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[Kadve]

Was looking up some stuff regarding the current gen consoles (Mostly a PC gamer so haven't bought either yet) and found out that neither SSD are user replaceable (the PS5 SSD even being soldered onto the motherboard).

While that's bad enough then i also found articles claiming that each SSD is actually locked to the console it shipped with, and thought that it cant be true right?

Cloned Xbox Series X internal SSDs can work on other Series X consoles

Internal Xbox Series X SSD drives can only be be used as internal SSDs in other Xbox Series X consoles if they are cloned.

www.tweaktown.com

Playstation 5 soldered 825 GB SSD puts a hard limit on the lifespan of each retail unit

What will happen when the internal SSD inevitably dies? We're not so sure. Whereas the primary drives in the PS3 and PS4 could all be easily replaced, the fixed SSD in the PS5 could be an issue far into the lifespan of the system.

www.notebookcheck.net

Electronics fail, that's just the nature of things. Usually when that happens you can fix it by replacing the part with one from another console. But this would imply that ~20 years from now when Sony/MS has stopped support for their current consoles, they have a chance of becoming unfixable bricks?

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Could be, previous consoles had encrypted hdds too.

 

[Rivet]

Yes, they're definitely locked to the console.

Those consoles will never be bricks though, considering how popular they are, you'll always find spare parts.

 

[ManaByte]

The PS5 SSD is part of the mother board. It’s not replaceable.

 

[Kadve]

Those consoles will never be bricks though, considering how popular they are, you'll always find spare parts.

Thats the thing. It looks like you cant swap the SSD's between consoles and use them as spare parts. They wont work.

The PS5 SSD is part of the mother board. It’s not replaceable.

Its called resoldering. pain in the ass sure but its always doable.

 

[AetherZX]

Its called resoldering. pain in the ass sure but its always doable.

This isn't doable for quite literally over 90% of owners. Don't be absurd.

In fact, that design choice leads me to question the long term lifespan of the console after it's discontinued.

 

[RoboFu]

of course they are. it would be a very bad security decision not to encrypt the ssds to the machine itself. you can still transfer to new mahines through the settings if you buy a new one.

 

[RoadHazard]

They all have a chance of becoming unfixable bricks either way, for example through the GPU or a RAM chip breaking. You can't individually replace those either I'm pretty sure. The SSD, at least on the PS5, is just another chip soldered onto the same board, it's not a separate thing like you'd have in a PC. So yes, it's one more thing that could fail, but it's not like there weren't already a ton of those.

 

[Rivet]

Thats the thing. It looks like you cant swap the SSD's between consoles and use them as spare parts. They wont work.

Its called resoldering. pain in the ass sure but its always doable.

Of course they will, you'll just have to reformat the disk. Content is lost, but the hardware obviously works.

PS5 lets you install external SSD by the way, same thing, all you have to do is format the disk. It already works.

 

[Kadve]

Of course they will, you'll just have to reformat the disk. Content is lost, but the hardware obviously works.

Maybe the PS5. But not the XSX if you read the article i posted. Every XSX SSD contains a serial ID unique to said console. Reformat it and the console wont accept it. And you cant swap them between consoles for the same reason.

Cloned Xbox Series X internal SSDs can work on other Series X consoles

Internal Xbox Series X SSD drives can only be be used as internal SSDs in other Xbox Series X consoles if they are cloned.

www.tweaktown.com

What's interesting is that one Xbox Series X SSD can't be transplanted into another separate Xbox Series X. Like the PS4, gamers can't swap internal Xbox Series drives between two systems. The internal SSD only work with the original hardware similar to a Windows 10 OEM copy.

 

[wvnative]

PS5 is unconfirmed as far as I know but moot given it's on the motherboard.

Series X someone managed to clone it and found it won't work.

 

[Black_Stride]

I dont think anyone has even tried to solder in a new SSD into the PS5, though I am very curious to see someone try.
The Series X can be cloned but I havent seen one boot.

Yes, they're definitely locked to the console.

Those consoles will never be bricks though, considering how popular they are, you'll always find spare parts.

If the parts are locked to a console whats the point of spare parts if those spare parts are from another console and will be locked to the console they came from?

Could be, previous consoles had encrypted hdds too.

This wasnt true for the PS4, Xbox One, PS3 or Xbox 360.
Hell the PS4 and Xbox 360 sold changing HDDs as a feature.

Clever cloning on the "we dont support changing HDD systems" but otherwise the actual HDDs themselves arent locked to the console they shipped in.

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

This isn't doable for quite literally over 90% of owners. Don't be absurd.

In fact, that design choice leads me to question the long term lifespan of the console after it's discontinued.

More like 99,999999999%

It will ends like this for the most.

 

[phil_t98]

am sure I seen a guy on YouTube swap them and it worked, was a while ago I seen the video. can't be 100% sure though but he defiantly swapped them. the reballing of the solder looked a pain in the ass to do

 

[Fafalada]

While that's bad enough then i also found articles claiming that each SSD is actually locked to the console it shipped with, and thought that it cant be true right?

