In a few days, the PS5 will be released in the first countries and on November 19th also in Germany. However, during the first time, you need to manage your storage well, especially when it comes to games specifically for the PS5. It simply does not make sense to buy an SSD for the PS5. Sony also advises against it.
Why should we wait? As Sony revealed in an extensive FAQ about the PS5, the use of an external hard drive for the PS5 is limited:
- You will not be able to store PS5 games on an external USB drive at launch. This will be added later.
- In the future, PS5 games will not be playable from any external drive.
- What should work in the future is connecting an M.2 SSD drive, which will allow you to store and play PS5 titles. However, this feature will come later and will require specific requirements.
For you, this initially means that you have to store all PS5 games on your internal hard drive. However, the internal hard drive offers only about 667 GB of storage (via GamePro).
However, if you want to utilize the entire PS Plus Collection available to subscribers at the PS5 launch, you will need over 800 GB.
Sony recommends waiting to purchase the M.2 SSD
What does Sony say about the situation? In the FAQ, Sony emphasizes that you should not purchase an M.2 SSD for now:
No. At the moment, we recommend waiting to purchase M.2 SSD drives intended for use with the PS5 console.
We will release more details about recommended drives in the future. The M.2 SSD storage functionality will be added after launch with an upcoming system software update for the PS5.
What is special about this type of hard drive? M.2 SSDs are particularly fast drives typically connected via PCI-Express.
They do not use the common SATA connections, which are used for other internal hard drives. The current SATA-3 standard allows a transfer rate of 6 Gbit/s. However, higher rates are possible with PCI-Express.
It is currently known that the PS5 supports PCI Express 4.0. You can find all further information about the SSDs for PS5 here:
Does the recommendation also apply to other SSDs? In principle, you can also connect external SSDs that rely on a USB connection. However, you will not be able to store PS5 games on these at launch. This feature is supposed to come later.
Currently, to play PS5 titles, you will necessarily need an M.2 SSD.
How long should you wait to buy an SSD? According to Sony, you should wait until the storage functionality is added with a future patch and until the exact requirements of the hard drive are established.
When Sony shares this information is currently unknown.
What about games for the PS4? For games from the predecessor PS4, the above-mentioned restrictions do not apply.
There, you can use any SSD with a USB connection, connect it to the PS5, and even launch games directly from the external hard drive.
While Sony cannot currently provide exact information, the competition from Microsoft has already introduced an officially supported storage expansion. This is an SSD hard drive with 1 TB of storage, which has raised eyebrows with its price but has convinced me:
You need a SSD for your Xbox Series X for €240 if you love MMOs as much as I do
