because the PS5 already has a 1TB SSD, and the Recreation Drive 1TB goes for $100. Nevertheless, the $150 Recreation Drive 2TB is actually good, and though it is costly for a PCIe 4.0 SSD, it is positively value it due to its nice efficiency below even essentially the most difficult of situations. Nevertheless, the 990 Professional 2TB with Samsung’s customized heatsink prices $150 and performs barely higher, making the Recreation Drive 2TB a bit of uncompetitive.

About this overview: Seagate despatched me the Recreation Drive 2TB for the needs of this overview. Seagate didn’t see the contents of this overview earlier than publishing.

Pricing and availability

Ostensibly, Seagate launched the Recreation Drive PS5 NVMe SSD on October 3 and launched 1TB and 2TB fashions, which at present price $100 and $150 respectively. They all the time come preinstalled with a heatsink since they’re made for the PS5, although they will also be used on regular desktops so long as you have got an M.2 slot that helps NVMe SSDs.

Nevertheless, there appears to be one other model of the Recreation Drive that got here out final yr, and this older Recreation Drive appears equivalent in each respect. Not solely does the older Recreation Drive seem to make use of the identical heatsink, however the 1TB and 2TB fashions have the identical specs. Moreover, there’s really a 4TB mannequin of this older Recreation Drive, whereas the “new” Recreation Drive that Seagate launched in October solely goes as much as 2TB. On Amazon, the 2TB mannequin is now not out there, however the 1TB mannequin is $72 and the 4TB mannequin is $390.

However, the 4TB mannequin of the older Recreation Drive could possibly be nice in your PS5 if you’d like tons of video games.

Regardless of the case is, every Recreation Drive has an endurance of 1,275TBW per terabyte of storage. The 1TB and 2TB fashions are rated for 7,300MB/s in reads whereas the 4TB mannequin is barely slower at 7,250MB/s, whereas the 2TB and 4TB fashions can do 6,900MB/s in writes towards the 1TB’s 6,000MB/s. Moreover, the 1TB mannequin has 20% much less random studying efficiency than the 2TB and 4TB fashions.

Efficiency

How the Seagate Recreation Drive PS5 NVMe 2TB was examined

I’ve the 2TB Recreation Drive in for overview at the moment, which I examined in my Intel benchmarking PC outfitted with the Core i9-14900K, ASRock’s Z790 Taichi Lite, and 32GB of DDR5 clocked at 5,600MHz and operating CL40 timings. Nevertheless, it is value noting that the sequential, peak efficiency outcomes will doubtless not be attainable on the PS5. AMD CPUs (even the most recent Ryzen 7000 sequence) have a tough time extracting all attainable efficiency out of SSDs, and I am certain this may apply to the PS5 and its Zen 2 AMD APU. That being stated, there will probably be some key metrics that can matter for the PS5.

I used my regular suite of benchmarks for this overview: CrystalDiskMark, 3DMark’s storage check, and IOMeter. To be clear, solely certainly one of these is a gaming benchmark, however getting the total story on an SSD with out testing a minimum of a number of apps is unattainable. The PS5 does not merely demand a quick SSD that may fulfill 3DMark, it requires one that may deal with the PS5’s cutting-edge knowledge streaming software program, which is why not all PCIe 4.0 SSDs are good for the PS5.

Sadly, I haven’t got an array of SSDs that make sense to check towards the Recreation Drive 2TB. Only a few SSDs are formally rated for the PS5, and I haven’t got any of them available. That’ll make the numbers a bit onerous to guage, however I will add additional context the place wanted to make issues clearer.

CrystalDiskMark

CrystalDiskMark exams file switch speeds below a number of completely different customizable parameters. Right here, I am simply sticking to the six exams it has by default, which cowl essentially the most reasonable conditions for an SSD to be in. Whereas it is a artificial and never real-world benchmark, it illustrates the height efficiency we must always anticipate in an SSD.

Scores are organized by learn/write and are measured in MB/s.

Whereas the information from my 990 Professional 1TB and MP600 Professional NH 2TB critiques had been accomplished on a unique check bench and cannot be in contrast on to right here, it is positively true that the Recreation Drive 2TB is simply a bit of far behind in sequential workloads. The image is not clear in random workloads, since AMD CPUs particularly wrestle with these, however I’d estimate that the Recreation Drive is roughly on par or possibly a bit of behind at worst.

