Seagate states that as AAA titles are regularly exceeding 100GB, "higher capacity storage is essential for uninterrup💝ted gameplay. Seagate’s new 4TB Storage Expansion Card gives Xbox players the freedom to download and play their favorite blockbuster games, indie favorites, and media without worrying about running out of space." ()

This 4TB Storage Expansion Card is prepared to take on the trend of storage-demanding game releases. In April of this year, the Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion Remastered popped on Xbox Game Pass with an eye-wate๊ring 125GB install size, and it wasn't the only big addition to the game subscription service that month. Whether or not you'll actually make use of that 4000GB worth of storage depends on what games you play on your Xbox, and whether your budget can stretch that far.

The Xbox Series X/S and their lack of an M.2 SSD slot means you're far more limited in storage options than other current-gen consoles. A plethora of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for gaming are compatible with the PS5, and not only that, you canജ actually run games straight from the internal drives, too. Xbox players don't have it as easy with most dr💃ives, so this new Seagate 4TB Storage Expansion Card is one of the few options out there if you're struggling to free up space on your Series X.

Alternatively, the 1TB and 2TB Seagate Storage Expansion Cards for Xbox Series X/S are also 🐎an o♈ption. All these cards can be easily slotted into the back of your Xbox console via the dedicated storage expansion port.

The 4TB Storage Expansion Card for Xbox Series 🀅X/S is available no🙈w directly from Seagate; however, it's now just as part of a limited-time launch promotion.

If you want to continue giving your Xbox setup a bit of a boost, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox Series X accessories guide is full of our top picks for the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox Series X headsets, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox Series X controller, which will add more value to your beloved give your Microsoft machine.

And yet, as late as the 9100 Pro is in arriving, it still feels premature. It’s so silly that even in 2025, I still hesitate to call them the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for gaming, sim𝐆ply because their practical uses don’t live up to their skᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚy-high prices. And at the same time, it’s impossible to deny that devices like the 9100 Pro are feats of engineering. Samsung’s new flagship doubles what the standard SSD speed has been for the last five or six years now.

That sounds impressive on paper, but arguably, we’ve reached a point with loadin๊g times where returns are starting to diminish. These SSDs are always way more expensive than their Gen 4 counterparts, with the Samsung 9100 Pro’s 1TB model alone wearing a $199 / £171 price tag at the time of writing. When that equates to about 5 seconds more spent in a loading screen, is it going to be worth the extra money?

Design & Availability

Alongside that 1TB version, the 9100 Pro has 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB capacity options as well. The 8TB model is yet to arrive on the shelves, but the 4TB costs enough to know that the incoming large-capacity one will be a remortgaging job. 4TB in the US will set you back $549 and £409.79 in the UK. I usually say 2TB is a happy medium, but an MSRP of $299.99 / £223.79 makes it the same price as a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Meta Quest 3S if you’re stateside. The Samsung 9100 Pro is available with an integrated heatsink as well if you want to show it off in your 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best gaming PC, but those 𒁏heatsink model♛s will add even more to the price.

That heatsink is at least designed in a friendly way, with 8.8mmT supposedly doing a more efficient job of preven✃ting overheating while not taking up too much real estate. As someone who has had plenty of trouble trying to fit obnoxious Gen 5 SSD heatsinks into a gaming𓆏 PC, I can tell you that’s a welcome architectural change, and definitely a benefit of Samsung sitting the first batch of this generation’s drives out.

The 9100 Pro is compatible with gaming PCs and laptops, and it’s nice that this has been thought of, considering most Gen 5 products so far haven’t tried to cater to a more portable market. My colleague Tabitha just reviewed the first gaming laptop with a Gen 5 SSD in it, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:MSI Raider A18 HX A9W, so support is definitely on the way for the laptop crowd. The press materials I’m seeing also say the 9100 Pro is compatible with game consoles, but I wouldn’t use this as an 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:SSD for PS5 since it doesn’t have Gen 5 support.

Features

The Samsung 9100 Pro features an on-the-box sequential read speed of 14,800MB/s and a write speed of 13,400MB/s. Compared to the ꦬSamsung 990 Pro, which currently holds the gold medal for any Ge෴n 4 drive in terms of speed, that’s a marked 99% claimed increase in performance - essentially doubling the potential speeds you’ll be able to harness. So what is it about the 9100 Pro that allows it to just about break the sound barrier?

Well, for starters, this drive utilizes the PCIe 5.0 interface, like the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Crucial T700 Pro does. Unlike Crucial, there’s not as much sharing of internal controllers with other brands here, since Samsung makes i🤪ts own. The 9100 Pro uses the homemade Presto controller, which is aptly named. There’s also 8th-generation V-NAND cache tech on bo🎃ard. For those thinking about longevity, the 2TB model has an endurance of 1,200TB, but if that isn’t good enough for you, there’s a 5-year warranty. Going through that amount of space in a 5-year period sounds like a fun challenge, don’t you think?

Despite all of this fancy architecture, the 9100 Pro still fits a regular M.2, 22🍨80 por🐽t. But with all of those great claims made, how does the 4TB model perform in real-world tests?

Performance

As you might expect, the answer is “fast”. I always start my SSD testing with some sequential read and write benchmarks in CrystalDiskMark, and the Samsung 9100 Pro pulled in even faster numbers than the Crucial T700 Pro. After averaging the results of three tests, the 9100 Pro comes just shy of its on-the-box read speed promises, but it’s still the fastest drive we’ve ever tested 🅠by some margin. It does, however, exceed its write speed p♚romises.

But how do these synthetic tests equate to practical uses in the real world? With video game support and DirectStorage waning, the best use for these next-g♌en SSDs at the moment is zipping massive files from one place on your computer to another. I first transferred 77GB of game files and data from one drive to another using Steam and set a stopwatch on how long it took. Moving the game files from Samsung’s slightly older 990 Evo drive to the new 9100 Pro took just 20 seconds, and transferring them back again took a similar 22 seconds. Similarly, in Windows, transferring 107GB of 4K gameplay footage was similarly speedy. Moving from the 990 Evo to the 9100 Pro took 28 seconds, and moving it back took 32 seconds. For a 3-hour-plus chunk of 4K video, that’s a pretty slick transfer, and it gives you a sense of how the 9100 Pro is going to interact with Gen 4 drives you m꧑ight already own.

When Gen 5 drives started appearing, it was clear that there were teething issues. Perhaps the biggest one was thermal control, and Samsung had certainly found the solution before launching its first proper Gen 5 product. I put the 9100 Pro under my motherboard’s regular heatsink, and it did a great job of keeping its temperature control - no massive heatsink needed, no air-cooling system necessary (looking at you, Adata), and no special thermal pad, either. The 9100 Pro had an ambient temperature of just 43 degrees, and it only rose to a 46-degree peak when I was doing all of those file transfer tests. That’s not too dissimilar from the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:T-Force A440 Lite Gen 4 SSD, which has some of the best thermal performance of any drive we’ve tested lately. Samsung has clearly done work 🎐to ensure that its blazing-fast flagship is fully grown into its teeth before launching it to the public.

Then we come to gaming tests. I’ll reiterate once again that the tests I’m about to share with you aren’t perfect measurements by any means. Loading up various games and stopwatching how long they take is an imperfect science, and I accept that, but I do so to give you a broad idea of the types of gaming performance you can expect from a drive like this. For comparison with the previous fastest drive I’ve used, I went back to the Crucial T700 Pro and got some refreshed benchmarks. For comparisons with “slower” Gen 4 options, I also retested the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:WD Blue SN500 4TB. While I will compare them for the sake of this review, the Crucial andꦓ WD Blue SSDs were tested in a different computer, so keep that in mind.

Across the board, the Samsung 9100 Pro has produced better gaming results than the Crucial T700 Pro, and that’s a welcome surprise. It’s hardly by much, but it’s a noticeable trend in each game (except Outer Wꦬilds, which loads so fast that this could very easily be human error). I’m honestly happy to see these kinds of improvements, even if they’re not exactly going to be noticeable if you’re not sitting with a stopwatch on each loading screen, like me. Baldur’s Gate 3 did net the biggest performance leap on the 9100 Pro, which is nice if you’re a big ol’ save scummer like me.

As you can likely see for yourself, though, the leap from the Gen 4 WD Blue SN500 is a matter of about 5-7 seconds in most titles. If you’re buying to mainly play multiplayer games, like Hunt Showdown, you’re still going to need to wait for the other players loading on older drives before you can start playing anyway, and depending on things ꦚlike servers, connection speeds, and all the rest of it, that slick loading speed will probably balance out with other players anyway. In jam-packed city builders and management games like Planet Zoo, are you really going to notice a few seconds more when loading iওn? I doubt it, but you might notice that larger dent in your bank balance after spending big on the 9100 Pro.

Windows DirectStorage was supposed to be a widely adopted feature in a lot of g🍃ames by this point but, over the last few years, it’s become this obscure, hooded figure lurking in the back corner of the pub. There are rumours around the game dev patrons that talking to this guy can improve your loading times, but hardly anyone ever does.

DirectStorage essentially allows a Gen 5 SSD to bypass sending information to your CPU, and diverts it right to your GPU, allowing for faster loading and rendering. The problem is, the software is still imperfect and, right now, barely makes a difference - certainly not one that’s worth the i💫nevitable extra coding and busywork it takes to integrate it into in-progress games. The list of supported titles right now is woefully small and, honestly, even𒆙 if your favorite game is found on it, I wouldn’t say spending the extra money on a Gen 5 drive is going to be worth it.

For this review, I checked DirectStorage games at the door because I wanted to see how the performance of regular titles could be improved through the latest standard of Gen 5 SSD tech. In all honesty, I expected worse results, but the improvements I saw over Crucial’s flagship from just a year or so ago fill me with hope that we are going to see better improvements in loading times as the technology increases in terms of raw performance. That said, loading times are already pretty minuscule, so until a few massive games come al𒁏ong and use this tech to have no loading screens whatsoever, it’s going to be hard to argue these things are worth their additional costs.

Should you buy the Samsung 9100 Pro?

The Samsung 9100 Pro is easily the best SSD I’ve ever tested, and the fastest across the boa⛦rd. It is nothing short of a feat of engineering, but one you probably don’t need, and won’t for quite some time ye😼t.

Yes, if you’re looking to build t𝓀he most future♒proofed gaming PC imaginable, then this, or the brand new WD Black SN1800 (the equivalent from SanDisk), is going to be the drive to pick. If you’re a full-time content creator, video editor, or someone who churns through digital storage with ease, the Samsung 9100 Pro is going to offer you the best performance possible. Having seen some improvements over previous Gen 5 options, I can recommend this as the product to go for if you’re married to the idea of a next-gen device.

If it’s just for gaming, the numbers can’t lie. You are going to get extremely slick loading times across the board with the 9100 🔴Pro. The question you have to answer is whether or not the few seconds' worth of quicker loading times are going to be worth it for you compared to a Gen 4 option that’s♏ potentially hundreds cheaper. Until there’s widely adopted support within every game, I’d still recommend that most gamers stick with Gen 4.

How I tested the Samsung 9100 Pro

I put the Sam♐sung 9100 Pro to work by running it through our usual gauntlet of storage benchmarks. Firstly, I used CrystalDiskMark to gi✤ve me some synthetic benchmarking scores to broadly test its sequential read and write speeds. After three of these benchmarks at different points of the testing process, I averaged out the results and presented them in a table.

I th🐭en used both Steam and Windows 11 to transfer various bits of data from one drive to another, timing how long it took. I kept🍰 an eye on temperatures while doing so to assess thermal control.

For gaming, I loaded into various games, some with typically slower loading speeds and some with faster ones. I used a stopwatch to track these loading times, and performed the same tests on two competing drives to come to a verdict on the results, 🔥and the Samsung 9100 Pro’s value for money.

For more on how we test, check out the full澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询: GamesRadar+ Hardware Policy.

Happy with an external storage device for now? Check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best external hard drives for gaming, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external hard drives, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox Series X hard drive.

We're barely at the halfway point of the year, and already there's a ton of new Gen 5 contenders vying for the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for gaming crown, as only yesterday did fellow storage tech brand Kingston FURY release its own new PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSD, with the Kingston FURY Renegade G5. Now, Sandisk has stepped things up a notch with the "world's f🌄astest" Gen 5 drive, which also directly targets Samsung's new 9100 Pro.

Its integrated TLC 3D CBA NAND tech is what𓆏 helps bolster its mighty fast speeds and reliab💙ility, and it's available starting right now from , with 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB models to choose from. If that's not enough space for you, an 8TB model is also planned for the future, although I shudder to think about its potential price.

Joe Macri, Senior Vice President and CTO for Compute and Graphics at AMD, shared in the that this sparkly new drive " revolutionizes storage performance and power efficiency" for both gaming and content creators alike.

While we'll have to test that out for ourselves, the newly launched WD Black 8100 SSD is equipped with up to 2,400TBW endurance, meaning it'll last you well into the future. It's just as well, too, because from the Gen 5 tests we've done so far, there really aren't massive, immediate benefits to slotting one of these into your 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best gaming PC. Sure,𒐪 extremely speedy transfer speeds are ludicrously helpful if you frequently shift data from one drive to another. Unfortunately, not many games really support these mega-fast drives right now, so it's ironically a waiting game for more software developers to really let these things fly in a gaming sense.

If you'd prefer to grab the WD Black 8100 SSD right now, though, there's nothing wrong with some futureproofing. ꦜIf you want a heatsink in tow, you will have to wait a little longer. A heatsink model is expected to be released this fall, which is a little disappointing it's not available from the get-go. Fortunately, there will be a 1TB ($199.99), 2TB ($299.99), and 4TB ($569.99) capacities available when that time comes.

In need of some of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best external hard drives for gaming instead? Our guides to the best Xbox Series X hard drive, SSD, and memory card solutions, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external hard drives are full of portable storage options for your beloved console of choice.

With no less than 35 different M.2 solid state drive options currently available in its wares, it’s fair to say Teamgroup knows a thing or two about the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSD for gaming market. The TForce A440 Lite ♛looks to deliver an impressive price-to-performance ratio by stripping away a few features in favour of raw read/write performance.

At around $130/£125 for the 2TB model I’ve been testing, the A440 Lite sits🌞 in a pretty busy pool of drives, so with plenty of competition, is it a T-Force to be recꩵkoned with?

Design

There’s not much room for manoeuvre in the♓ design of a hard drive generally, though M.2 solid state drives come in a far wider array of shapes and sizes than their more old-school counterparts. The Teamgroup T-Force A440 Lite still keeps things relatively simple by modern standards, though its near-naked form factor is not uncommon for M.2 drives in this price bracket. Looks hardly matter here, though; it's destined to be tucked into your PC ꦗcase and never seen again.

The TForce A440 line-up includes four models, with the more expensive options being delightfully named after the ancient Roman goddess of the hinge, Cordea. These drives include quite striking and large aluminum heatsinks, though instead tak♐ing its name from the ancient Greek god of savings (which is a fact I may have just made up), the A440 Lite does away with this extravagant extra. You’re not left without any cooling support, however, the A440 Lite includes Teamgroup’s ultra-thin graphene heat sink that looks almost like a second decorative sticker.

For those of you on the hunt for one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for PS5, you’ll be glad to know that, like with any M.2 drive, this Gen 4 powerhouse is more than capable of being slotted into your console for additional storage. That said, it doesn’t have an integrated heatsink variant like a lot of its rivals. Besides its top sticker, you won’t have any means of keeping it cool, so you’ll need to pair it with one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 heatsinks to use it in Sony’s machine.

Features

You’ll find the Teamgroup TForce A440 Lite in three capacities, 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB, and it’s the largest of the trio that I’ve b൲een testing. Your choice here governs more t✅han just basic storage space, as there are minor performance differences between the three. The 2TB version promises the best performance on paper with up to 7,400 MB/s sequential read and up to 6,400 MB/s sequential write speeds. While that goes toe-to-toe with the likes of the Corsair MP600 Elite and other top Gen 4 heavyweights, this drops to 7,200 MB/s and 6,200 MB/s for the 1TB model and further slips to 7,000 MB/s and 4,500 MB/s for the 512GB version.

It might be worth noting for some enthusiasts that none of the three sizཧes include a DRAM cache, you’ll need to move up to one of those Roman hingey Cordea models if that’s important to you.

Performance

As you’d expect for an M.2 drive, installation in my 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:gaming PC was a doddle. Your first step is to install that nifty, paper-thin graphene heat sink, but that’s as simple as adding a sticker to a LEGO model. These often come pre-attached to SSDs, but since they regularly get pulled off and mistaken for extra packaging, I actually quite like that T-Force has made this a more deliberate step in installation. After that, just clip it in💝to your motherboard and you’re away. To unlock the maximum possible performance from the A440 Lite, make sure you’re using a PCIe Gen 4 slot (if your motherbo🍸ard has one); it’ll still work in a Gen 3 slot, though you’ll lose around 50% of both your read and write speeds.

I’m going to keep th𒐪ings pretty simple wh🧔en it comes to performance testing, I’m most interested in how such an everyday part of a PC performs, well, every day. We all love a benchmark, though, and while it didn’t quite meet its quoted speed for either read or write in my testing, the A440 Lite still produced impressively quick results. Tested in CrystalDiskMark I achieved average read speeds of around 7,050MB/s and average write speeds just under 6,200 MB/s.