Storage gets encrypted to each device - this is standard practice so you can't just mirror (hypothetically) the installed data to other devices. It's not unlike how bitlocker works on PCs. It worked the same way for previous consoles HDDs.

Maybe your question was around 'can you move a physical drive from one XBox to another while cloning the data from the target' - which IIRC works, but there are caveats (Series S will not accept Series X drives and vice versa).
Replacing the chips on PS5 would possibly have similar limitations (possibly you'd need to match exact capacity/specs else it wouldn't work - but if you go as far as resoldering, it should be possible). Of course - on PS5 that seems a bit silly since you can simply plugin an NVME drive and use that as primary storage too.

This wasnt true for the PS4, Xbox One, PS3 or Xbox 360.

Of course it was - contents were encrypted, moving the drive meant losing everything on it. Inserting a new drive would also not boot - the difference was they had the option for console to 'flash' the drive with firmware through boot-recovery-menu, which I suppose doesn't 'just work' anymore, but that can be worked around by cloning I guess.

 

[ReBurn]

Thats the thing. It looks like you cant swap the SSD's between consoles and use them as spare parts. They wont work.

Its called resoldering. pain in the ass sure but its always doable.

It's more involved than just resoldering. The PS5 SSD is 6 BGA chips attached to the motherboard so It requires a bit more effort.

Thus guy has tried it a couple if times and hasn't been successful yet. Here's his most recent attempt:



He fixes a lot of broken PS5's so he's a pretty skilled technician.

 

[nkarafo]

Hell the PS4 and Xbox 360 sold changing HDDs as a feature.

And yet, the DVD drive, of all things, is locked to the 360 console. You can't replace it with a DVD drive of a different 360 console. So now i have 2x worthless fat 360 consoles, one with a RROD but working DVD drive and one that works but the DVD drive can't read anything.

I don't understand why would they lock the DVD drive. How does that help? It's just a read only device ffs.

 

[K2D]

It's in situations like this that I'm glad I live in a place that protects consumers (5 years in case of gaming consoles).

Not entirely safe from planned obsolescence though..

 

[Black_Stride]

Of course it was - contents were encrypted, moving the drive meant losing everything on it. Inserting a new drive would also not boot - the difference was they had the option for console to 'flash' the drive with firmware through boot-recovery-menu, which I suppose doesn't 'just work' anymore, but that can be worked around by cloning I guess.

Cloning the drive would let you move everything all at once.
I know this worked on X360 cuz I did it myself.
On PS4 I never upgraded or cloned when the drive had games or anything on there, but I imagine it worked the same since it was a feature of the console.

I never needed to clone upgrade on PS3 or Xbox One, but im sure the same is true.

 

[AetherZX]

It's more involved than just resoldering. The PS5 SSD is 6 BGA chips attached to the motherboard so It requires a bit more effort.

Thus guy has tried it a couple if times and hasn't been successful yet. Here's his most recent attempt:



He fixes a lot of broken PS5's so he's a pretty skilled technician.

I'll admit I knew it required resoldering, but to that extent and a professional having no success...just what the fuck, Sony.

 

[ReBurn]

I'll admit I knew it required resoldering, but to that extent and a professional having no success...just what the fuck, Sony.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's some encryption or hash that locks the formatted on-board storage to a particular system for security purposes. Sony probably doesn't make a "format new internal" option available since they probably don't expect people to try to do this themselves. That channel provides a lot of insight into what can be repaired and how people tend to break their systems. A lot of people seem to brutalize their HDMI and USB ports.

 

[CrustyBritches]

You can swap drives from different systems on Series X, but it has to be cloned from the original. TronicsFix did a video on it. He was using a standalone cloning device that worked for going from a Series X to Series X drive, but wouldn’t clone going from a Series X to non-Series X 2242 drive. I’m not sure about the viability of creating an image on PC and simply cloning it back to a compatible drive in the future. That would be ideal.

I know they sell external adapters to spoof the expansion drives, but they require a specific drive: the WD CH SN530. I have a WD PC SN530 in my Steam Deck that was $148 and that’s considered cheap. 2230s are really expensive compared to 2280s.

A used CH SN530 1TB runs about $120 on EBay.

 

[Famipan]

We can just hope that a PS5 with a dead internal SSD will work as long as it has an installed M.2 NVME SSD.

 

[ReBurn]

You can swap drives from different systems on Series X, but it has to be cloned from the original. TronicsFix did a video on it. He was using a standalone cloning device that worked for going from a Series X to Series X drive, but wouldn’t clone going from a Series X to non-Series X 2242 drive. I’m not sure about the viability of creating an image on PC and simply cloning it back to a compatible drive in the future. That would be ideal.

I know they sell external adapters to spoof the expansion drives, but they require a specific drive: the WD CH SN530. I have a WD PC SN530 in my Steam Deck that was $148 and that’s considered cheap. 2230s are really expensive compared to 2280s.

A used CH SN530 1TB runs about $120 on EBay.

Those SN530's were relatively cheap on ebay until China started mass producing the Xbox Series adapters. Then the prices ballooned to the point where it's pretty much just as expensive as the Seagate option.