The Recreation Drive provides good peak efficiency, nice sustained efficiency, and may work effectively within the PS5.

For the PS5 particularly, these outcomes are good however not tremendous essential. It’s true that you really want an SSD that is a minimum of as quick because the one within the PS5 simply to verify all the pieces works correctly, however any additional efficiency will not matter all an excessive amount of. You might even see a discount in loading occasions with this SSD, however we’re speaking about going from 5 seconds to 3 or two, which is not an enormous deal.

3DMark

The storage benchmark in 3DMark is very relevant to the Recreation Drive because it exams actual video games. The general rating is predicated on how the drive performs in three video games concerning switch speeds and latency.

A rating of 4,200 is fairly good, although a bit behind the 990 Professional 2TB, in response to most critiques and the 3DMark database. Extra importantly, it is positively a superb rating amongst different PCIe 4.0 SSDs, so that you could be fairly secure assuming that this SSD will probably be ample. After all, it is also licensed by Sony, so that you should not want to fret anyway.

IOMeter

I’ve configured IOMeter, an old-school SSD benchmarking instrument from a long time in the past, to run a 15-minute-long writing workload on the Recreation Drive at three ranges of fullness. It’s because a long-running writing operation will finally deplete an SSD’s cache and end in a efficiency drop. Plus, a filled-up SSD has much less room to rapidly shove knowledge into, and the extra time an SSD has to dedicate to sorting itself out, the much less time it has for shifting knowledge, and the more serious efficiency will get.

What’s outstanding in regards to the Recreation Drive is its efficiency even with a lot of it being full.

I examined the Recreation Drive at 10% full, 50% full, and 90% full within the graph beneath.

Scores are measured in MB/s.

What’s outstanding in regards to the Recreation Drive is its efficiency even with a lot of it being full. For context, this efficiency is sort of pretty much as good as Corsair’s MP700 Professional 2TB, a top-end PCIe 5.0 SSD, and higher than some PCIe 5.0 drives. This sort of efficiency is actually essential for one thing just like the PS5, which expects good writing speeds always, like when you’re downloading a sport within the background for instance.

IOMeter can also be a reasonably good approach to check thermals and cooling efficiency because it runs for therefore lengthy and may carry out excessive energy consumption in an SSD. Fortunately, the Recreation Drive solely peaked at 75 C in my testing, which is a bit of on the excessive facet however effectively wanting thermal throttling. Outcomes would possibly really be higher within the PS5 because it’s designed to information airflow over the SSD.

Do you have to purchase the Seagate Recreation Drive PS5 NVMe 2TB?

You can purchase the Seagate Recreation Drive PS5 NVMe 2TB if:

• You desire a dependable and quick third-party PS5 SSD
• You need your PS5 SSD to be licensed for the PS5
• You need an SSD that comes with a heatsink

You shouldn’t purchase the Seagate Recreation Drive PS5 NVMe 2TB if:

• The 990 Professional 2TB with heatsink is identical value or a tiny bit extra
• You do not actually care that the Recreation Drive’s heatsink is PlayStation-themed
• You do not have a PS5

Seagate’s Recreation Drive 2TB SSD for the PS5 is not good, nevertheless it’s usually a superb product. It provides good peak efficiency, nice sustained efficiency, and may work effectively within the PS5. The one actual downside it has to take care of is the 990 Professional 2TB, because the heatsink mannequin is equally priced and performs higher. If the 990 Professional 2TB is an choice for you, I do not see why you’d get the Recreation Drive, however on the identical time, Seagate’s SSD is not unhealthy, both.

The 1TB mannequin is fairly pointless so far as I can inform. It might positively discover some use as a alternative half for a damaged PS5, however there is not any level in upgrading to it based mostly on knowledge that different reviewers and customers have proven. However, the 4TB mannequin of the older Recreation Drive could possibly be nice in your PS5 if you’d like tons of video games. Although at practically $400, it is fairly costly, and we dwell in a world the place the 4TB mannequin of the 990 Professional exists and prices $355 with the heatsink or $250 with out.

I believe the Recreation Drive might use a bit of little bit of a value reduce, or a minimum of if SSD costs go up, as I anticipate, the Recreation Drive wants to finish up being a bit of cheaper than the 990 Professional. After all, it’s possible you’ll resolve that the Recreation Drive’s customized heatsink is value spending a bit of additional on, and you would be effectively inside your proper to take action.