Using the Xbox app to transfer 72GB of Avowed installation from the Teamgroup A440 Lite to a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Samsung 980 took just under two minutes on average. Initial transfer speeds were strong, although there was a noticeable drop-off through the final 20% or so. The reverse trip was around the same time, 55 seconds on average, with a consistent transfer speed throughout. Taking matters into my own hands (and because Ubisoft’s launcher doesn’t offer to do it for you), Windows transferred the 94GB of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows off the A440 Lite in a pretty rapid 49 seconds with the return journey slowing a little from the halfway point for a 1:10 tꦏotal time. We can likely chalk up some of this to the lower-rated Samsung drive I’ve been using in my PC for a while, which caps out at 3,500/3,000 MB/s read/write, but running differently-speced drives is a pretty common PC setup 𒉰and let’s be honest - transferring an entire AAA game install between drives in under two minutes is already plenty fast. Check a couple of notifications on your phone and it’s already done.

Game loading speeds were again wonderfully fast for everyday use. Admittedly, the results here were nearly comparable between the TForce A440 and the slower Samsung 980. When ins♋talled on the A440 Lite, I was able to go from the main menu of Avowed into my most recent save in 7.8 seconds, while it took a whole .2 seconds longer on the Samsung, which might even have just been a slow reaction time from me on my stopwatch. Assassin’s Creed: Shadows repeated this result with a near identical 9-second load time, taking me from the main menu to feudal Japan across both drives.

Perhaps most notable in my testing wa🙈s how well the Teamgroup TForce A440 Lite kept its cool under strain. Only once through benchmarking, transfers, and gameplay, did the drive report a temperature ov🥀er 40 degrees Celsius, and that was a peak of 41°. Through a majority of testing, I saw idle temperatures at 28° with a rise to around 38° under load. Now, admittedly, my motherboard provides additional heatsinks as standard, and these were relatively short tests in the grand scheme of things. Either way, there’s a clear trend here and once again it’s an impressive one.

Should you buy the T-Force A440 Lite?

It may not be as all singing and dancing as other, more expensive, M2 drives, but the Teamgroup TForce A440 Lite gets the job done wonderfully well. Fr♍om game load times to file transfers, it was able to kee🌳p up with everything I threw at it and it did so while keeping its cool with very impressive thermal performance.

While it didn’t quite reach the lofty heights of its rated read/write claims in my testing, that can be the case for a lot of these drives, and it’s hardly a disparity you’re going to notice if you find a similar result. This is a snappy solid-state option and a reliable performer. With a $130𒉰/£125 price tag for the 2TB version, it’s reasonably priced and can often be found even lower on sale too, if𓆉 you’re in the market for a storage boost it’s well worth looking out for.

How we tested the T-Force A440 Lite

I added the Teamgroup TForce A440 Lite M2 solid state drive to my gaming PC and used it as my primary drive for game installations for a number of weeks. In this time, it was used as a daily driver for everything from AAA titles to small indie hits, along with some dedicated file transfer tests and benchmarking wꦇith CrystalDiskMark. It was installed in a PCIe 5.0 slot on a Gigabyte Z790 AORUS MASTER motherboard wit꧂h both the included graphene heat sink sticker applied and the motherboard’s included heat sink installed.

For more on 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:how we test SSDs, check out the full 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:GamesRadar+ Hardware Policy.

Looking for something external? Check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best external hard drives for gaming, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external hard drives, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox Series X external hard drives.

The WD Black C50 is one of the only澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询: Xbox Series X hard drives that will allow you to conti💛nue using Quick Resume, and after enjoying a 1TB war with the Seagate Expansion Card, it’s now launched in a 2TB size as well. All told, there are three capacities to choose from; 512GB, 1T🤡B, and 2TB and it’s the largest of the range that I’ve been playing with for this review.

The 2TB WD C50 offers simplicity and plenty of storage, but at $🌺249.99/£213.99 it’s a serious investment so I’m sure a lot of gamers will be asking themselves the same thing. Is it worth paying the premium for an Xbox expansion card?

Design & Features

While not quite as minimalist as the Seagate equivalent, the Western Digital C50 certainly keeps things simple on the design front. Not that it matters though, for most gamers the first and last time you’ll likely ever see this little guy is when you take it out of the box and slo🔜t it into the back of your Xbox Series S or X.

While the card I’m checking out is 2TB, it’s an 8MB PS2 memory card that first came to mind because the C50 is doing a pretty great impression of one. Things have come full circle it seems, as the two share the same basic concept. The compact black body feels doubly familiar too as it carries the subtle channelled form of the rest of the WD_Black range. It’s a plastic case around what is almost certainly a smaller form factor NVMe M.2 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:SSD for gaming, but a quality chassis nonetheless and i🔜t feels impressively premium in your hand before disappearing into th﷽e TV unit never to be seen again.

Microsoft’s decision to go proprietary for the Xbox Series S/X storage was (and still is if we’re being honest) a little irritating. It makes increasing your capacity a closed garden with noticeably high walls, especially compared to the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for PS5, but it does come with some benefits and the first of those is ꦛsimplicity. There’s no installation or setup to speak of here, the C50 is a true plug-and-play device. Like the old-school memory ⭕card it resembles all you need to do is plug it into the dedicated slot in your console and you’re away, there wasn’t even a need to format or mount it - very nice.

Performance

The other advantage of proprietary storage devices is having control over their performance. Not 💧all SSDs are created equal, specs and performance levels of different drives will vary and the in-game experience can become a lottery as a result. It’s a level playing field with Xbox expansion cards though, the Superspeed NVMe Core inside the WD C50 is optimized for the Xbox Velocity Architecture, so you should see the same performance and speeds as the console’s internal storage. This isn’t just a case of improved loading times though, newer games optimized for the Xbox Series X will only launch from this level of drive so as games get bigger it’s less of a ꦺluxury and more of a necessity.

Before we throw some numbers on it, from a pure vibes standpoint I coul💫dn’t tell the difference between games installed on my Xbox Series X’s internal drive and games installed on the WD C50 2TB. For day-to-day use, they might as well have been installed in the same place for all I could tell. The Xbox also does a good job of making installations as simple as possible and while you can set preferred drives, it’ll just stick it wherever it has the space to.

Transfers between internal storage and the 2TB WD C50 were reliable and impressively fast. At around 75GB each, both Avowed and Hogwarts Legacy needed just one minute and 40 seconds to completely transfer over to the expansive card. Speeds hovered around 6.2 Gbps (6,200MB/s) and peaked at 6.35, putting it just below the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:WD Black SN850X in terms of raw sequential speed. The 1.5﷽GB of pixel-based agriculture that is Stardew Valley? That took a whole 3.2 secondܫs, I almost missed it with my stopwatch.

The return journey wasn’t as slick for those two larger titles though. Going from the C50 to my Series X’s internal storage w𝕴as noticeably slower, nearly four minutes each. Here speeds fluctuated massively as the transfer progressed being sitting on “fi🐈nishing up” for over a minute each, something that didn’t happen at all going the other direction. This isn’t the only quirk, despite having plenty of room on the C50, Call of Duty insisted on claiming a small amount of storage space on my internal drive too.

Loading times were imperceptibly similar when compared to the Series X internal drive. Continuing my game from the main menu of Avowed took 11.3 seconds on the 🌳C50 and 10.9 from the in🍰ternal. Hogwarts Legacy was even closer, going from menu to castle in 8.4 seconds and 8.2 respectively, while Stardew clocked identical 5.5-second times.

Should you buy the WD Black C50?

Whether it’s worth grabbing the WD C50 2TB expansion card is less about whether it’s any 𝄹good and more about whether you need it and can stomach the cost of it. Short of some s🍨trange transfer behavior back to the internal drive which may point to some disappointing read speeds or a poor method of heat dissipation, it barely puts a foot wrong. It’s well made, it looks smart and it performs well.

It’s expensive though. $249.99/£213.99 sits this 2TB storage expansion at nearly half the cost of the Series X console, and dangerously cl💯ose to the full cost of a Series S, which is a pretty eye-watering realization. That’s all the more startling now that different models of the Series S and X exist to give people more of a chance to choose their desired storage capacity. Fortunately, the 1TB option isn’t quite as pricey, and can frequently be found for cheaper than the Seagate Expansion Card🎶.

If you like jumping between a bunch of AAA titles though and don’t have the time or interest in waiting for slower transfers to a pure storage drive, the WD Black C50 is the answer to your problems. If you’re still playing plenty of older titles or can deal with a wait to transfer them from a slower drive, consider grabbing one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best 🅺external hard drives for gaming instead.

How we tested the WD Black C50

I plugged the 2TB WD C50 into my Xbox Series X and used it as any gamer would for a week or two before writing my thoughts up for this review. In addition to casual gaming, I also conducted a series♐ of more formalized tests including measuring t✱ransfer and load times with a stopwatch. While these were by no means perfectly carried out and left room for some human error, they were more to give a general user an idea of how the C50 performs in its various use cases.

For more on 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:how we test SSDs, take a look at our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:hardware policy.

Thanks to the last remaining spring sales, you can grab the Seagate Storage Expansion Card 2TB for right now, saving you around 10% off its average price of $223.34. Not only does that mean one of the best Xbox Series X hard drive, SSD, and memory card sto♑rage solutio🐓ns is under that $200 price tag sweet spot, but that only saves you over $23 which could be better spent towards a couple months of Game Pass Ultimate to start filling up that 2TB worth of space.

The last time I spotted this 2TB model this cheap was during last year's Black Friday sales. During the influx of November sales, the Expansion card dropped in price to $193.43, a record low for the time. This current disco✨unt isn't record-breaking by any means, but being over $6 away from its record low is worth celebrating - especially if you're desperate for some extra Xbox storage.

Should you buy the Seagate Storage Expansion Card 2TB SSD?

The Seagate Storage Expansion Card 2TB drive is one of the only options when it comes to internal storage for your Xbox Series X console. That's because, whether it's the Xbox Series X or Series, there's no M.2 port to be found, so you can't simply grab the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for gaming and start downloading as many Game Pass games as your heart desires. Seagate and Western Digital are the only brands out there filling in that internal Xbox storage gap - but whether the Seagate Expansion Card 2TB SSD is the right fit for you depends on a few factors.

Firstly, performance. Seagate's Expansion Card can match the same speedy performance of that of the onboard Xbox Series X internal NVMe SSD at every turn, meaning it's one of few storage devices that'll let you use the console's quick-resume feature. Yet, while it's speedy, it is one of the priciest storage options out there. Without the current $199.99 discount, the 2TB version retails for a staggering $359.99 - the same price as the 1TB Xbox Series S console, if you can believe that.

If you'd prefer to keep costs lower, you have to consider storage capacity. As an alternative to this 2TB drive, you could pick up the 1T🍨B or 512GB versions, but you'd have to ensure that'd be enough for your gaming needs. As games continue to get more storage demanding, a 1TB Xbox Series X hard drive might not go as far. Whereas the 2TB of this Seagate Expansion Card may be on the pricey side, discount or not, it will help futureproof your Xbox console.

For a while now, the WD Black C50 drive was an ideal alternative, as the 1TB version is typically a lot cheaper, and right now it's even . At that price, it's even more budget-friendly than the 1TB equivalent of the Seagate Expansion Card - but with a 2TB model now available and also down to $199.99 right now at Amazon, which one you'd prefer would depend entirely on what brand you prefer.

There's also the option of switching things up with one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史🐼查询:best external hard drives for gaming. Hard drives won't have the high-end speeds of an SSD, but they also won't have the high-end price tags of them either. HDD drives like the WD My Passport 4TB have an MSRP of $149.99, and that's providing you with double the storage of the 2TB Seagate drive.

Of course, with an external hard drive, you are giving up the option of running Xbox Series X games - as they can only transfer and store them instead. If you want the pros of more storage for your Xbox console while still being able to actually play them, then the 2TB Seagate Expansion Card is a great option for your cꦿonsole💦. Just be sure to keep in mind that the spring sales are coming to an end, so you'll want to grab it as soon as possible before it sneaks back up to its eye-watering MSRP.

If your Xbox is already equipped with plenty of storage, check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox Series X headsets, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox Series X controllers, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Game Pass deals to get the most out of your beloved Microsoft console.

But alas, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for gaming are constantly evolving, and the folks at Western Digital have identified a gap in the market🉐. The WD Blue SN5000 4TB sports speeds that today’s budget gaming drives aim for, and its price compared to a new 4TB gaming option is surprisingly reasonable. So my interests both as a gamer who wants quick loading times and a content creator who needs lots of space were definitely piqued when this hit my inbox. Could a 4TB content creation drive with boosted speeds and a somewhat affordable price be wo🐭rth it for gamers today?

Honestly, I’m surprised to say that yes, it can be. Its $299.99 / £275 MSRP isn’t a lot better than the $289/£261 you can still pay for the 4TB 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:WD Black SN850X. That said, it’s already seeing discount prices down to $231/£229 while the SN850X barely drops from its launch cost. While the SN850X is a faster drive, I’d argue that the few seconds more o𝓡f loading screens you’ll see with the Blue option aren’t going to be as noticeable as the extra lump of cash missing from your bank balance.

Design

Content creation SSDs are often stripped of a lot of the design flares applied to their gaming counterparts. You won’t see any sci-fi-coded heatsinks like you do on the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for PS5, and it’s no wonder seeing as many of them aren’t actually capable of the minimum 5,000MB/s sequential read speed Sony’s consol💧e requires. So what we have for the SN5000 is some Western Digital Blue branding, but hardly the totally blue-colored faceplates you can see in marketing photos. Perhaps a larger blue heat dissipation sticker comes on the 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB models, but since I’m testing the 4TB version, I can’t say for sure.

There is a smaller heatsink sticker on this product however, which gives it a flash of color alongside its vascular circuitry. I tend to leave these stickers on my SSDs, not because they’re a mඣassive performance booster, but because motherboard heatsinks are actually fairly sticky, and I don’t want them actually crushing the tiny exposed pieces on the drive’s architecture or pulling bits off. Overall though, the design of this drive is as thin as a 2280 M.2 NVMe SSD gets. It’s only 5.7g in weight and has LxWxH dimensions of 80 x 22 x 2.2mm - so pretty tiny.

Features

The sequential read speed quoted on the SN5000’s packaging is 5,500MB/s, which actually clears it as compatible with the PS5. I haven’t tested it in Sony’s console for this 𓂃review, but there’s no reason it wouldn’t work considering it uses the same PCIe Gen4 x4 interface and easily matches the console’s own custom SSD. In terms of sequential writes, you’re quoted to get 5,000MB/s, which is also very decent for a content creation drive. Write speeds are important for content creators, particularly those who often transfer files around, yet they frequently suffer in these products. The WD Blue SN5000 is clearly trying to improve on that to make software installation, video rendering, and gaming a much easier affair.

The SN5000 features a five-year warranty and an endurance of 1200TBW (terabytes written), so you’re going to get peace of mind and a lot of future꧃proofing from 🐎it, which is important for creators who need to know their digital files will be safe in the long run.

Western Digital does add that the drive utilizes its own nCache 4.0 technology, mentioning that this could come in handy for AI applications, but even in my content creation that isn’t a feature I’d use, and it sounds more like marketing speak rather than anything most users will actually need. Beyond that, there honestly isn’t much to report about the features on board this drive. As I mentioned up above, WD’s Blue options try to keep costs down, so often they do the basics right, but don’t spend too much time on features like NAND cache tech or the like. This is a drive that will do what you need it to as a storage device, but it’s not going to be your best option as a boot drive compared to a lot of modern gaming SSDs like the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Samsung 990 Pro.

Performance

But is that enough to make it a solid general-use drive, or a gaming option? In today’s climate of Gen 4 SSDs touting speeds of more than 7,000MB/s, a sequential read speed of 5,500MB/s sounds sluggish, but that’s forgetting how blisteringly fast these Gen 4 speeds are. 5,500MB/s is five and a half gigabytes of information read in a single second - it’s extremely quick. Moreover, it’s even speedier than the PS5’s internal drive when inside a PC seeing as a motherboard in one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best gaming PCs can divert power when needed to fully accessꦡ those s🌊peeds.

Across three CrystalDiskMark benchmarking tests, the 4TB SN5000 achieved an average sequential read speed of 5,524MB/s and an average sequential write speed of 5,055MB/s. So on both counts, the drive outperformed the numbers on its box. Temperature control was solid too, with m🤡y motherboard’s heatsink keeping it down to a peak of 61 degrees Celsius during those three tests. When idle, its temperature was between 51 and 56 degrees, which shows that it has a slightly higher operating temperature than other drives but is more than manageable by even a standard motherboard heatsink.

These numbers translated brilliantly to general-use tasks and file transfers. Moving the game files for Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2 from my 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Crucial T700 Pro over❀ to the WD Blue SN5000 took just 25 seconds. For a 70GB game, that isn’t a long time to wait at all. Moving the same quantity back over to Crucial’s Gen 5 drive took 30 seconds, so again, the SN5000 is hardly going to make you feel like you’re watching paint dry when you need to move files from one of your drives to anotherꩲ.

Content creators often need these 4TB storage devices because as 4K content becomes more and more common, space gets eaten ౠup so quickly. This is something I can relate to, so I decided during testing to make this my main content creation storage solution. I transferred 128GB worth of 4K gameplay footage over to the WD Blue SN5000 in just 43 seconds, which was actually faster than I expected. Yes, I was pairing this drive with a stupidly quick Gen 5 drive, but even if the SN5000 was operating at half the speed, it was doing an excellent job of keeping up.

In terms of gaming, the SN500 had a lot going for it too. Loading up a new loop of the Outer Wilds with this drive on a PC was even quicker than the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Corsair MP600 Elite was doing the same thing in the PS5, which tells you a lot. Even Planet Zoo, which typically loads a bit slower than your average game today, was able to recall a scenario exactly where I’d left off in just 15 seconds. Iཧ’ve used this drive to store and play quite a few Steam games since throwing it in for testing, and it feels quicker than the PS5 does when it comes to gaming.