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

And yet, the DVD drive, of all things, is locked to the 360 console. You can't replace it with a DVD drive of a different 360 console. So now i have 2x worthless fat 360 consoles, one with a RROD but working DVD drive and one that works but the DVD drive can't read anything.

I don't understand why would they lock the DVD drive. How does that help? It's just a read only device ffs.

It was a security measure to prevent piracy (which plagued the first Xbox) with ODE (optical device emulator) and DVD drive firmware reflash. Eventually, the X360 was hacked and modded, firstly by flashing the DVD firmware to play burned copied DVD, then later with a third party device (Xkey mainly) which replaced the DVD drive entirely with an HDD emulating DVD drive.
That's only one of the possible ways to mod/hack it, there were many others ways depending of the console generation (FAT, slim, DVD drive brand [ LG, Liteon, Hitachi.. ] and model, motherboard revision, etc...).

That's why each drive is linked to the console with an encryption key which must be ripped from the motherboard with some soldering.
If you have modders around you, they can *maybe* fix your problem and make a working console with both (I'm just unsure if we can obtain the encryption key once the motherboard has the RROD, don't remember).

Honestly, better but a cheap used more recent version of the console.

 

[CrustyBritches]

Those SN530's were relatively cheap on ebay until China started mass producing the Xbox Series adapters. Then the prices ballooned to the point where it's pretty much just as expensive as the Seagate option.

Steam Deck's release probably doesn't help either. I was looking at getting one of the adapters and a drive for my son's Series S. A used 512GB CH SN530 is around $60 and the adapter is $20. It should work, but I'm also kind of holding out for a possible Black Friday deal. We'll see how it goes.

 

[Kadve]

Cloning the drive would let you move everything all at once.
I know this worked on X360 cuz I did it myself.
On PS4 I never upgraded or cloned when the drive had games or anything on there, but I imagine it worked the same since it was a feature of the console.

I never needed to clone upgrade on PS3 or Xbox One, but im sure the same is true.

Then lets hope you've done that before the old one broke.

 

[ReBurn]

Steam Deck's release probably doesn't help either. I was looking at getting one of the adapters and a drive for my son's Series S. A used 512GB CH SN530 is around $60 and the adapter is $20. It should work, but I'm also kind of holding out for a possible Black Friday deal. We'll see how it goes.

I managed to get a 1 TB Seagate drive in a flash sale around the time Sony opened up the NVME slot on the PS5. I got the card for about the same price as the PS5 storage upgrade so I wasn't too upset. But that 1tb card still being original MSRP when you can get a gen 4 NVME drive for about $100 less is shameful.

 

[prinz_valium]

This isn't doable for quite literally over 90% of owners. Don't be absurd.

In fact, that design choice leads me to question the long term lifespan of the console after it's discontinued.

Make that 99.9%
Because it's not a regular IC to resolder. It's one with a lot of traces and lanes on a small area. Just like SOC die resoldering is hard as fuck

 

[Paperclip Killa]

The PS5 SSD is part of the mother board. It’s not replaceable.

There's videos at launch of how to do it, the problem is that it risks voiding the warranty.

 

[Topher]

There's videos at launch of how to do it, the problem is that it risks voiding the warranty.

Definitely something you wouldn't do in any case when under warranty. That's what warranties are for.

 

[Fafalada]

Cloning the drive would let you move everything all at once.

Yes - but as noted, that ostensibly still works with current consoles from what we've seen. But the problem is still that you need to create the clone-backup ahead of time, once it breaks, you have nowhere to get it from (and clone from another console won't work for obvious reasons).
That said - it wasn't without caveats even in the past.

On PS4 I never upgraded or cloned when the drive had games or anything on there, but I imagine it worked the same since it was a feature of the console.

I've done the 'cloning' experiment on PS4 once - it 'worked' to the extent of console booting and showing content on the new drive - but the access speeds were about 20x slower than normal (everything took forever to access) to the point of it being nearly unusable. At the time I thought I might have accidentally killed the drive given how broken everything behaved - but reformatting it, and redoing the install from scratch worked fine again - so it was some issue between encryption and data-layout not translating so nicely from one drive to another.

 

[b0uncyfr0]

I thought you could buy *some* 2230 ssd and clone the series X..?

Or do that trick with the CFExpress adapter... i swear, everytime i read about these threads, im more confised about the stoarage options on the series X/S. Its so unclear on what works and what doesnt.

 

[Tommi84]

We can just hope that a PS5 with a dead internal SSD will work as long as it has an installed M.2 NVME SSD.

You can't move system files to additional SSD so once the original dies, console dies.

But let's be honest. We have bilions of bilions mobiles with soldered storage. How many dies? Chances are you will move on to a newer model than anything else.

 

[Topher]

I thought you could buy *some* 2230 ssd and clone the series X..?

Or do that trick with the CFExpress adapter... i swear, everytime i read about these threads, im more confised about the stoarage options on the series X/S. Its so unclear on what works and what doesnt.

From what I read, only one model of 2230 SSD actually works with Xbox and it isn't sold directly to the public. You can sometimes find refurbs on eBay but they are expensive.