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The PS5 worked fine with the slowest compatible SSD we could find

Godot25

Banned
Editors of The Verge tried to test slowest possible NVMe SSD drive in PS5 which was ADATA XPG Gammix S50 Lite with read speeds 3900MB/s and there was no difference in load times in PS5 exclusives like Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

That’s why we tracked down an ADATA XPG Gammix S50 Lite, one of the slowest compatible PCIe Gen4 drives we could find at 3,900MB/s reads and 3,200MB/s writes, and stuck it into a PS5, along with another drive.
We compared the S50 Lite against both the PS5’s internal SSD and a 5,000MB/s Sabrent Rocket 500GB in a battery of tests, including load times for games like early PS5 showcases Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart and Spider-Man: Miles Morales. We also measured how long it takes to back up games to each kind of drive, throwing in a Seagate external HDD for comparison, since Sony now allows you to archive PS5 games and play PS4 games from an traditional hard drive.

The verdict? Surprisingly, even the slowest compatible SSD we could find had near-identical load times to the one Sony includes in the box. Sometimes it’s a second slower, sometimes a second or two faster, but basically it’s a total wash. Hopping through dimensions in Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, I saw no appreciable difference with the slowest SSD.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/4/22608153/ps5-ssd-speed-test-storage-expansion-m2-playstation-5
 
Insomniac did state they saw a difference. However that was only in the sections that stressed the I/O. I would still aim for a drive that's similar in performance to the soldered drive.

Edit: Topher Topher I believe he was the one from Insomniac that made the comment about the slower drives.

Found it.

We tried some below-spec Gen4 M.2 drives as well and saw up to 15% slower loading in the most SSD-stressing areas of the game. Not too shabby, but keep a close eye on technical specs if you’re making an SSD purchase, as our game does rely on high-quality storage.
Folded hands
 
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jaysius

Banned
This is going to make some of those Obsessives Sony Jingo's head's implode, when the key part of their dogma was SSD SPEED SSD SPEED! Here we have tests that show the SSD speed AT THIS TIME isn't being utilized by any part of the OS be it loading current gen or dead gen games. This might change, we'll have to wait and see, I'm sure Xbots will now throw the PS5 down into a deep pit and say it's nothing because of this.

The man behind the curtain is being exposed, what do you do? PIVOT PIVOT!

This hopefully exposes the insanity of console warring on one spec along with all the fake tech that spouts from any console warrior, but OSJ in particular.

The machine is well made, that's the truth.

Maybe soldering SSD memory that has a finite(albeit extremely high) number of reads/writes to a motherboard isn't a great idea for long term console life. When games that truly need the speed of the SSD come out we'll see I guess.
 
What are you talking about? The slower drive performed identical, if it's not flawless than what is the internal drive?

Not in stressful situations according to the developer.

Mike Fitzgerald (@fitzymj) Tweeted:
We tried some below-spec Gen4 M.2 drives as well and saw up to 15% slower loading in the most SSD-stressing areas of the game. Not too shabby, but keep a close eye on technical specs if you’re making an SSD purchase, as our game does rely on high-quality storage. 🙏
 

Topher

Gold Member
It proves R&C is not "impossible to run" in other hardware due to "the exclusive ultra fast ssd on the ps5"

That is where the "rest of the I/O path" comes into play. Why do you think Nvidia is bothering with RTX IO?

I thought the quote about R&C being 15 percent slower on lower spec drives was discussing streaming data in game. This seems to be about load times.

Yep. The numbers above are "measured from PS5 homescreen to active gameplay"
 
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Mowcno

Member
So people shouldn't be worried. Worst case scenario a few games don't work properly on the external... you can just install those games on the internal instead and use external for the games that do work which will likely be most. I wouldn't go lower than this 3900MB/s but if it's a PCIE4 drive I doubt you'll even find lower then that.

Get a PCIE4 ssd, get a heatsink for it (that fits) and you're golden.
 
even RC works perfectly on 'slow' ssd, pretty much proves my hypothesis about the ssd i/o hype that never really was.

going from hdd to nvme is a huge jump and that's that

big numbers big multiplier, but the real bottleneck is not IO for next gen games

According to Mike those slow SSDs are not matching the internal drive. So I wouldn't say they are performing equivalent to it. I'm pretty sure the recommending specs are for the drives that will.

Also the nice thing about the PS5s I/O complex is that it applies to any NVME that you put into the system. The I/O structure goes beyond just the drive.
 
Interesting, this is good if we can put in cheaper drives possibly. On the other hand when we do start pushing io/ ssd I wonder what will be the defacto drive to use?
 
Insomniac did state they saw a difference. However that was only in the sections that stressed the I/O. I would still aim for a drive that's similar in performance to the soldered drive.
While I agree, and would do the same, I see people getting a slower drive and using it to play the games they can From it... And swap around the big ones that need the speed.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
It proves R&C is not "impossible to run" in other hardware due to "the exclusive ultra fast ssd on the ps5"

No it does not. You are disregarding the rest of the i/o hardware.

Also, trying to claim that the performance characteristics of a single game based on limited ad-hoc testing is meaningful beyond the anecdotal is just silly.

And lets not forget there are also issues to be considered regarding long-term sustained performance of the drives. These things don't last forever and degrade with extended use. So starting with greater headroom is likely beneficial.
 

reksveks

Member
Interesting, this is good if we can put in cheaper drives possibly. On the other hand when we do start pushing io/ ssd I wonder what will be the defacto drive to use?
it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation and very dependent on what games we are talking about.

if you are talking about multiplatform games, i suspect that you are going to be fine with a 3.9gb/s ssd for the life of the ps5. dev's aren't going to design around a 5.5gb/s drive considering pc's and therefore will probably have some scaling in mind.
if you are talking about sony first party games, then you got to make a decision on whether Sony plans with pc in mind and if so, whether they want to make their porting lives easier. if you do, you might be fine with a slower drive. if you don't then i think you would need a full 5.5gb/s drive.

has the ps5 been hacked yet? i would love to see a ps5 with a pcie3 drive in it and it trying to run rachet and clank
 
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RafterXL

Member
has the ps5 been hacked yet? i would love to see a ps5 with a pcie3 drive in it and it trying to run rachet and clank
It's all relative. Even this 3900mb/s ssd is still 60% higher read speed than the 2400mb/s ssd in the Xbox Series consoles. In terms of consoles you could still call it "Ultra Fast". With a 2400mb/s drive maybe it would crap out.

I hope we find out. Unless Sony has some kind of software block on the slot, you can put a PCIE3 card in it.
 
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