Should you buy the WD Blue SN5000 4TB

The WD Blue SN5000 4TB is a very capable storage device, and easily the best content creation drive I’ve tested. It does the basics𒀰 so well and allows you so much space for games, content creaꦬtion data, gameplay footage, and more. It isn’t quite as fast as some modern gaming SSDs are, but even with lesser speeds, it keeps up with my demands as a content creator and gamer. When you’ve got 4TB of space to play with, you feel the benefits more than you curse the few seconds of disparity between this and a quicker device.

In terms of price, it’ll come down to you and your preferences for what will suit you more. I’d argue that unless you’re looking for a boot drive for a new gaming PC, you’ll be better off grabbing the 4TB SN5000 while it's discounted, rather than splashing out more on the 4TB model of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Seagate FireCuda 530, or the Samsung 990 Pro, both of which struggle to sell for under $300 when they’re in sto𒀰ck.

All in all, the WD Blue SN5000 4TB feels like a cheat code for gamers who want 4TB of extra space without breaking the bank. It isn’t your normal content creation drive𒅌 because it has the speeds of budget gaming drives today. At the same time, it isn’t your normal 4TB SSD either, because you don’t have to remortgage your home to afford it.

How I tested the WD Blue SN5000 4TB

I threw the WD Blue SN5000 4TB in my personal gaming PC to test it as 👍an everyday solution for content creation and gaming. I used my motherboard’s included heatsink to keep it cool, and used it in a general PCIe 4 x4 lane to suit its int😼erface and get the most out of its performance.

To begin, I put it through standard industry benchmarking in CrystalDiskMark to get an idea of its true seq🐠uential read/write speeds. I performed three tests and took an average of those scores, also keeping an eye on its temperature in Windows.

I then performed various file transfer tests, moving data back and forth between my PC’s C drive and the SN5000. I kept track of how long each test took using a stopwatch. For gaming loading times, I booted up three games and took note of their boot and loading times, once again using a stopwatch to keep track. I’m aware these t🍌imes won’t be perfect markers for how the driv༒e performs, but the aim was more to give a reference point of the numbers to readers who may not understand the technicalities of other SSD reviews.

For more on 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:how we test SSDs, check out the full澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询: GamesRadar+ Hardware Policy.

Looking for external storage instead? You should know about the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best external hard drives for gaming, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external hard drives, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox Series X hard drives.

Whether you’re sporting an Xbox Series X/S, or a PS5, one of the necessities to having a good time with your beloved console is having plenty of storage. That’s especially the case if you mainly play digital games and are subscribed to every gaming service under the sun. Yet, while you can easily pick up a PS5 SSD fro🌼m a huge range of brands to give your Sony console a boost, Xbox owners don’t have it as easy.

Only two brands, Western and Digital and Seagate, make the expansion card formatted drives compatible with Xbox consoles, so you’re a lot more limited. Instead, you'll likely be reaching for a larger 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:SSD for gaming, only to slow it do𓃲wn by plugging into a USB slot. See, the size of that hard drive was never really an issue - I want more updates on where I play my games from.

Modern games have been increasing in size dramatically over the last few years, that’s undeniable. While base games, like Rare’s Sea of Thieves can launch at around 30GB, updates can compound that significantly. Sea of Thieves was a 27GB install on day one, but an update during February 2024 holstered it to 100GB. Today, it's pretty common to start at this position - Baldur’s Gate 3 on the Xbox Series X/S launched at 137.55GB when it was finally ported over. That's before the numerous patches, updates, and DLC that can quickly take your storage hostage and leave you deletingღ games just to make way for new ones.

I can see why having the option of over 16TB worth of storage at yo🐠ur disposal would be attractive, especially if you want to keep online games like Sea of Thieves permanently on your Xbox to play whenever the moment takes you.

But to🐻 put it into context, 16TB is over 116.3 (16000÷137.55) digital copies of Baldur’s Gate 3. And as much as I adore Astarion and his alluring vampire ways, that’s a lot of Baldur’s Gate 3. I don’t know anyone currently (and actively) playing over a hundred fantasy RPGs at any given time, or that many games of any genre for that matter. Even my own personal backlog, which gets worse every day, is not enough to warrant over 16,000GB of space.

There is definitely a benefit to having all your recently played games installed in one place. That way you can dive right back in as the moment suits you. I know I struggle to archive games - who knows if, in a few weeks time, I won’t be itching to replay and will have to sit and wait as such a huge file redownloads all over again. Even though I haven’t touched it in months, I actively refuse to delete Fortnite on my PS5 as it’s over 90GB worth of a slow download that I don’t have the patience to wait f🐷or again.

Where this new announcement from Microsoft feels even truly impractical is that you can’t run all games through a USB drive (some manage to slip through the cracks). Instead, you have to move your game over to the Xbox Series X/S’s SSD or expansion card to play it. So while Microsoft has rolled out the support for larger USB drives, that’s over 16TB worth of games you still have to transfer over to your main console storage to run in the first place. I would have been singing a different tune if Microsoft had given the Xbox the same grace it does PC, where you can easily store and play as many games as you like from the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best external hard drives on the market.

There is one circumstance whไere I can see having compatibility with such a vast amount of storage might come in handy. Those who love saving long stretches of gameplay for sharing with their friends online or creating their own content, could very much benefit from fewer limitations with storage. At the time of writing, Seagate has a 20TB external drive on t💫he market, which is definitely not cheap, but would be plenty of space to constantly save long Sea of Thieves clips.

I re♈gularly save Dead by Daylight online matches with friends t𒐪o watch (and laugh at) later on, and with entire matches easily taking upwards of 30 minutes, that can take a lot of storage space. Especially as the Xbox Series X saves video clips by default at a 4K resolution.

Having new compatibility with extra storage is never a bad thing - and I’m sure there are people out there who will actually benefit from Microsoft adding this new support. Otherwise, why would they be taking the time to integrate it in the first place? At least it’s shown me that there are Xbox fans out💫 there who need even 20TB worth of space to download their games. Which, in turn, means there are people with worse gaming backlogs than me and I’m more than okay with that.

We're also rounding up all the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox One external hard drives and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external hard drives. Or, for more Microsoft kit, check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox Series X accessories on the market.

Dubbed the 'SanDisk Creator Ser𓄧ies', this new range of portable SSDs, microSD cards, and USB flash drives is targeted towards buddying artists, content creators, and gamers alike. The set includes "tailored, professional-grade collection of products infused with vibrant colors that celebrate creativity and individuality" wh🤪ich includes brand-new portable SSDs, micro SDs, and other storage solutions.

This all-new SanDisk Creator Series begins with the SanDisk Creator Phone SSD, a portable solid-state drive that can attach to MagSafe-compatible smartphones. This compact SSD is available in 1TB or 2TB versions and is compatible with Windows, Android, and macOS devices, including the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max. In fact, if you find yourself commonly creating YouTube or TikTok videos on your phone, this SSD can even support video capture in Apple ProRes 4K at 60fps, making it ideal for Apple fans.

Additionally part of the set is the SanDisk Creator microSD Card, featuring a stunning gradient colorway. The microSD comes in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB storage versions and can be used to capture stunning 4K5 and 5.3K5 footage on compatible smartphones and cameras. The Creator Series also features a brand-new Creator SanDisk Creator SD UHS-II Card with transfer speeds up to 280MB/s, a SanDisk Creator Phone Drive that can transfer media between your Apple devices, a SanDisk Creator USB-C Flash Drive for those non-Apple devices, and ౠa SanDisk Creator Pro Portable SSD, and SanDisk Creator Desk Drive.

Fortnite fans are in for a treat

SanDisk has also launched the Fortnite Portable SSD and USB Flash Drive Peely Editions, two new storage solutions also revealed at this year's CES 2025.

The SanDisk Fortnite Portable SSD, Peely Edition is a lovely change from other plain SanDisk designs. According to Western Digital, it will be available in 1TB and 2TB options and sport a cute all-yellow colorway. Everyone's favorite anthropomorphic banana from Fornite is represented further with his cute, infectious smile right in the middle of the compact SSD. Specs wise, it's similar to that of the brand's existing 1TB drive with speeds up to 800MB/s and a USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface, which is nothing new. So just like the official SanDisk Super Mario and Pokemon microSD cards, the appeal of these Peely Editions is all in the design.

The matching SanDisk Fortnite USB Flash Drive, Peely Edition is just as cute, featuring a similar design but with some added 🦋'nana' Fortnite decals. The USB drive is set to be available in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB variants and comes with the kind of specs you'd expect of SanDisk's flash drives with read speeds up to 130MB/s.

Neither the Peely Edition SSD nor the USB Flash Drive can be used to run Fortnite on any of your devices. Yet, if you want a colorful change-up, these or any part of the Creator Series would be a good bet. Just don't be surprised if the funky colors and designs come at an e🐼xtra cost.

If you can't wait for these new SanDisk storage options check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best microSD car⛄d for Nintendo Switch for some extra space for your Ninty, and other compatible handhelds. We've also gathered all the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for PS5 and the best Xbox Series X hard drive, SSD, and memory card sol﷽ꦓutions for all your gaming needs.

Of course, there's also the chance that disaster has struck, and upon going to install your new 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:SSD for gaming,𝓀 you've got one fewer SSD slot on our motherboard than you thought. In either case, I have just the gadget for you. UGREEN makes some excellent little acc𝔉essories for PC gaming, and its M.2 USB enclosure has helped me in a few pinches this year. It can hold even the newest Gen 5 SSDs and connect them to your computer or PS5, which makes it a versatile piece of kit.

A device like this will allow you to either connect your new drive temporarily while you copy data over, or, as a longer-term solution, make use of your speedy new SSD as an 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:external hard drive. UGREEN's M.2 Enclosure only costs right now, which isn't a bad price to pay for such ๊a versatile wee gadget.

If you're wondering 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:how to clone your SSD, you can check out my handy guide. Not everyone will need a USB enclosure since most of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best gaming PCs will have more than one M.2 slot on their motherboard. That said, if you know one slot is a Gen 4 lane, and the others are slower Gen 3 lanes, you migh🐓t want your newer, faster drive in that optimized slot. In that case, cloning your drive before it's actually in your PC might be a less confusing option, especially if you want to ꦫkeep your boot location the same without messing up some BIOS settings.

If ⛦that all sounds like confusing PC-speak, the TLDR is that having an M.2 enclosure might make your life a lot easier in the whole transfer process.

UGREEN's M.2 Enclosure might also be the perfect solution for someone who doesn't have space on their motherboard at all and wants to make their own portable SSD. External drives can be pricey these days, especially if you want the performance of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external SSDs. If you've gotten hold of a top-speed Gen 4 or Gen 5 drive, it could do you wonders as a portable device. UGREEN's gadget comes with a heatsink, meaning your PCIe-powered storage won't overheat when working inside it, and its included cables w෴ill give you up to a 10GBps speed.

The only drawback I coul🌟d see with using this as a portable storage solution is its vulnerability. Taking your files on the go can invite bumps and drops, which is why so many portable SSDs come with padded outer shells these days. UGREEN's enclosure has a rubberized jacket you can put around it which should shield it from the odd knock here and there, but the aluminium chassis still feels fairly fragile, so dropping it into a backpack with other, heavier bits of tech might not be the safest idea.

Nevertheless, an M.2 enclosure like this is a versatile gadget to have iꦚn your arsenal, whether you're upgrading your current PC's storage, or you find yourself with a spare drive to use for console gaming and po🌼rtable transfers.

Looking for some last-minute 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:gifts for gamers this Christmas? Check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 gifts, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox gifts.

Fortunately, I have the joy of testing PS5 SSDs for a living, so that scenario happens less frequently nowadays, which is probably a good thing so that my neighbors don't hear me and think I'm losing my mind. I'm going to make your life simple this Black Friday, and tell you the easy-to-install, no research needed, fast and spacious SSD deals you need for the PS5 this Black Friday. I'll start with my favorite of the year, which is Corsair's MP600 Elite, currently down to just

This 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Black Friday PS5 SSD deal is probably the first I'd point you toward because it's one of the most low-maintenance drives I've maybe ever used. Its 1TB form has been at this price for a♍ while, but that's no bad thing because all the others have been trying to come up with price tags that low. For a 1TB drive, this is all you'll need - just pull off your console's faceplate, slot this in, and you'll be good to go.

For most players, 1TB will be more than enough space to start hoarding games like a dragon and not run out of space. But, if you play a few games that have abnormally large install demands like S.T.AL.K.E.R. 2, Call of Duty, or even Baldur's Gate 3, you're going to eat into that 1TB 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:SSD for PS5 pretty quickly.

If you want to go a step up and grab a 2TB drive, you're in luck, because they're some of the best value 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Black Friday SSD deals available this year. Again, for a to🎶ta🍰l lack of fuss, I'd point you towards the WD Black SN850X, because its Heatsink version (designed for PS5) is

I would never really recommend an 8TB drive to PS5 players, even if the console can now accept SSDs that gargantuan. You're just so unlikely to use that much💎 space - last year I checked how many terabytes the entire Game Pass library would swallow up, and it was around 11TB in total. For PS5 players, the entire PS Plus collection would probably add up to less than that, so it wouldn't really be worth spending the money on an 8TB model.

4TB drives, however, are beginning to become more viable because, during big sales events like Black Friꦉday, they get a lot more affordable. Take the Samsung 990 Pro 4TB, for instance, which isn't sitting at its lowest-ever price, but is sitting at . That gives you so, so much space to play with, and will probably last you the rest of the PS5's life before🐬 you need to think about deleting another game.

This one comes without a heatsink, so it's not quite as no-fuss as the other options on this list. But the c𝓰ompeting 4TB models with heatsinks are so m🅘uch more expensive, this is really your best bet if you want to go big or go home. All you'll need to do is grab one of the best PS5 heatsinks to keep it cool, and those usually cost under $20.

Still bargain hunting? Check out 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Black Friday gaming PC deals, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Black Friday Xbox deals, and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Black Friday Meta Quest deals.

That's no slight against Samsung's 990 Pro - 4TB drives just cost a foꦑrtune, and even content creators who burn through external hard drives at a rate of noughts would struggle to justify their costs. Prime Day has produced a pure miracle th📖ough, because the 4TB Samsung 990 Pro with an integrated heatsink is currently

I can already hear some of you laughing at the idea of that being a good 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Prime Day PS5 deal, let alone a miracle. As someone who reviews SSDs for a living though, and has to watch these 4TB drives cost sometimes into the five or six hundreds, this really is ridiculous though. Samsung is one of the biggest brands, and this is one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for PS5, those aren't normally the ones that drop down to the cheapest levels. Back in July for the summer edition of Prime Day, I thought it was great to see this drive down𝐆 to $299.99, and I feel like a fool for getting excited about that now.

It should go without saying, but this easily counts as a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Prime Day PC deal too. Arguably, that's actually where you'll get the most value for money since the true speed of this drive will be slightly hamstrung by the PS5. No matter what you're hoarding, whether it's installed PS Plus games or content, files, an OS𝄹, and games on a PC, you've got a serious winner on your hands with the 4TB Samsung 990 Pro.

Should you buy the Samsung 990 Pro?

Gen 4 SSDs are the most widely used these days when it comes to gaming. They use the PCIe 4 interface to deliver extremely fast speeds for shifting around data, as well as SSD architecture that sets it up for success anyway. While Gen 5 options now exist and can produce ludicrous speed, they're ultimately too pricey for their limited support at the moment. For that reason, drives like the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Samsung 990 Pro are highly sought after because they max out what a Gen 4 SSD is capable of while remaining somewhat reasonablyܫ priced. 

In terms of numbers, that means that the Samsung 990 Pro can reach 7,450MB/s sequential read speeds, and writes of 6,900MB/s. When it comes to the 🌌4TB model, those numbers are more likely than ever to be met in your system. 

Of course, as impressive as this 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:SSD for gaming is, I shouldn't need to tell you that 4TB is only really there for the people who need it. If you record a lot of gameplay, or you like to download every single game that gets added to PS Plus or Game Pass, then this is ꦓfꦐor you. If not, there really isn't much need for a 4TB drive, unless you want the most extreme futureproofing imaginable. 

For PS5 buyers, I shouldn't need to tell you that an upgrade like this is another great way to turn your existing console into a homemade PS5 Pro. The upgraded PlayStation is $250 more expensive than a regular system, so if you're satisfied with how yours performs, this is a fun way to futureproof it. For those who have picked up a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:PS5 Pro Pre-order, this deal combined with your new in🌠ternal 2TB drive would create a PS5 Pro Super, which would amount to a total of 6TB of space. 

But then again, there are other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Prime Day gaming deals to be had as well - you don't need to blow your entire꧟ budget on storage alone.   

For more deals coverage, check out 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Prime Day Meta Quest deals, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Prime Day Kindle deals, and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Prime Day TV deals.

The P5 Plus has sadly been discontinued now, and has had to be removed from our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSD for PS5 list as the bes⭕t budget option. The T500 looks to replace it, but after testing it out, it doesn’t fill that same gap in the market. Instead, this is taking aiᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚm at the biggest guns of the Gen 4 M.2 arena. 

Available in ꦦ500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB sizes, both with and without an integrated heatsink, it feels geared at PS5 players most of all. SSD MSRPs are about as trustworthy as Donald Trump’s Springfield pet-eating theories, but regardless, the 1TB T500 will set you back around $79.99 / £79.99 at the time of writing if you don’t opt for an integrated heatsink. Go for the PS5 no-faff option, and you’ll need to spend $89.99 / £89.99 on average. I tested the 2TB heatsink model for this review.

Design

For folks like me who were big fans of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Crucial P5 Plus, the design of the T500 made me think it was just a rebranding to begin with. All🌳 Crucial SSDs look identical these days, but the T500 looks almost exactly like the P5 Plus. All black and sporting a blocky, rectangular heatsink, the T500 is about as basic as these drives get in terms of aesthetics. 

That is, besides a breathing space in the middle of its heatsink that’s supposed to give it some additional airflow, but I’m not totally convinced this particular design actually does. Some of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for gaming have spaces in between their heatsink panels, but in testing, this one didn’t have the same effect as the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Corsair MP600 Elite, for eඣxample, which stayed incredibly cool under pressure.

In practical terms, the T500 slots into an M.2 port with no bother at all, and sports the same 2280 form factor most of its competitors do. There’s so♈me minor white branding on the top and bottom of the drive that labels what it is, but I don’t think these Crucial by Micron liveries are ever offensive. The white text here pops off the surface and gives it some character which otherwise൲ feels absent compared to other manufacturers who give their heatsinks a bit more pizazz. 

Looks don’t tend to matter too much with SSDs anyway, since if you’re going to use them in the PS5 you won’t see them. If you’re slotting this into one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best gaming PCs, you’re not going to be adding to your collection of RGB parts, but it does sort of look like something that would f🐻it onto Christian Bale’s Dark Knight utility belt. 

Features

The Crucial T500 features advertised read and write speeds of 7,400MB/s and 7,000MB/s respectively, which are fairly hefty claims considering the likes of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Seagate Firecuda 530 and even the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Samsung 990 Pro are pretty much the only options known to hit those marks consistently. This is a drive that wants to tap out its NVMe PCIe Gen 4 interface, but based on its Gen 5 cousin, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Crucial T700 Pro, I 🔴didn’t think that was outside the realms of possibility. 

Each purchase of this drive comes with a five-year limited war✱ranty, which is a nice touch. The endurance of this drive goes all the way up to 1,200TB though, so I doubt you’ll need to make u💦se of that warranty for wearing out its lifespan. 

According to Crucial, the T500 should be able to load games like Call of Duty, Forspoken, and Valorant 16% faster than the P5 Plus and other Gen 4 SSDs can while outputting a 40% higher perf🌜ormance-to-power ratio. Granted, Crucial gives all the necessary caveats to sa🐭y that your actual performance may vary, but I was intrigued to put these claims to the test.

Performance

Reviewing an SSD like this can be tough, because all of the promises a brand makes in their advertising and packaging should always be thought of more as ceilings of what their device is capable of, rather than a guaranteed benchmark of w⛦hat they’ll achieve. So, when I tell you I’m a bit disappointed that all of Crucial’s performance claims haven’t been met by my testing process, it’s all relative because the Crucial T500 is still a pretty great SSD.

Slotting this drive into one of our testing PCs brought about some intriguing results. Three CrystalDiskMark benchmarking tests produced an average sequential read speed of 7,102MB/s and a sequential write of 6,860MB/s. As the observant among you will realize, this is a fair few MB/s off the advertised ceilings on the box - moreso than the top three Gen 4 Drives we’ve tested thus far, the MP600 Elite, FireCuda 530, and Samsung 990 Pro. In fairness, the T500 surpassed the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Nextorage NEM-PA Series, which failed to get over the 7,000MB/s read mark. Interestingly, the T500 didn’t blaze past the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:SK Hynix Platinum P41, even 🍎if it was tested in a different system. The P41 got a trailblazing 7,206MB/s read speed but was let down by its write speeds, which were ꩵdown at 6,178MB/s.

Overall, the T500’s CrystalDiskMark scores show it as a solid mid-ranger, but one that gives a nice balance between read and write speeds, where other drives eit💯her focus on one or the other or fail to bring both up to this kind of standard. 

The biggest issue I found while testing this drive, however, was its temperature control. After doing my benchmarking in a PS5, which I’ll come onto momentar💫ily, I did think the drive felt a bit warmer to the touch than oth꧟ers with integrated heatsinks I’ve reviewed. Our testing rig only confirmed this though, because an ambient temperature of 29 degrees Celsius on a motherboard increased to 57 degrees after two CrystalDiskMark tests. This certainly explained why the drive’s third set of test results was its lowest, as temperature was clearly preventing efficiency.

Inside the PS5, I found similarly mixed results. The console’s formatting benchmark test came back to me with a sequential read speed of only 5,571MB/s. Don’t get me wrong, the PS5 always undercuts the true power of Gen 4 SSDs like this, mainly because its motherboard can’t divert power toꦜ its secondary M.2 bay like a gaming PC can. Still, this seemed like a really low score for a drive that boasts advertised speeds of 7,000MB/s+ on its box.

Luckily, general use tests found it was still capable in Sony’s console. It wasn’t quite as fast as the MP600 Elite in this regard, but it performedꦺ my God of War transfer test adequately. 48GB of Sony San🦩ta Monica’s 2018 classic shifted from the console’s internal drive to the Crucial T500 in just 18 seconds, then back to the console in three minutes and eight seconds.

For those who just want a broad idea of how all these performance figures scale up to load times in actual video games, I did our patented loading time stopwatch tests. Now, keep in mind that these tests aren’t perfect, and don’t account for human error (even if I’m pretty confident in my reaction time). These tests look at how a drive like this can serve you when you’re gaming with a PS5, and give a broad outline of how they can load up a large🤡-scale multiplayer game, a slower game from last generation, and one that loads quickly anyway.

As you’ll likely agree, these are respectable loading times, especially inside the PS5. Still, it’s important to note that you can pay a similar amount for Corsair’s MP600 Elite and get better loading times. That drive managed to boot up GTA Online in 48 s🏅econds, and the Outer Wilds in 5.5. In fairness, will you really notice those extra few seconds? Arguably not, but if yo🙈u can pay a similar amount of money for better results, you may want to. 

Should you buy the Crucial T500?

Overall, the Crucial T500 is a solid mid-ranger in the current Gen 4 SSD market. In some ways, it feels like the brand shooting itself in the foot, though. The P5 Plus was an amazing budget option, but at the highest end of the market, this doesn't stand out in the same way. It especially doesn’t inspire the same confidence in me when used in the PS5, even if its general use tests weren’t that far off the best I’ve tested this year. Still, the T500 is more than capable of extending the internal storage of the PS5, or indeed the PS5 Pro. 

As our testing showꦛs, the real benefits of this device come out when used in a gaming PC, but I’d issue a word of warning about the temperature control here. If you go for the model with an integrated heatsink, you’re going to be stuck with the sort of temperatures I came across, most likely. If you do want to bag yourself Crucial’s T500, maybe think about getting 🍎the version without a heatsink, and either using your motherboard’s included heatsink options or buying a heatsink separately to slap on top of it. 

One of the reasons I would recommend t🌺his drive is because I frequently get contacted by Crucial’s PR, who tells me about solid bundles and free games that come with a purchase of one of the brand’s storage devices. Beyond price cuts, which Crucial can be generous with most of the time, th🌱ese are a welcome bonus, especially when the performance disparity between this drive and its rivals is fairly minimal. A free game along with this drive would certainly ease my sadness about the Crucial P5 Plus being discontinued.

How I tested the Crucial T500

I put the Crucial T500 through the wringer in one of our testing PCs, as well as my PS5. I ⛎used CrystalDiskMark to take three benchmark scores of its sequential read and write speed, as well as the PS5’s internal formatting test. I kept an eye on temperatures through Windows 11, after a quick handling test to see how warm the drive was becoming under strain.

I then used the PS5 to transfer data back and forth from the drive to the console, keeping note of the time it took. Then, I loaded up three separate games, three times each, and took note of the loading times with a stopwatch. I then took an average of all the times before presenting the results in this review. For more on 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:how we test SSDs, check out the full澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询: GamesRadar+ Hardware Policy. 

For more storage, check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best external hard drives for gaming, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external hard drives, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox Series X hard drives. 

If the price tag of the PS5 Pro is out of reach for you, a storage upgrade to your existing PS5 is probably the best way to give your gaming life a quality of life ಌboost without breaking the bank. Take this Corsair MP600 Elite 1TB SSD, for instance. It’s currently discounted down from $94.99 to , and its integrated heatsink means installing it will take very little effort.

A $10 price cut isn’t exactly huge, but for one of the top-performing drives I’ve ever tested for PS5, this is a great price to pay. The 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for PS5 have been a loဣt pricier in the last year, and you’re lucky if you can find a PS5-ready option for under $90 - even if it was released in 2022. This dea𓆏l at Amazon brings an SSD made by a premium brand down to the cost that budget brands charge, so I can’t express how good an opportunity it is. 

Should you buy the Corsair MP600 Elite?

I test SSDS for a living, and so far, this is my favorite PS5 SSD to come out in 🧸2024. It takes the benefits of the previous Corsair MP600 drives and boosts them to new heights, with faster read and write speeds and a beautiful design. 

In fact, the design of the integrated heatsink is one of the reasons I’d argue it stands out from the rest of the♊ PS5 SSD crowd. There’s breathing space between this drive’s heatsink and its bottom, meaning more airflow can help to keep it cool from both sides, which other drives neglect. 

What might surprise you is that this SSD actually boasts faster read and write speeds than the internal drive of the PS5, pulling in sequential read and write speeds of 7,038MB/s and 6,500MB/s when we tested it. That means that if you transfer your games onto this, they’ll actually load slightly faster than they would from the console’s built-in storage. Full disclosure, the PS5 is unable to divert power to the secondary M.2 bay in the same way that a gaming PC can, but that doesn’t stop some of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDS for gaming from producing brilliant loading times.

I don’t need to spell out ಞto you that boosting your PS5’s storage for only $84 will save you a lot of money compared to buying an entire PS5 Pro. Personally, my PS5 runs games exactly how I want it to, and I’ve never seen it struggle to run games at 4K because console ports need to be stable in order to pass Sony’s certification process. I haven’t had my hands on the PS5 Pro to really test out its performance boosts yet, but for now, I know which upgrade route I’d recommend.

Check out more PS5 upgrades with the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 controllers, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external hard drives, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 accessories. 

With the SK Hynix Platinum P41 SSD advertising read and write speeds of 7,000 MB/s and 6,500 MB/s respectively, it’s firmly placing itself in contention to be named one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for PS5. We originally reviewed this drive back in 2022, and while we awarded it four stars, it’s struggled to stand out in a very competitive market. Now, with so many of its rivals falling by the wayside as SSD prices rise and fall, the Platinum P41 is finding a renewed sense of identity, particularly since its separated heatsink adds long-term valuಞe for upgraders.

While this is not an unknown brand, it’s considerably less at the forefront of people’s minds when it comes to buying an SSD, but should it be? Priced at a very reasonable $149/£165🥃 for the 2TB model with an additional purch🌠ase of the heatsink for just $19.99/£6.99, a combined price of $168.99/£171 it’s not ridiculously expensive for someone looking for a brand new SSD for their PS5. However, with this drive being a couple of years old, you will frequently find it discounted well below the listed price.

Design

 As I previously said the SK Hynix Platinum P41 was ‘daunting’ and I wasn’t just being overdramatic. Despite looking like a pretty normal stick of SSD, everything from the packaging to the labeling on the drive itself gives this cosmic and otherworldly vibe. For this review, I tested the 2TB model but if you think that gives you too much space or you’re looking for something cheaper then 1TB and 50💜0GB options are available.

The Platinum P41 SSD is small and compact with a nice purple design st♚icker on top whic🧸h continues this cosmic presence that you’ll find across its packaging. Installation of the actual SSD could not have been easier, meaning that regardless of your experience in adding additional storage, you should have no problems here. 

I can’t exactly say the same for the additional heatsink, however. Unlike most heatsinks which come pre-attached to the drive, this mammoth of a cooler replaces the usual PS5 SSD guard and screws into place on top of the stick. I found it a little bit difficult to actually sit nicely in the PS5 and I was worried it was a little bit too big, but thankfully once screwed in nice and tight, it fits well. The SK Hynix Heatsink comes in two varieties, the Haechi H01 and the Haechi H02. The latter is compatible with every version of the PS5 including the slim and upcoming 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:PS5 Pro, while the former will only work on the original build. I’d recommend 🥂future proofing yourself in the instance you decide to upgrade your ꧂PS5. 

Visually it looks very nice with a lovely gradient design going from matte black to an orange that reminds me of molten lava - hopefully it won’t be as hot as it though. Despite the SSD and the heatsink being tucked away under the hood of the PS5 for 99.9% of the time I’m using it, I do apprec🍸iate the visual aesthetic that SK Hynix has gone for here. It l🎐ooks very premium and high-end which makes it stand out compared to the likes of the Nextorage NEM-PA or the Klevv CRAS C930 which go for a more muted all-black look.

Features

Looking at the specs of the drive, it features a controller chip that SK Hynix calls the Aries which aims to double the memory channel count of the drive from four to eight. This allows it to compete with some of the fast🏅est M.2 drives on the market. 

Alongside this, it features 2GB of DDR4 cache memory and a 176-layer 3D TLC NAND. Finally, the 2TB model has been given a write endurance rating of 1,200TB, w🎶hich may be smaller than some compꦿeting drives but realistically you’ll never have to worry about hitting that count. 

Performance

The first thing I wanted to know when I got my hands on the Platinum P41 was if it would live up to the previously mentioned advertised read and write speeds. More importantly, how would these live up to the much newer riva꧅ls I’ve tested previously? ♉So before I jumped into my favorite games on PS5, I installed the drive into my PC and put the SSD through its paces in CrystalDiskMark. 

SK Hynix advertises sequential read speeds of 7,000 MB/s and write speeds of 6,500 MB/s, both very respectable numbers that, while aren’t the fastest Gen 4 speeds out there, are fast enough that I’𓃲d be happy paying the entry fee for. Across multiple tests using CrystalDiskMark I found that the average read speed was 7,206 MB/s with an average write speed of 6,178 MB/s. I was very impressed that the read speed was higher than advertiseౠd, it’s fairly uncommon for that to be the case, especially for drives which are a few years old. It’s only a 200 MB/s difference so will be pretty hard to notice when in use, but it’s great to see. 

With the PC aspect out of the way, my PS5 testing began. Thanks to the PS5’s very helpful internal benchmark when formatting SSDs I discovered that unfortunately, the Platinum P41 fell short of its advertised read speed by 812 MB/s, as i🍰t was measured as having a read speed of 6,188 MB/s. It’s not unusual for SSDs to not quite hit the mark when installed into the PS5 but it is being measured slower than the Klevv CRAS C930 and the Nextorage NEM-PA, both cheaper and newer SSDs.

With the technical side of things out of the way, I bet you’re wondering how it works in everyday use. Well, I am pleased to report that despite not hitting its advertised speeds, it didn’t really matter. Like with most of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for gaming, I had barely enough time between loa♋d screens to register what was actually happening - as much as I love this, I do miss the days when you were given fun littleཧ tips and tricks while the game loaded.

I’ve recently been playing a lot of Crash Baꦇndicoot 4: It’s About Time, so I thought I would put it to the test and see just how ‘about time’ it actually is. Across six tests I was able to load from the level select map into a level on average in 10.4 seconds, this tended to speed up the more I tested with my quickest time coming in at 10.2 seconds. It’s fast and you’ll not be waiting long to get all those Wumpa fruits, but I knew that the Platinum P41 SSD could do better when paired with a game that is built to utilize the SSD as best it can.

This brought me to Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. Insomniac’s 2023 sequel is one of my favorite games to really challenge an SSD and it constantly amazes me how quickly modern SSDs are able to load into this huge recreation of New York. This extends to the Platinum P41 SSD as I was swinging about the city to my heart's delight in just 5.2 seconds on average. Tested across six attempts I was most impressed by my fourth test which had me jumping off the Avengers tower in just 4.1 seconds. Comparing it to the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Nextorage NEM-PA SSD which I tested earlier this year, this performs similarly ﷽to it and in some instances faster than൲ it.

As m♒uch as Insomniac's Spider-Man 2 is impressive at swinging you into the game before you know it, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is well-known for being one of the fastest-loading games on the market. It’s genuinely baffling how fast I was able to load into the game from the main menu with the Platinum P41 SSD. On average, I was in control of Ratchet within 1.4 seconds. Remember when I said this SSD 🌞was daunting? Well, I think this speed sums that up quite well.

Transferring games to the SSD was reaffirming as this was a chance for the drive to show off its write speeds. I was able to transfer all three games mentioned above, totaling 1꧋41GB, from my PS5’s internal SSD to the new Platinum P41 SSD in 46 seconds. You’ll find that trying to fill up the Platinum P41 SSD will be quite hard as with 2TB worth of space to playꦗ with it will take you a little while - plus who needs that many games installed all at one time? Me, I do.

Remember when I said the heatsink has a color gradient going from “matte black to an orange that reminds me of molten lava”, well thankfully it doesn’t run anywhere near as hot as molten lava. Despite not having an actual way to test exactly how hot it got to a degree, it remained cool to touch after extensive use and 𒀰quickly dispelled any remaining heat that lingered. It gave me assurance that the SSD won’t overheat despite how hard it was working.

Should you buy the Platinum P41 & Haechi Heatsink?

Personally, I would recommend t🌃he Platinum P41 SSD if you are looking for one of the best SSDs for PS5 to give you that much-needed extra storage. It did everything I threw at it exceptionally well across weeks of testing and regular use. Plus if you like a futuristic look to your tech then it ticks that box too.

However, it can’t be ignored that there are cheaper and newer options that give a similar level of performance, making the Platinum P41 at full price less easy to recommend, especially when many don’t require an additional heatsi𓂃nk purchase. Granted if you can find it discounted like it frequently is then it’s great value for money.

If you’re looking for a slightly cheaper option then the 1TB model and the 500GB model can be found for $102/£92 or $82/49 respectively. I’d have to say you’re better going for 🅠either the 1TB or the 2TB options to really get your money’s worth. On that point, the SK Hynix Haechi heatsink is particularly good value for anyone looking to upgrade their SSD in the future, since you won't need to opt for one of the pricier options with integrated heatsinks, and you can instead go for the cheaper models designed for PC. 

The Platinum P41 isn’t exactly going to break the bank, especially if you manage to find it on sale, but it will break the habit of picking up your phone at every load s♕creen to scroll 𝓀Reddit endlessly.

How we tested the SK Hynix Platinum P41 & Haechi Heatsink

I used the Platinum P41 as my main PS5 SSD and copied all of my games to the storage device, this totalled rougꦓhly 1.5TB of the ও2TB space. It spent 2 weeks inside my PS5 and was used in both a testing environment and in regular day-to-day use. 

𒁏To test the read speed within the PS5 I used the internal benchmark test which appears𒈔 when formatting the drive upon installation. Prior to testing the speeds on PS5, I installed the Platinum P41 into my PC and measured the read and write speeds on CrystalDiskMark.

All tests which were highlighted during this review were conducted six times on PS5 and then averaged which have provided the statistics mentioned throughout. For more on 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:how we test SSDs, check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:hardware policy. 

For more storage buying advice, check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox Series X hard drives, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best external hard drives for gaming, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external hard drives.

Sitting at a very reasonable $143 for the 2TB model and $79.99 for the 1TB model it does come in more affordable than many of its bigger-name rivals. So we know it can compete on price, but can it compete when it’s put to the test against the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for gaming? 

Having previously tested and reviewed the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Nextorage NEM-PA Series SSD, a similarly unknown brand, I know first-hand that🍸 you don’t need to splash out the cash to get bang for your buck, or in this case - speed.

Editor's note: At the current moment, the C930 isn't available to buy in the UK, but after contact with the manufacturer, we're told it should be soon. Until then, we'd recommend the Nextorage option, linked above.

Design & Features

The Klevv CRAS C930 drive looks like your standard stick of SSD, nothing out of the ordinary or flashy here. With the option of this being used as an 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:SSD for PS5, it does come with a heatsink that you can attach to the drive yourself. This is a unique design choice as this allows users on PC to easily slot the SSD into their build using their own heatsinꦬks if needed.

Attaching the heatsink was a very straightforward task. Simply removing the adhesive strip coverings on the heatsink and attaching it to the SSD drive is all you need to do. Honestly, having only worked with SSDs that come w💯ith integrated♛ heatsinks before I was a bit nervous to be attaching this myself, but it couldn’t have been easier.

I really like the design of the heatsink, it has a slight grille-like design towards the end of t💞he chassis which boasts a matte black color and contrasts with the ‘KLEVV’ logo branded on the other end. Despite knowing I won’t actually be looking at the SSD or its design with it being in my PS5 99% of the time, I do appreciate the fact it looks nice and premium.

I am happy to report that in the 1% of the time that I💎 am actually looking at the drive, it remained nice and cool despite it being used heavily in PS5 just minutes prior. Unfortunately, I am unable to measure the actual temperature of the drive while in use inside the PS5, but if the temperature post-use was any indication, the heatsink works really effectively.

Not only does it work, but it’s a very small drive and heatsink combination. It doesn’t feel heavy and it fits perfectly into the PS5’s M.2 SSD additional storage slot allowing you to lock it into place in the ‘80’ screw slot. Like with attaching the heatsink, you won’t struggle to actua⛎lly install it into your console.

Performance

As I have previously mentioned the Klevv CRAS 💃C930 M.2 2TB drive boasts an on-the-box read speed of 7,400 MB/s and a write speed of 6,800 MB/s, both impressive numbers that puts it ahead of the WB Black SN850X, the Samsung 980 Pro and the Nextorage NEM-PA Series. These are seriously impressive advertℱised speeds, especially considering how much you're actually spending.

Wanting to test that impressive read speed, I installed it into my PS5 and found that unfortunately, it didn’t quite hit that mark when the console form⛦atted the drive. Coming in at 6,408 MB/s read speed, this falls short of the read speed by just shy of 1000 MB/s. This comes in less than the Nextorage NEM-PA Series which achieved 6,539 MB/s but higher than the WD Black SN850P which came in at 6,293 MB/s. 

When testing th♈e drive in CrystalDiskMark on my PC the numbers it𝓰 was achieving were in line with what the Klevv CRAS C930 box advertises. Across three tests the drive saw an average read speed of 7,327 MB/s and a write speed of 6,795 MB/s. Both are impressive numbers, but that write speed particularly impressed me as that’s only 5 MB short of what the box advertises. 

Now that the technical jargon is out of the way, how does it actually perform in real terms and real use? Well, across multiple games on my PS5, I whizzed through load screens with ease with barely enough time to think about picking up my phone to 🍸doom-scroll Twitter/X.

Jumping into Hitman 3: World of Assassination I was able to 🌞deploy Agent 47 on a top-secret mission in just 12 seconds from the main menu on my first attempt. This actually improved throughout my use as every time I entered a new level across an approximate 2-hour playtime I measured the load times. At its fastest pace, it loaded me from the mission select screen into Miami, one of the biggest maps and most popul𒊎ated maps in the game, in only 7 seconds. On average, I wasn’t waiting longer than 9 seconds to get right into the action.

I witnessed similarly quick speeds that Quicksilver would♓ be jealous of in Marvel’s Midnight Suns as on average it would load me into my save in just 3 seconds from the main menu. I was incredibly impressed by this across multiple tests which all achieved similar speeds.

Not only did it load super quickly to ge🍸ꦓt me into my save, but leaving the game mission hub area and actually deploying into a mission scenario, it only took me 8 seconds on average across three tests.

My final test was with the PlayStation-exclusive Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, which is specifically designed to utilize SSD technology. As we’ve seen in our tests of the Gen 5 Crucial T700 Pro, loading times were blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fast. Genuinely I could not believe that from the main menu, I loaded into the game in less than 2 seconds⛦𝔍. Across 10 tests that I put it through, the slowest was 1.7 seconds and I feel part of that could have been human error on my part being too slow to hit the timer.

There were similarly impressive speeds when it came to transferring games between the internal storage and the additional drive. Hitman 3, which sits atꦏ a hefty 78GB, transferred to the Klevv CRAS C930 in just 30 seconds with it returning to the internal storage from the additional drive in just over 5 minutes. Midnight Suns which is half the size of Hitman 3, 43GB, made the jump in half the time - funny that - at only 15 seconds and was back on my internal storage in only 🌞3 minutes. You won’t be waiting long to fill up that SSD, essentially. In fact, I think you’ll struggle to fill it all as 2TB provides you with more than enough space to pack with games. I moved my entire library onto the drive and still had 500GB of space left - just enough to download Warzone…maybe.

Should you buy the Klevv CRAS C930 2TB M.2? 

While Klevv might not be the most recognizable brand𝓰 on the market at this point, it doesn’t mean it should be ignored for the bigger names. If you’re looking for one of the best SSDs for gaming then I think you should seriously consider purchasing the Klevv CRAS C930 2TB SSD. 

With an entry price of just $79.99 for the 1TB model or $143 for the 2TB model, you can’t really go wrong. It undercuts the Nextorage NEM PA-Series price which we consider to be the best budget SSD for PS5. And I think that’s exactly the market that this drive manages to hit. You’re not going to break the bank when picking up on🍷e of these and that’s what makes those lightning-quick speeds even more attractive. 

The box that th𝓀e drive comes in proudly says ‘Born for Faster Life’ and I think that sums it up pretty perfectly. It has breathed faster life into my PS5.

How we tested the SSD 

I♚ used the Klevv CRAS C930 2TB M.2 SSD as my primary drive inside my PS5 for a week and used it both in a testing environment where🍌 I measured load times etc but also just in day-to-day use. 

I used the PS5’s internal benchmark when installing the drive to measure the read speed in the console and transferred my library to the drive and downloaded multiple games to it for testing purposes - this included Hitman 3, Marvel’s Midnight Suns, and Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, the three games that I chose to hi🌠ghlight in this review. I chose the latter due to its DirectStorage prowess, as well as the fact it was designed to lean on the PS5's SSD storage. 

When testing on PC I installed the drive into my PC’s SSD slot and used CrystalDiskMark to measure the drive’s reཧad and write speeds. I calculated th🏅e average after I conducted three unique tests.

If you want to know more about 澳洲🔜幸运5开奖号码历史查询:how we test SSDs here at GamesRadar+, check out our full 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:hardware policy.

You don't need to go with a flashy internal drive. Check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best external hard drives for gaming, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external hard drives, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS4 external hard drives.

Nowadays, that isn't the case. Call it manufacturing and shipping costs rising, inflation, or demand going down. Any of these reasons might be valid causes for prices going up from a business sense, but it makes things harder for shoppers. With so many 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Prime Day PC deals and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Prime Day PS5 deals popping up now, trying to gauge what something did cost before versus what it should cost ဣnow is next to impossible - it's like trying to shoot a moving target while the person holding it constantly changes its size.

Thankfully, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Prime Day gaming deals are providing a bit of well-deserved clarity. I've scoured through the digital shelves, and as someone who reviews st﷽orage devices, I'm happy to say I've spotted some deals that are actually worth getting excited over. After my bargain-hunting patrol, I've come back with a list of great SSD deals you should consider buying this Prime Day.

Keep tabs on more offers that are running at the moment with our coverage of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Prime Day Meta Quest deals, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Prime Day Kindle deals, and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Prime Day TV deals.

However, Prime Day has actually brought me a bit of hope, because one of the best 4TB drives I've tested is seeing a continued price drop at the moment. The Samsung 990 Pro is up there with the best SSDs for gaming ever made, and right now you can get its 4TB model for (the retailer says it was $46⛄4.99, but its average price at Amazon is actually $339).

For what I deem one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for gaming, that's all you can wish for during a Summer sale, but this deal has actually improved as time has gone on. Earlier in the week, this drive was at $299.99, and since then its price has been slashed further to $291. This is undoubtedly one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Prime Day PC deals that's impre🌠ssed me most, so itღ's great to see it age like a fine wine. 

There are a few caveats you should know here. Firstly, while I use this enormous SSD in my PS5, the model in this limited-time deal doesn't have an integrated heatsink. That means that if you're planning on making the most of this price as a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Prime Day PS5 deal, you'll need to grab one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 heatsinks to place on top of it. 

The second thing you should know is that while this doesn't appear to be a Prime-exclusive deal, it is a limited-time one, so if you're tempted to buy, don't wait too long. It's always possible that 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Prime Day gaming deals could force this drive's price down even further, but 💖that relies on♋ stock holding.  

Prime Day gaming deals at a glance

• SSDs:
• CPUs:
• GPUs:
• Mice:
• Monitors:
• PCs:
• Gift cards:

Should you buy the Samsung 990 Pro 4TB?

Short of going for a Gen 5 SSD like the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Crucial T700 Pro, which is even more expensive, you're not going to find a better SSD for gaming than the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Samsung 990 Pro. The 4TB version specifically is one I us♑e every day, so it's on💫e I can recommend with ease. 

When we reviewed the 2TB model (which is always a good testing point for the other sizes in a product range), we found sequential read speeds of 7,462MB/s and 6,877MB/s writes. The 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Seagate Firecuda 530 is probably the closest competitor to that, along with the likes of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:WD Black's SN850X, and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Corsair's MP600 Elite. While any of those drives will give you the best loading times a Gen 4 drive can, Samsung's 4TB model is the one I'd choose b🐈ecause of its really solid random 4K performance.

Moreover, in terms of value for money, this deal comes in under the SN850X's 4TB size, which is , and is claiming to be reduced from $699.99. The Seagate Firecuda 530 doesn't seem to be available in 4TB at the moment, which is par for the course for that very popula♐r drive. And Corsair's MP600 Elite is all the way up at , still claiming to be discounted to that price. 

Overall, this is a great SSD for a reasonable price, which is nice to see in 2024 when SSDs haಞve been getting pricier. 

For more Prime Day buying advice, check out 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Prime Day Meta Quest deals, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Prime Day Kindle deals, and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Prime Day gaming laptop deals.

With every big online savings event, I find myself recommending this deal - in fairness, it's a dang good one and something I still think more Xbox gamers need to know about. The WD Black C50 1TB expansion card is back down to its lowest-ever p🃏rice at Amazon, I’ve been watching its price like a hawk over the last year, and so far that price has be🌸en reserved for Black Friday and Prime Day - the biggest sales events on the calendar.

That gets you an extra terabyte of extra space, and you won’t even notice the difference from your console’s internal drive, since you’ll still be able to Quick Resume your games as normal. Perhaps most importantly, this gets you an official 1TB expansion for less than the Seagate one, which people still look to as the only 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Xbox Series X hard drive worth buying. In fairness, that tiny 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:SSD for gaming is on offer at the minute as well, but at  

 Should you buy the WD Black C50? 

If you need 1TB of extra space in your Xbox, it doesn’t get better than the WD Black C50. Seagate does have th🤡e upper hand if you want 2TB, since the C50 only comes in 500GB and 1TB shapes. Nonetheless, it's cheaper in the 1TB race and performs just as well.

If you don’t opt for an official expansion card, your next best option is to grab one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best external hard drives for gaming. Portable SSDs have some rather ludicrous speeds these days, but even if you grab one of those on the cheap, you won’ꦍt be able t✤o launch Series X/S games from it. Sure, moving games across to your internal hard drive will be much easier than deleting and reshuffling to make space, but an Expansion Card takes out that middleman entirely. 

By far, my favorite thing about the Series X is the Quick Resume feature. With so many games at my fingertips, I love being able to swap between them in a heartbeat. This is truly one of the features I think the current generation of Xbox consoles can hold over PlayStation owners - even if the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for PS5 are technically faster than🍎 the storage options I’m discussing here. So far though, the C50 and Seagate Expansion Card are the only two Xbox options that are fast enough to use the Quick Resume feature, so they’re the first ones you should consider.

Check out some last-generation storage options too - they might be a bit cheaper. The best Xbox One external hard drives and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS4 external hard drives are always viable, as are the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS4 SSDs.

For a while now, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for PS5 have been three contenders that aren't separated by much. The WD Black SN850X, the Seagate FireCuda 530, and the Samsung 990😼 Pro all push the boundaries of what Gen 4 M.2 drives can achieve, and besides a few discrepancies and fluctuations, they're all similarly priced. There are plenty of budget brands and smaller names in💛 the mix, but Corsair's MP600 range is always pushing to be seen among those top names. 

The MP600 Elite is the latest update, and in my eyes, it&ap♊os;s boosted the brand into that upper echelon. SSDs have been getting pr✱icier recently, and the biggest names seem happy to let their older products get more expensive. I give props to Corsair for showing some restraint with the price tag here, but mainly for making a decent SSD first and foremost. The MP600 Elite is available in 1TB form for $99 / £99, and 2TB for  ~ $150 / £150.

Design & Features

Like pretty much any of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for gaming, you'll find the MP600 Elite in a few different shapes and sizes. The one I've tested for this review is designed for PS5 and has a beautiful white heatsink surrounding it. The PC version has a black heatsink, although appears to be the exact same as the white model you'll see in this review's images. If you already have one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 heatsinks or you'd like to rely on your motherboard's cooling solutions, it's also available without a heat ♛spreader. You can find it in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities, and the one I've been testing is a 2TB model. When formatted into Windows 11, our testing rig recognized 1.8TB, which is fairly standard for drives of this size.

I thought it couldn't get much better than the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Samsung 990 Pro regarding aestheꦕtics and heatsink design, but I have to hand it to Corsair, this is pre🍃tty close. I love the subtle curves and individual vent panels of this heatsink - it's like a suit of armor, with separate plates slotting together to form a secure whole. 

Additionally, I love how the bottom of the drive is catered to as well because there are a lot of small spaces for cool air to flow through this heatsink. This is pretty innovative compဣared to other PS5 SSDs I've tested, and besides making the device slightly chunkier in an M.2 tray, it seems to do the trick.

The MP600 Elite uses the M.2, PCIe Gen 4.0 format, but is backwards compatible with PCIe Gen 3 systems. It's a 2280 drive, so you won&ꩲapos;t have much trouble fitting this in any standard M.2 slot, either on a PC's motherboard or inside the PS5. Speaking of architecture though, there's nothing too out of the ordinary here. There's a 3D TLC NAND cache Corsair calls "high density", and quoted endurance of 1,200TBW (total bytes written). Luckily, the drive also comes with a 5-year warra❀nty.

Last but not least, we come to the advertised read and ♏write speeds for this drive. Remember, these aren't always exactly what you'll end up with. Depending on your system and the individual drive itself, you'll ge🍨t minor discrepancies with these numbers. Nonetheless, read/write speeds are quoted as 7,000MB/s and 6,500MB/s.

Performance

As this SSD is designed for PS5 use as well as in the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best gaming PCs, I put it to work in Sony's console first. Of course, I'll caveat by saying the numbers recorded inside the PS5 will always be lower than optimal. This is because the PS5's motherboard isn't capable of diverting power to its secondary M.2 b🌊ay, which means you'll never get the cream of the storage crop when it comes to numbers.

Nonetheless, the Corsair MP600 Elite fares well against its rivals. The 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Nextorage NEM-PA SSD managed to reach a PS5 internal benchmark of 6,539MB/s sequential read, which is pretty darn good. In all honesty, that's one of the fastest numbers I've seen the PS5 recognize, and the MP600 Elite comes in just under it with 6,486MB/s. That's even faster than last year's dark horse in the PS5 market, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Verbatim Vi7000G, which scored 6,250MB/s. It's certainly an improvement over the Corsair MP600 Pro LPX, an older model of this drive that the console formatted to 5,581MB/sꦬ.

In terms of game data transfers, the MP600 Elite does a great job. My God of War 2018 transfer test (patent pending) was passed with flying colors, as 48GB was flung from the console storage to the drive in just 16 seconds. This was faster than the now discontinued 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Crucial P5 Plus, which did it in 26 seconds - if anything, that comparison shows you that even if you can't get 🍒the maximum speeds of a high-end drive in the PS5, you s🌳till benefit from going for a speedier option.

Loading times weren't half bad either but were pretty comparable to other♑ PS5 additional storage options. The table of results below isn't the shining example of testing methodology to quote to your SSD enthusiast friends, but it does give you some idea of how performance figures translate to loading times where the PS5 will allow it. Hunt: Showdown and GTA V are famously slow-loading games, while Outer Wilds loads in a heartbeat.

Like I say, those numbers are pretty par for the course for SSDs I've tested in the PS5, and definitely not the slowest numbers I've seen (he says, giving side-eye to the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:WD Black SN850P).

Of course, to test performance more thoroughly, we need to turn to our testing PC and CrystalDiskMark. I'm pleased to say those advertised speeds, whi🐠ch Corsairဣ notes as maximums, were exceeded with the model I tested. The quoted 7,000MB/s was surpassed by an average of 7,038MB/s across three tests. The quoted read speed of 6,500MB/s was trounced by an average of 6,587MB/s.

For a comparative note in my 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Crucial T700 Pro review, I went back to get more up-to-date performance figures of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Seagate FireCuda 530 and found sequential read/write speeds of 7,034MB/s / 6,739MB/s respectively. The MP600 Elite managed to scrape past the read speeds of the FireCuda 530 by the skin of its teeth and just fell short of its write speeds. It's up there, though, and I consider the FireCuda 530 to be one of the pound-🌠for-pound greats. Taking into account that Seagate's option goes in and out of stock in a heartbeat, and its price is woefully inconsistent due to its popularity, I think Corsair's got൩ a real contender on its hands here.

Should you buy the Corsair MP600 Elite?

SSDs are more expensive year-on-year, and with the FireCuda, SN850X, and 990 Pro all proving more difficult to get a hold of, Corsair has launched a new option 💞worth getting instead. Its pricing at 1TB and 2TB are very competitive for a new drive, and although its numbers don't shoot for unattainable new highs in the Gen 4 market, it stands toe-to-toe with the best options. 

In truth, the biggest caveats I'd offer anyone looking to buy this is that its older sibling, the MP600 Pro LPX, is still readily available, and quotes speeds that are actually better (although by all accounts it falls short of those numbers). It's also available in 8TB and 500GB shapes, which the Elite model has forgone. Similarly, anyone looking for more futureproofing could look to more recent hybrid Gen 5 SSDs that are backwards compatible wit𒁏h Gen 4 systems.

In any case, the MP600 Elite is a new top contender I can recommend easily. I love its heats♔ink, its performance, and its price tag.

How we tested the Corsair MP600 Elite

I tested the Corsair MP600 Elite inside my PS5 and our hardware team's testing PC. I used CrystalDiskMark to t𒊎est sequential read and write numbers, as well as the PS5's own internal benchmark. I used the SSD inside the PS5 to play games, transfer files, and record loading times. 

To read more about the ways we test the latest gaming gear, check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:hardware policy.

Looking for external storage boosts instead? Check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best external hard drives for gaming, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external hard drives, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox Series X hard drive.

Now, you might not be familiar with the name "Nextorage" but you will certainly be familiar with the team that has worked on its storage devices. The company was formed in October 2019 by former Sony staff members who had over 20 years of experience working within the brand's memory and storage divisions. Not only that, but Sony is a minority owner of the company. But why does it matter? Because it inspires a lot of confidence in the NEM-PA Series that not only has it been designed by experts who know the PS5, but that it will excel against the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for gaming. 

I was personally a bit apprehensive about testing a relatively unknown brand of SSD. I wasn’t quite sure what I was in for or if it would meet the expectations that I have about expanded storage. However, a new brand showing up to the table boasting impressive read (7,300 MB/s) and write (6,900 MB/s) speeds does make you sit up and take notice. Not only that, but Nextorage brings these speeds to the table at reasonable price points, with 1TB remaining pretty reasonable at $89.99/£74.99. Will its impressive specs stand up against the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for PS5?

Design & Features

With its focus firmly placed on being an expansion of your PlayStation 5’s storage, the NEM-PA Series PS5 SSD comes with a built-in, integrated heatsink. This isn’t a🦂nything revolutionary, but it does make it much easier for the consumer to just unbox and install. The heatsink attached to the NEM-PA Series PS5 SSD has a good weight and look to it, one that I personally believe fits in quite nicely with the internals of the PS5. Like competing brands such as Western Digital and Seagate, Nextorage does not recommend that you remove the heatsi♍nk from the drive, doing so could seriously impact performance so it’s best to keep it attached - this goes for PC use too.

The NEM-PA Series can be found in a few different sizes.  As well as the 1TB model, 2TB will cost you $159.99/ꦯ£137.99, 4TB will set you back $319.99/£288.99, and 8TB is priced at a comical $869.99/£805.99. Regardless, you won’t be stuck for choice for either size and price. I'm testing the 4TB model for this review.

Nextorage describes its heatsink as an “optimized cooling structure” which is made up of an “aluminum heatsink coated with a highly the𒆙rmally radioactive black aluminate, which suppresses thermal throttling”. Essentially, it keeps the device very cool, even under strain. Upon removing the device from my PS5 after use, it remained fairly cool to the touch and any remaining heat quickly 𓂃dissipated. Unfortunately, I was unable to test temperatures to an exact degree.

Aside from that there isn’t much more to discuss about this SSD's visuals - after all, it’s going to be boxed up and hidden from sight inside of your PS5 anyway. Admittedly, when trying to install it into my PC I did have some issues with the size of the heatsink. I had to really play around with the internals to get it to fit amongst all my other components - although this may be specific to my personal machine and not reflective of the drive. The heatsink certainly isn't as large as the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Crucial T700 Pro, so while it could be smaller, it will likely still fit in one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best gaming PCs.

Speaking of size, the NEM-PA Series PS5 SSD’s dimensions are 80.4mm x 11.2mm x 23mm, which means it bolts down in the “80”﷽ rung in your PS5's M.2 slot without any issues. Strictly speaking, this is despite an advertised 0.4mm difference in size to what Sony recommen🃏ds throwing in your console.

Performance

The advertised read speeds of 7,300MB/s would put the NEM-PA Series PS5 SSD ahead of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:WB Black SN850X and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Samsung 980 Pro and put it alongside the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Seagate Firecuda 530. Unfortunately, when installing into the PS5 this drive didn’t quite hit those advert🐈ised marks, but that's the ca𓄧se for all of these high-end drives.

Regardless, these speeds mean that Nextorage's dri💮ve competes with some of the best Gen 4 SSDs on the market, and it actually surpasses some of the biggest players. Keep in mind, it does so at a cheaper price as it beats the Samsung 980 Pro in the 2TB race by ~$10/£18 and it comes in ~$129/£123 cheaper than the Seagate Firecuda 530 2TB. Considering the brand is new on the scene compared to the more recognizable names, it doesn’t hurt that the price of entry is lower for a similar quality in performance.

When I inserted the drive into the PS5, the internal benchmark gave me a read speed of 6,539MB/s for the 4TB drive. This falls 341MB/s short of the advertised 6,900MB/s, which, in fairness, is a small difference. More expensive drives with official licensing like the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:WD Black SN850P have fallen far shorter. On the br🌱ight side, you are still getting a read speed that is higher t🐻han the PS5's internal SSD. In all likelihood, you won’t notice those 341MB/s when loading games up anyway.

Moving over to my PC and testing the drive through CrystalDiskMark, it showed me numbers that actually surpassed the advertised write spee꧃ds, clocking in an average of 6,924MB/s across three tests. I was actually very impressed that despite advertising lower speeds, the drive marginally overtook what was expected. Overall, CrystalDiskMark measured the drive as having an average read/write speed of 6,971MB/s and 6,924MB/s respectively.

These numbers make for a drive that ꦑis very usable within your PS5. Now, it is worth noting that advertised speeds ar♛e usually more of a ceiling or guide as to what speeds to expect rather than a limit or guarantee.

For context, I was able to transfer Alan Wake 2 from the internal stock SSD in the PS5 to the NEM-PA Series in only 30 seconds from an average of 3 tests. ♏That’s 77.87GB in less than half a minute. In return transfers, Alan Wak💝e 2 moved back to the internal SSD of the PS5 in 5 minutes and 20 seconds. 

Load times for games, as you would expect, were lightning-quick in almost every test. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 booted from the main menu into gameplay in a mere 5 seconds, Grand Theft Auto V’s story mode loaded in a slightly slower 13 seconds, Ubisoft’s Far Cry 6 had me from menu to game in a speedy 9 seconds, and finally, Ratchet and Clank went from the main menu to gameplay in just over 1 second (1.72 seconds to be exact). The bottom line is that you’ll be in your games within no time at all thanks to this drive - no more quick coffee or tea breaks while your games load. It was honestly quite overwhelming having the instant sp﷽eeds that Nextorage's PS5 SSD provides. Similarly, the massive amount of storage that was suddenly at my fingertips was unreal. With 4TB at my disposal, I struggled to fill even 1.5TB of the huge amount of space during my period of testing - that’s like 10 and a half Call of Duty Warzones worth of space left.

Should you buy the Nextorage NEM-PA Series PS5 SSD?

As I have mentioned before, Nextorage’s NEM-PA Series PS5 SSD comes to the market to challenge the big names in the SSD space while also hitting a respectable and budget-friendly price, and it does just that. While there are certainly drives in the Gen 4 space that run a little faster or look more visually appealing, it competes with some of the best PS5 SSDs on the market and at a reasonable price that remains closer to some of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external hard drives.

With an entry-level price of $89.99/£74.99 for the 1TB model and the larger capacities similarly undercutting the biggest names, it is without a doubt one of the better value-for-money SSDs that you can currently buy. Although, having said that, if the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Samsung 990 Pro or the Seagate Firecuda is on sale and lower than the NEM-PA Series PS5 SSD then it may be worthwhile looking into those drives and choosing them over it - it should be considered🉐 though that the integrated heatsink models of those rivals tend to be a lot more expensive.

This drive does what it set out to do, provide a cheaper alternative in the SSD space while not compromising on read and write speeds. If you are in the market 📖for a new SSD for your PS5 then choosing the NEM-PA Series PS5 SSD is a solid choice (pun fully intended).

How we tested the Nextorage NEM-PA Series PS5 SSD

🌠I used the Nextor𝓡age NEM-PA Series PS5 SSD inside my PS5 for about a week before this review and filled up almost 2TB worth of the 4TB storage provided by the drive. 

Using the PS5’s own internal installation benchmark I tested the drive's read speed in the console. Once installed inside the PlayStation, I transferred games to the device and then back to the PS5 to get an idea of the read and write speeds that the drive provides. Following this I then began testing the load times of games and timed how long it takes for each game (Spider-Man 2, GTA V, Ratchet and Clank, Far Cry 6) to load into the game from the main menu. I then played each game for a little bit to get a feel of load times while playing. I chose Spider-Man 2 and Ratchet and Clank as they 🐼are two PS5 exclusive titles that take advantage of the internal SSD, I wanted to test if the speeds of the NEM-PA Series PS5 SSD were comparable to the speeds of the stock drive. I tested GTA V and Far Cry 6 as they typically take longer to load.

As for PC benchmarks, I used CrystalDiskMark to test the drive while inside the PC to test the drive's read and write speeds. Each test was conducted three times each and a♋n average was taken for the final figures in the review.

For more on the ways we test the latest 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:PS5 accessories, take a look at our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:hardware policy.

I recently went through this process myself. Although most motherboards today have more than one NVMe port, my small-form-factor motherboard meant I had to do a complete switch. If the idea of totally swapping out your PC's storage is nerve-wracking to you, I'm right there with you. It felt like a big risk to take, and there were a lot of questions in my mind before doing it. Luckily, with how speedy the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for gaming are at the moment, the process is actually surprisingly painless, and depending on the ha🍎rdware you're working with, shouldn't take you all that long. 

Years ago, this process would have been really easy because there were so many bits of software that offered you cloning and backup features for free. Nowadays though, they're a bit harder to find. There are plenty of tools out there you can pay for, but using tಞhe method below, you won't need to pay a dime. 

I have no doubt there will be other applications out there that will do the trick, but the one I'll be recommending today is . This software does have a paid version, but there's nothing in the steps below you'll need to part with money for, and personally, I love the way it's all set out. Its UI is clear 𒐪and easy to navigate, it offers loads of functions, and gives you loads of control over what's happening. So, without further ado, here's how✅ to clone your gaming PC's SSD for free. 

Before we start, here's what you'll need:

Hardware-wise, here's wh🎃at you'll need before beginning. This may vary depending on your motherboard, your number of NVMe slots, and what drives you're wanting to swap. 

The example I'll be using in the steps below is exactly what I had to do with my PC, but this process with DiskGenius will work regardless of whether you're trying to back data up to one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best externa♑l hard drives for gaming, or whether you're looking to clone a SATA to an NVMe SSD, or the other wꩵay around. 

So, you will need:

• An existing SSD that you already use (C: drive, game drive, etc)
• A new SSD you're looking to upgrade or backup to (we'll call this the target drive)
• A way to connect the two drives to the same PC (for me this was a , but for you, it could be a USB port or a secondary M.2 bay on your motherboard)
• DiskGenius downloaded and installed on your system.

How to clone your SSD Step 1: Preparing to clone

Alright, so now that you have what you need, you need to connect both drives to your 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:gaming PC and open the DiskGenius app. For me, this meant putting the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Crucial T700 Pro inside UGREEN's M.2 enclosu🐼re, but for most people, it will mean either plugging in a USB or USB-C external drive into their PC or installing another NVMe drive into an empty slot on their motherboard. 

Which🐠ever you need to do, connect things up, and open DiskGenius. 

As you'll see from the image below, you'll find a summarized list of the connected drives that DiskGenius dete🍸cts in your PC. On the left-hand side, you'll see their various drives and partitions (A). 💎Up at the top, you'll see a list of functions that DiskGenius can perform(B), and below that, a bar that shows you how full your C: drive is (C).

Usually, your C: drive will show up as "HD0", followed by a serial number or manufacturer name. The main thing you'll want to do in this preparatory step is to ensure that you can see all the drives you're hoping to find, and take a mental or physical note of their names. If you have trouble distinguishing between serial numbers, here's a trick that might help you determine one from the other. At𒀰 the end of the drive name, the software will display the capacity of that drive in GB. So, if you're upgrading from a 1TB drive you'll see close to 1000GB, and if you're transferring data over to a 2TB SSD you'll see roughly 1800GB. 

How to clone your SSD Step 2: Setting coordinates

Now that we know which drive is which, we'll look to the menu on the left-hand side of the application window, and click "Local Disk (C:)" or wh🔜ichever SSD partition you're hoping to clone. 

Up at the very top of the screen, we&ap🍨os;ll head up to the "Tools" drop-down menu where you&ꦬapos;ll see the options "Clone Disk" and "System Migration". 

If you want to transfer your ✱PC's C: drive, hit "System Migration". If you're just looking to backup or transfer a secondary drive, the cloning option should do the trick. Luckily, these are very siꦿmilar processes so the following steps should match up. 

Again, let's imagine we're cloning the C: drive that you have Windows installed on. When you hit "System Migration", you'll be asked to select a "target disc" - this is where you intend to transfer the files to once migration begins (so most likely your new SSD) Remembering the name of each drive we identified in step 1, se꧒lect the target disc you want to use. 

A warning will come up sa♍ying "All files and partitions on target disc will be🦹 overwritten! Are you sure you want to migrate the system" - For clarity, that means everything on the disc you are transferring to will be deleted to make room for the system migration. For the most part that should be ok since you'll probably be transferring to a brand new drive. Either way, make sure you're alright with that and click "ok". 

You'll then get a System Migration Settings window open up. Using the small drag-and-drop margins on each drive's capacity bar, you can now set new partitions in the target drive, which can be useful if you want to separate system files from games and applications, for example. This is a great time to triple-check check you have the correct drives selected. If you've elected for a full system migration, your current C: drive should be automatically selected, so that shouldn't be too much of a worry. If you're just cloning a disc, you may need to be doubly sure that you've selected the correct sourc෴e disk.

As a quick side note: DiskGenius is great because in doing a system migration, it doesn't delete the files from your existing C: drive. Some other software does th♍is as part of the cloning process.

The one box I'd draw your attention to here is the one that asks if you'd like to set the target disc to the new boot location. Usually, I'd recommend leaving this unchecked, unless your target disc is an NVMe drive that you've already installed on your motherboard. You definitely don't want to tick this box if your target disk is connected externally via USB or USB-C. If you're going to physically swap the target disc into the motherboard slot your current C💛: drive is residing in, there's no need to check this box. 

Finally, check the box that says "Prevent System from 🌄Sleeping During Execution". 

Then hit the "Start" button, and when th♏e next pop-up comes up, select the "Hot migration" button and the process will begin. 

How to clone your SSD Step 3: Cloning

Now, it's a b൲it of a waiting game. Depending on what drives you're using and how much data you need to transfer, this process could last anywhere from a minute to an hour or even more (if you're just using HDDs). 

You'll see the data transfer in real-time so you can track its progress - but I'd look to do as little as possible on your PC while this process is taking place. You don't want to be deleting files, launching new applications, or saving new game data while this is happening. The migration uses a "snapshot" of your drive when it starts, so any new data won&ap💫o🐟s;t be part of the migration and will provide a less accurate clone. 

Once the system migration is complete, the appl⭕ication will tell you "System Migration completed. To boot from target system, please reboot to BIOS and set target disk as boot device. Do you want to restart your computer now?"

If you need to physically swap drive locations around, now is a great time to do that. Personally, I'd elect not to res☂tart now so you can manually shut down and put the new drive in place first. If your SSD is൩ already seated in the desired motherboard location, you can restart now.

Once you've done any physical swaps that need doing, hit the Delete (or other designated key) 🦂key to boot to your PC's BIOS. Depending on your current settings, you may need to change your boot location. If you've removed your former C: drive, this shouldn't be an i💃ssue, but Windows Boot Manager should pick up the correct location. 

Your PC will then la♌unch Windows as normal, and you'll be surprised to know that it really is as simple as that. An exact copy of your old C drive will now work🗹 as normal - you shouldn't need to log in to any applications or launchers again, it should all be there as usual. 

Looking to take on this challꦐenge? We've used our price comparison software down below to show you the mos🔥t helpful tools for the job.

Want a system-specific storage solution? Check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for PS5, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external hard drives, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox Series X hard drive.

The T705 has sequential read speeds of up to 14,500MB/s and sequential writes of 12,700MB/s. These speeds are no short of ludicrous, even in the emerging Gen 5 market. Compared with last year's T700 model, the new T705 has 18% faster sequential reads and 8% faster writes. To put these numbers into context, most of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 SSDs top out at 7,000MB/s, and a basic ex꧂ternal HDD can struggle to reach 200MB/s.  

This is sure to gun for a top spot on our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSD for gaming list, although you'll need a compatible motherboard and a fairly beefy gaming PC to get the most out of those advertised speeds. Interestingly though, you don't need a Gen 5-compꦰatible motherboard to use this new drive. I ment♛ioned that the T705 will be PS5 compatible, and that's because it uses a hybrid architecture that makes it backward compatible with Gen 4 and Gen 3 systems. 

The Crucial T705 will be available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB versions, both with and without an integrated heatsink. If you buy the heatsink version in 2TB form, there's even a limited edition white model up for grabs. We don't have acc🌄ess to prices at present, but Crucial does note that these may vary - a trend we see all too often with SSDs these days.

It remains to be seen what speeds this blazing-fast drive will reach when scaled back to older expressways, however. This isn't something we've seen a whole lot of so far, and besides Samsung's first Gen 5 SSD which scale🔴s back speeds entirely, it's a first. 

Until now, inserting a Gen 5 SSD into Sony's flagship console has been an almighty failure. To be clear, its M.2 port uses PCIe Gen 4, and drives like the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Samsung 990 Pro have a൩ll but tapped out what that generation can do. Every now and then we do get a drive claiming it can push the ceiling further, but in truth, they're a bit wasted on the PS5. Unlike a gaming PC, the console can't pull more power to an additional NVMe SSD, meaning it almost always falls short of advertised speeds.

Still, when you consider how quick a Gen 4 SSD is, the Crucial T705 will put an end to lo🐈ading times pretty much entirely - especially if a game you're playing uses Microsoft® DirectStorag🌟e technology.

Micron's homegrown Micron 232-layer 3💯D NAND is used in the T705 and can reach up to 2.4GB/s. This might be a great sign of value for money since SSD prices have been on the rise lately, and , that may be due to a shortage of NAND supply.

I will warn you that an SSD like this will need a heatsink, regardless of whether you're plugging it into a PC or PS5. The heatsink of this drive is a mix of copper and aluminum which, for a Gen 5 option, is actually pretty scaled back. We've seen other options from PNY and Adata utilize tiny fans that don't just add noise, but can often fail and aren't removable. I haven't gone hands-on with the T705 yet, so it's hard to say how it will fit inside Sony's console. Having struggled to fit the T700 inside my ITX (small form-factor) gaming PC however, I'd guess you'd be better off grabbing one of the non-heatsink models and buying one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 heatsinks separately. Your ﷽other option is removing the M.2 tray'💃s lid.

Even though we've been unable to test Gen 5 SSDs until♉ now, the T700 is first on our list and will finally be tested this week. For a verdict on that drive, and our thoughts on how the new T705 performs both in the PS5 and one of the♈ best gaming PCs, stay tuned.

Want to stick with portable storage for now? Take a look at the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best external hard drives for gaming, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external hard drives, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox Series X hard drives.

Before we dive in, it’s worth expanding on why the WD Black SN770M is considered to be a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Steam Deck SSD upgrade option. The answer to that can be found within the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best gaming handheld contender’s innards, as the device uses a M.2 2230 NVMe slot. Technically, you could slot a longer 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:gaming SSD into the interface, 🅷but ultimately, there’s only room for 22 x 30mm drives inside the portable💛 PC, hence the name. 

Of course, the WD Black SN770M isn’t solely a Steam Deck SSD, and it’ll fit in any device with support for an M.2 2230 drive. That includes other handhelds like the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Asus ROG Ally, and I’d argue this option will benefit those of you with that po🤪rtable powerhouse since it supports PCIe Gen 4. However, that’s not to say ramping capacity up to 2TB isn’t worth it for Deck owners, given that you can stomach the price of modern, chonky storage.

Specs and price

On paper, the WD Black SN770M is definitely more than just a Steam Deck SSD. The fact it’s a PCIe Gen 4 drive means it can reach read speeds up to 5,150mbps, just like the full size SN770. Naturally, there are faster candidates out there, but you’re going to struggle finding a 2230 option that can keep up with something like the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Samsung 990 Pro. Thi🧜s isn’t really important when it comes to Valve’s handheld, but if you’re reading this and looking to upgrade a gami𒉰ng laptop with speedy storage support, it’s worth keeping in mind. 

As for capacity, the WD Black SN770M comes in 1TB and 2TB flavors. At full pr🧸ice, each will set you back $129.99 and $219.99 respectively, but both seem to be readily available for at the likes of Best Buy. This is important, as compelling alternatives like the Sabrent Rocket fall within that same price bracket, so implementing a discount helps prevent price from becoming a pitfall. 

Speaking of rivals, while you’ll find plenty of cheaper drives out there, the WD Black SN770M both has a reliable brand name on its side♈ and a five-year warranty. Not that you should ever want to make use of the latter, as I’m sure most of you would rather not venture 🅘inside your Steam Deck more than once. Still, it adds a level of consumer confidence that you won’t necessarily get with cheap SSDs, even if they come in at a bit less.

Design

Less is absolutely more when it comes to Steam Deck SSD design, and the WD Black SN770M thankfully understands the assignment. For the whole process to work, the drive has to be practically the same as the one already inside the handheld, as i𝔍nstalling is effectively a straight swap That means no extra heatsink material or extra gubb🌃ins attached, as you’ll have to re-use a foil sleeve that’s fitted to Valve’s original part. 

For context, upgrading your Steam Deck SSD requires cracking open the back case, removing shielding that protects the drive and the handheld's battery, then swapping out the original SSD. I wouldn't say the process is impossibly difficult, but it's certainly not as simple as popping in a microSD card, as everythi⛎ng fits together pretty tight. Making sure everything fits together exactly how you found it is vital to success, and even the slightest variance could cause big issues with re-assembly. Thankfully, the SN770M measures up the exact same as the original drive, thus dodging issues.

For that reason, I’m also glad that this is just a straight up 2230 M.2 SSD. Technically, if the Steam Deck used something slightly different, that’d be an L on Valve’s part rather than Western Digital’s. Nevertheless, the non-proprietary nature of this drive means that if you switch to a different handheld, or even just want to install it in a regular PC, you’ll be able to do so without any compatibility issu❀es. 

As for build quality, SN770M feels relatively solid, which helped take some of the pressure off during♐ installation. Not that I’ve ever really used a solid state dr🎃ive that gives flimsy vibes, but the last thing you want is the sensation of something bending when fitting a component into place. 

Features

SSDs aren’t really made to be feature packed, and the WD Black SN770M really just does whatever its host device can do. For example, if you pop it in a Steam Deck, it should theoretically provide you with top end speeds that fall within PCIe Gen 3 standards. Give it to the🐻 Asus ROG Ally, and you’ll be able to take full advantage of faster Gen 4 speeds just like its included drive. Every M.2 drive benefits from this same versatility, but the SN770M brings the convenience to a more compact form factor. 

One thing I’ve been pondering is whether the WD Black SN770M could have done more to aid with the Steam Deck siꦐde of things. You won’t find the handheld’s name anywhere on the box, so it makes sense that the company isn’t directly catering to Valve’s portable device. However, I reckon including the little foil sleeve required inside the Deck would have been a nice touch, just on the off chance that someone damages the original or would rather leave it slipped on the default drive. 

Handheld specifics aside, it’s worth noting that the SN770M boasts Microsoft’s DirectStorage support. That means if you pair it with a Windows PC, you’ll be able to benefit from faster load times using the API. This perk also got me thinking about whether the drive could actually serve as an Xbox Series X e💖xpansion card alternative, as 2230 adapters exist if you fancy taking a craওck at making your own version. That said, I have yet to actually try this out myself, so it’s worth looking further into whether pairing smaller drives with a Expansion Card shell actually works. 

Performance

To measure WD Black SN770M performance, I decided to check whether it could reach the sam🐽e PCIe 3 Gen 3 speeds as the original Steam Deck SSD. Using KDiskMark, I was able to reach read speeds of 3,401.77 MB/s, with write speeds coming in at 3,151.41 MB/s. This is absolutely the sort of ballpark I was aiming for, and definitely fast enough to write off any speed related caveats by using a different drive.

For comparison, I also ran the same test on the new 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Steam Deck OLED model, which features a Micron 2400 1TB SSD. The results๊ pretty much landed the same way, producing read speeds of 3,🎉400.47 MB/s, but slightly lower 2,842.24 MB/s write speeds. I doubt anyone will notice any marginal difference in load times or installation during general use, but if you’re into the idea of maximum performance, the SN770M clearly has muscles to flex. 

As for qualitative impressions, installing and𒈔 downloading games felt as snappy as usual. Keep in mind, we’re looking for normality here since we’re maxing out potential Gen 3 speeds, and the focus is primarily on maintaining performance while expanding capacity. In a nutshell, I was able to transform my old Steam Deck into a 2TB model that’s just as fast as the latest OLED version, and that’s a pretty attractive pitch for anyone looking to revamp their handheld. 

Should you buy the WD Black SN770M? 

It’s pretty expensive, but the WD Black SN770M serves as a reliable way to upgrade your Steam Deck SSD. Most players will likely be tempted to stick with cheaper 512GB and 1TB versionsও of the drive, especially when it comes to upgra♊ding the lower capacity models of Valve’s portable. However, if you’ve got a massive Steam library with plenty of adventures beginning to be played on the go, the 2TB option is going to make a massive difference. 

That said, I do feel like players with PCIe Gen 4 compatible devices are going to get more mileage out of the SN770M. That fact would normally prompt me to point yo♕u towards cheaper Gen 3 drives instead, but there’s not actually much to choose from out there by reliable brands. So, providing you can get one for less than MSRP, I’d still feel inclined to pick up WD Black’s 2230 SSD over other budget contenders bearing unfamiliar logos. 

How I tested the WD Black SN770M

To put the WD Black SN770M to the test, I used the 2TB version to upgrade my Steam Deck LCD 512GB model. During installation, I assessed the build quality and design of the drive to check whether it affected the experience, while🐷 considering ways that Western Digital could contribute to the specific use case.

Once installed, I installed a bunch of games onto the WD Black SN770M within my Steam Deck, including Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur’s Gate 3, which helped me check speed impressions during general us🤡e. To generate benchmark figures, I downloaded and installed KDis🐎kMark using desktop mode and compared read/write speeds to the new Steam Deck OLED model.

To learn more about how we test SSDs and other components, swing by our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:GamesRadar+ Hardware Policy for a full rundown. 

Looking for console flavored storage options? Check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 SSD and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox Series X hard drive for more options. We've also got you covered with the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best external hard drive for gaming if you need something more portable.

Now, we have a few models that are widely available. ADATA's Legend 970 has its own cooling fan built into its heatsink, and the Crucial T700 Pro has reviewed well but has been met with mixed reports from consumers. These Gen 5 SSDs are still in their early days, and their volatility when it comes to size, cooling, and speeds means they're still only perched to become the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for gaming.

However, Samsung has now thrown its hat in the ring, yesterday announcing the Samsung 990 Evoꦗ, the first-ever hybrid interface SSD. Sporting 4x PCIe Gen 4 lanes and 2x PCIe Gen 5 lanes, it can work with both architectures while offering the same bandwidth to either. 

Essentially, when the 990 EVO is connected to PCIe Gen 5 systems, it will connect with its speedy two lanes a🤡utomatically, but there will be no performance drop compared to its four Gen 4 lanes. With that in mind, the 990 EVO can even be used with compatible laptops. This clever design will also reduce power demands and temperatures, which Gen 5 SSDs are known to struggle with.

This is certainly🌊 an interesting approach to take with the blazing-fast 🍌architecture of PCIe 5.0, and it seriously bucks the trends we've seen so far.

For reference, an everyday Gen 4 NVMe drive, like one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 SSDs for example, is capable of read speeds of up to 7,400MB/s. Gen 5's heavily boasted speeds are over the 1GB/s mark, so fairly ridiculous. The new 990 EVO is much more subdued, however, with quoted read speeds of 5,000MB/s regardless of🅘 whether𝓀 you grab it in 1TB or 2TB shape.

Before that sparks a fit of gamer rage at Samsung, I'll add that this isn't a drive that's trying to target the uppermost echelon of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:gaming PCs. This is Samsung's EVO range, which offers ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤꧂⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚslightly more reserved speeds, authentic homecooked architecture, but more reasonable prices. Indeed, if you compare speeds directly, the 980 PRO and 990 Pro drives are both faster than this new EVO option, but if you try to get hold of either, you're still looking at upwards of $80 for 1TB worth of 2-year-old architecture. I haven't been given US prices for the new 990 EVO, but in the UK, it'll set you back £100.99 for 1TB and £169.99 for the 2TB model.

For a d﷽rive that's somewhere in between a Gen 4 and Gen 5 SSD, its price does reflect that somewhat. To be completely honest with you thoꩲugh, this could offer up some serious value when it comes to futureproofing.

I'm someone who reviews memory and storage devices for work, and even with access to a few beefy gaming PCs, I've had a serious struggle trying to test out Gen 5 SSDs because of their limited motherboard compatibility a﷽nd obnoxious heatsinks. If you don't need the absolute best speeds out there in a solid-state drive just now but know you'll want to upgrade your motherboard and PC at some point, the 990 EVO might be the perfect springboard for you to make that transfer.

For content creators, photographers, or graphics designers, a read speed of 5,000MB/s isn't going to hamstring you. Even for gaming, you're still giving y🌺ourself solid loading times - the PS5 SSD minimum read speed may technically be above this (5,500MB/s), but not by much in practical terms.

We wouldn't recommend putting a drive like this, nor any Gen 5 drive inside your PS5 anyway. As some YouTubers have found, Sony𝔍's system doesn't like them, and Gen 5 SSDs are not backwards compatible with Gen 4 M.2 bays.

Regardless, I'm more interested in the architecture of a drive like this, because it shows that there is more than one approach to tackling new technology. While this is technically Samsung's first Gen 5 SSD, I'm certain that when the first PCIe 5.0 "PRO" mode🅠l arrives, it's going to be a lot more stable than the rivals we've seen already because the brand has taken a more measured approach to begin with.

What's more, I applaud Samsung for offering consumers a generational springboard thanks to clever technical innovation. That's something we don't often see when it comes to the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best CPUs for gaming, or indeed the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best RAM for gaming.

Looking for something more portable? Check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best external hard drives for gaming, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external hard drives, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox Series X hard drives.

Of course, these flew off the shelves immediately when they launched back in April, and haven't been seen frequently restocked throughout the year. At the moment, however, these special Star Wars drives have reappeared, and a𒐪re even d🎶iscounted in an early Black Friday deal to just  

This is actually the drive I have in the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:gaming PC I built for myselꦓf earlier in the year, and besides its beautiful aesthetics, it performs🧸 brilliantly as an SSD. 

In truth, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Black Friday SSD deals are a little underwhelming at the moment. Despite a continued price 📖slump for most SSDs over the last year and a half, a lot of prices are actually going back up again, presumably inꩲ preparation for a serious fall next week. 

Normally, the thought of recommending a 2TB SSD priced at $200 would sicken me - even if it is one of the fastest Gen 4 options going. You simply don't ever need to pay that much for one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for gaming these days, and there are even Gen 5 drives with sickeningly fast sp🔴eeds that are going for cheaper at the moment.

This Star Wars FireCuda however? Well,🍌 it's a different story, because it's more of a collector's item that technically falls in꧟to the wheelhouse of the best Star Wars merch.

Going forward, it's not clear if these will be in stock again, or how often they'll be resupplied, so maybe paying that type of price is more acceptable. Fortunately, the 1TB model is available for , and if you're in the UK, the 2TB model can be grabbed at , with the

Annoyingly, if you're looking for a Black Friday PS5 SSD deal, this won't do. Although the Seagate FireCuda 530 is one of the best PS5 SSDs, the bulky heatsink of this Star Wars version wouldn't fit in the console's M.2 tray. What's more, the PS5 doesn't have a 🥀motherboard header to power the lighting, and even if it did, covering it with꧋ a faceplate would render it pretty useless.

Nonetheless, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Seagate FireCuda 530 is still on🐲e of the best SSDs out there pound-for-pound, and it keeps loading times to an absolute minimum when I play games on PC. 

What I love about this drive is that it gives you the optio💎n to choose the lightsaber you like best. In the box, you'll find the faceplates for all🏅 three characters, and they slide on and off with ease so that you can trade out the one you like best. 

I chose Obi-Wan's lightsaber because he's the best character in the franchise and, if you ask me, could actually be called the true "chosen one" of the story. But that's just me. If you have a wrong different opinio💖n, you could ch♒oose Darth Vader or Luke's saber instead.

Installation is nice and 𓃲easy, as long as your PC's motherboard is equipped with a 5V addressab🌼le header to plug in the RGB array. Out of the box, it's unlikely you'll get the correct color, of course. You'll need to play around with some software to match the appropriate faceplate to the saber shade, or you can just leave it as is and have a funky rainbow fluxing lightsaber - this doesn't look too bad either.

If this is a bit pricey for🤡 your blood, that's totally understandable. We've used our price comparison software down below to bring you the cheapest SSDs in your area that are currently available. If this deal isn't for you, search your feelings, young padewan; the right offer 𝓀will come.

In the market for something more console-shaped? Check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external hard drive, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox Series X hard drive, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best external hard drive for gaming. 

The T9 Portable SSD will join the leagues of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码𝔉历史查询:best external hard drives for gaming since it can be used with Windows, Android, and Mac. Like any portable SSD however, you'll be able to format it to work as additional game storage for consoles, making it a new contender among the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external hard drives, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:b𝔉est Xbox Series X external hard drives.

The T9 launches today, and the 1TB model costs £117.49. 2 terabytes will 𒅌set you back £199.99, and the beefier 4TB model is priced at £362.79. We haven't been given confirmed US prices for the drive as of yet, but we'll update these when we hear more.

The new Samsung Portable SSD T9 has a carbon patte🍬rn design, featuring USB 3.2 Gen2x2 interface with max performance of up to 2,000MB/s. This updated interface gives it twice the speed of its predecessor, which launched back in 2020.

In the box, you get a USB-C to USB-A connection cable, as well as a USB-C to USB-C wire which will help you🧸 connect to more devices.

While portable SSDs like the T9 can be excellent for gaming thanks to their t💟op-drawer speeds compared to HDD, Samsung notes that this device is perfect for content creators too. An increased TurboWrite buffer size of 180GB for the 4TB model🔯 helps to maximize performance, even if the drive is nearing capacity.

This TurboWrite feature aims to negate the problems that some other external SSDs have where they can only maintain their best performance for the initial capacity of the drive. TurboWrite is essentially a portable version of high-performance SLC found in the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for gaming. The 1TB version only has a 22GB buffer, however, and the 2TB ♛features 88GB.

This sustained write performance is even said to be geared at shooting 8K or 12K viღdeo, because in fairness, we're all doing that on a daily basis. As you'll no doubt know yourself, 8K and 12K footage can be extremely demanding on your digital storage, so the T9 should𒉰 be a big help to you in that regard.

But of course, external hard drives also need to be sturdy, as recovering data from them after physical damage can b꧃e a tricky and expensive business. The T9 is said to be able to withstand falls from up to three meters (9.8 feet), and its aluminium body is coated in a rubberized material that helps keep it resistant to scratches.

If you're shopping for more portable storage, we've used our price compariso꧙n software down below to bring you the best prices in your area on some of our personꦕal favorites.

Want something more specific to your platform? Check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS4 SSDs, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS4 external hard drives, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox One external hard drives.

Verbatim has been around in the storage market for ages, I remember my dad giving me a 1GB Verbatim USB memory stick to take to school with me which never let me down. But in the years since Sony released the PS5 and enabled its M.2 port, I haven't seen Verbatim release anything that could combat the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 SSDs, or indeed the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for gaming. 

Enter the Vi7000G, a PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD that's available in 1TB and 2TB capacities. It has an integrated heatsink, meaning it's predominantly designed for use with Sony's flagship console, but it does work just fine in a gaming PC. With honest UK prices of £81.50 (1TB) and £125 (2TB) 𒉰and read speeds of up to 7,400MB/s, Verbatim ♏is tackling the WD Blacks and Seagate Firecudas of the world. The drive is available in the US as well, but it's slightly more pricey at $147 and $195. Nevertheless, how does this new Verbatim drive get on against tried and tested rivals?

Design and Features

As mentioned, the Vi7000G is an M.2 SSD with a built-in heatsink. Like the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:WD Black SN850P and a fair few other SSDs from the past few years, it's not advised that y🌞ou take these attached heatsinks off. The way these drives are designed makes it difficult, and it can actually impact perform🍷ance and void warranties.

Luckily, the heatsink on board here isn't too bulky and actually works brilliantly. Although I can't speak to exact temperatures for this litmus test, whenever I do my standard PS5 transfer speed tests with drives like these, I take them out of the machine pretty quickly to try and bung in our testing PC for further benchmarking. Other SSDs are usually really warm to the touch despite their heatsinks, but Veꦆrbatim's stayed lukewarm, and never worried me.

A small Verbatim logo sits in one corner, a bit like it does on the brand's 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best external hard drives, but other than that and a few simple ridges, the aesthetics are fairly underplayed here. I do like the fairly boxy and straight-cut design of this drive, particularly because it makes installation super easy. If an M.2 drive doesn't have a heatsink, or has one that's more curved at the bottom, it can make that final p🌳ush into place quite finicky. Verbatim's Vi7000G is super easy to click into place after being laid flat, and overall I really like the textured, physical design of this drive. 

While that heatsink is a bit tall, I had no problem in fitting it into our testing PC. If you plan to use this for one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best gaming PCs, 𒀰you shouldn&apos🐻;t have too much trouble, you'll probably just need to ditch your motherboard's own heatsink panels. 

In terms of size, the Vi7000G has an M.2 2280 form factor and work𒈔s via a PCIe Gen 4 interface. Dimensions are 80mm x 23mm x 9.8mm, so it will f🎐it inside the PS5's M.2 port and bolt down in the usual "80" screw hole, which is the same as the majority of top-performing drives for the console.

The Verbatim Vi7000G features a DRAM cache that will give write speeds a boost and quoted read speeds of up to 7,400MB/s. Write speeds on the box 🐲are up to 6,700MB/s. While the PS5 didn't quite recognize these speeds when installed, we'll talk more about them in just a second. 

Performance

7,4000MB/s read speeds would place the Verbatim Vi7000G up there with the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:WD Black SN850X, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Seagate Firecuda 530, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Samsung 990 Pro. In short, these are some of, if not the best-performing SSDs on this side of the Gen 5 barrier. In all likelihood, you'll probably spend the same amount of money on this Verbatim SSD as you would any of those in 1TB form - with the exception of Samsung, which tends to keeꦬp its prices a cut above the rest. While the listed prices for those top three are much higher, they're constantly on offer at the moment and frequently come down to this kind of price range at 1TB. 2TB is a different story, but more on that in a bit. What I like, however, is that this drive has entered the market at the equivalent "deal" prices - it isn't launching with a higher cost and then emulating the rest of the field with deal prices that are actually average prices.

The perform✨ance you get for the money here isn't quite as good, but if you aim for the 2TB model, you'll save some money and won't notice too much of a diffe🔜rence.

The PS5's installation benchmark recognized the 2TB drive I tested for this review at 6,250MB/s. So in the console, you're getting quicker load times than on the system's stock drive, but it isn't quite as fast as Verbatim's packaging would have you believe. It also comes in under those top three performing drives but is absolutely comparable with the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:WD Black SN850, and indeed the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Samsung 980 Pro.

Inside a PC, however, CrystalDiskMark did actually get a lot closer to that advertised speed, recognizing an average of 7,124MB/s across three tests. Considering the SN850P we reviewed most recently will set you back more money in 2TB form and only achieved an average of 6,947MB/s in the same tests, I'd say Verbatim's got a bit of a dark horse in the SSD race here. Especially when you consider that one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external hard drives will set you back a similar a𝐆mount♛ or more for the same capacity.

Write speeds were very capable too, with CrystalDiskMark showing me an average of 6,668MB/s across three tests. Again, it's not quite the ceiling of 6,700MB/s the box suggests, but it isn't bad by any means. In terms of IOPs (input/output operations per second), these read/write speeds equate to 6,794/6,366MB/s respectively. Rather impressively, this beats out the more expensive SN850P again, by a fairly comfortable margin. The one area the SN850P does have a cle꧟ar advantage according to our CrystalDiskMark tests, is in random 4K speeds. The SN850P sat at an average of 91/405MB/s (read/write). The Verbatim Vi7000G only got around 81/331MB/s in this regard.

In terms 🃏of real-world performance, these numbers all add up to a very usable drive. In the PS5, 400GB of game data was transferred from the console's internal storage to th𝄹e Vi7000G in only 6 minutes. A smaller 50GB load was transferred from the Vi7000G to the console in 4 minutes.

Load times in games were partic♏ularly impressive, with the Verbatim Vi7000G beating out the console's own drive and the SN850P we tested it against. HUNT: Showdown's offline Stillwater Bayou map loaded up in 42 seconds, GTA V Online was up and running in 47 seconds, and Outer Wilds, a game that loads much quicker, went from main menu to game in a flashy 5.73 seconds. With the SN850P, we found almost the same numbers, although GTA loaded a second slower, and Outer Wilds was 6 seconds flat. 

While the Vi7000G doesn't exactly leave it in the dust, Verbatim does have a lower asking price for the same 2TB, 🍷so any kind of win here does feel much more significant. 

Should you buy the Verbatim Vi7000G?

I think the Verbatim Vi7000G is a bit of a dark horse in the PS5 SSD race, especially for 2TB. It isn't quite in that upper echelon of Gen 4 performance, but it's knocking on the door without a doubt. Perhaps more importantly, it's p꧑riced very competitively. If this does go on sale and ♓the 2TB model gets any cheaper, it's one of the best value drives to pull the trigger on.

While the SN850P we tested may have had a fault or two th🐼at meant it underperformed, I'd still argue the Verbatim Vi7000G is yet another reason not to buy it. If the SN850X, 990 Pro, or Seagate Firecuda 530 are on sale for cheaper than this, then I'd recommend those drives over it. This isn'𒊎t the be-all and end-all - but it's certainly a great value option for sure. Random 4K performance could be better, but equating all of those benchmarked numbers to real-world in-game performance, you've got a great wee SSD for the money here. 

The only other thing I'd note is that the Verbatim Vi7000G isn't the easiest to fiﷺnd in the US or UK. It's available at Amazon in the UK, and although the Verbatim page does list eBuyer and Scan as potential retailers, the drive is nowhere to be seen currently. In Europe, it seems to be more attainable, but the US is a similar story to the UK. Hopefully, this small caveat will be nullified since the Vi7000G 𝓰is an easy contender in the PS5 SSD market. If you can find it, don't count it out.

How we tested the Verbatim Vi7000G

I put the Verbatim Vi7000G to work inside my PS5 for around a month before writing this review. I used it as my PS5's additional form of storage for all of that time an☂d tried my hardest to fill up its pretty massive 2TB capacity.

I used the PS5's own installation benchmark to test its official read spe꧟ed in the console. I then transferred game data back and forth and tracked the amount of time it took in every direction to get a sense of the read and write speeds in practical terms. I then loaded up GTA V Online, HUNT: Showdown, and Outer Wilds to get a feel for how the drive performed in gaming. I chose the first two of those games because they typically load slowly, so a strong-performing SSD should make those lengthy wait times a bit more bearable. Outer Wilds loads far quicker, but I feel like the split-second differences between SSDs trying to load games like that can be quite a fun way to test them out. 

For PC benchmarking, I used CrystalDiskMark's tests, as well as Anvil Pro to get a more well-rounded feel for the Vi7000G🍨's price-to-performance. These tests, as well as the PS5's gaming load times, were done three times each and then narrowed down to a mean average for the final review figures. 

To read more about how we test the latest gaming tech here, check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:hardware policy.

If you get a hold of an SSD without a built-in heatsink, make sure to check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 heatsinks if you want to use it in Sony's console. Want something more Xbox-shaped? Check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox Series X hard drives, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox One external hard drives, and the best  

The new software update for PS5 beta testers will be going out around the world at some point today on July 31. Perhaps the most noteworthy thing about the beta update is that storage for M.2 SSD devices will effectively double, letting players use 8TB devices instead of devices capped out at the previous 4TB limit (see our guide on 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:h𒅌ow to install an M.2 SSD into a PS5 for more).

Another key feature in the new update is better accessib✅ility options. You'll be able to use two DualSense or other PS5-supported controller in tandem with the new update, letting one person use two controllers at once, as if they were only playing with one controlle🎀r, for better options.

Elsewhere, there's also support for Dolby Atmos-enabled devic🌱es, for HDMI-enabled devices like soundbars and headsets, or home theatre systems. There's also a new Party update, letting you add a player into an existing closed Party, and sending group closed Party invites to multiple people for the first time.

Another neat little feature is being able to search for games in your Game Library using a built-in search feature. Finally, when someone is Screen Sharing in a Party, you'll be able to get a little live preview of the Screen Share before you🅠 enter the Party itself.

Again, i💮t's worth noting this is just a PS5 beta system software update, so it'll only be available for a limited number of users. That being said, PS5 beta system updates tend to launch with all the same features intact for everyone in the near future, so look for this update to launch in full within the next month or so.

Check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 SSD guide for help on choosing the ideal replacement hard drive for you.

In the US right now, the brand new officially licensed WD Black SN850P PS5 SSD is on sale at Amazon. Des⭕pite ൩launching to markets in June, is now on offer - reduced by 13% to $129.99. 

For newcomers to the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for gaming market, or even experienced shoppers, seeing a brand new officially licensed PS5 SSD discounted so soon will likely be an appealing prosp💮ect. The R﷽RP in the US is $149.99, after all, so this is a genuine first discount for US buyers. 

Meanwhile, there's no equivalent deal in the U🦩K, and I can't even see it listed on WD Black's Amazon store here. That said, the UK list price is a bit lower anyway at £ꦓ123.99 for 1TB.

Regardless, I wouldn't jump on this US deal, and I recommend you💖 don't either.

The WD Black SN850P is an iteration of the brand's previous SN850, and SN850X SSDs. While the older mod꧑els come with and without integrated heatsinks, the SN850P only comes with that pre-attached heat spreader sin🍌ce it's designed for PS5 users. 

For most folks that'd be interested, a PS5 SSD with a heatsink is all they'll really need. Unfortunately, manufacturers like Samsung, Seagate, and Western Digital use these pre-attached coolers as a reason to up the price of their PS5 products, and it isn't always worth the extra money. On WD's retail page for the SN850X, for example, it says that drive is only compatible with PS5 if you buy the Heatsink model, with the note that "Com𝓀patibility may vary depending on user’s hardware configuration and operating system."

This, of course, isn't the whole truth - any M.2 Gen 4 SSD will work in the PS5 so l🌄ong as it has qualifying spee🌞ds because you can just buy a separate heatsink and slap it on.

The SN850P has the same quoted read and write speeds as the SN850X, which is over a year older and is currently on sale on Amazon in the US without a heatsink for just (1TB). In the UK that translates to . Given that the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 heatsink is under $20, I can't recommend you splashing out $130 needlessly when the only real difference between t🉐he two drives is a smal🤡l PlayStation logo.

More than that, in our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:WD Black SN850P review, I was disappointed by the fact that this latest drive didn't even reach those on-paper speeds that the SN850X exceeds. On the box, both drives are supposed to reach sequential write speeds of 6,3000 MB/s and read speeds of 7,3000 MB/s. Despite some less-than-ideal 4K random access numbers, the SN850X smashed those figures in our benchmarking tests. All things considered, it's one of the best Gen 4 drives money can buy, and it's right up there with the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Samsung 990 Pro and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Seagate Firecuda 530.

However, the SN850P is not. When installed in the PS5, the console gave it a recognizable read speed of 6,293MB/s🤡. Moreover, in CrystalDiskMark, we found similar disappointment. Read speeds were an average of 6,947MB/s, with writes being a saving grace at 6,384MB/s.

We have since been contacted by WD's PR as they seemed puzzled by our benchmarking scores, and did suggest our review unit was 🅠potentially faulty. They t🌌old us we might hear back about a replacement version, in which case we'll be sure to update you on those numbers.

Even if we did receive a faulty unit, it doesn't give me the biggest urge to recommend it, even at this slightly lower deal price. I certainly wouldn't want to pay $130 for a newer drive, expecting better performance, and then receive soꦉmething that doesn't even get the performance that an older drive that's almost half the price would - faulty or not.

Would you rather stick with external storage? Check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external hard drive, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best external hard drive, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS4 external hard drive.

The SN850 and SN850X are both available with and without pre-attached heatsinks, meaning they're versatile as PS5 SSDs, and SSDs for PC gamers. The SN850Pღ, at the time of writing, is not available without the heatsink, and while it can be used in a gaming PC, there are plenty of moth🎐erboards that make life harder for people when heatsinks come pre-attached.

Like I said in a feature a few months back - 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new Gen 5 SSDs hitting the shelves (as well as "new" iterations of Gen 4 drives) are the only thing allowing big storage brands to lift prices at the moment, and that's how I'd exp📖lain the emergence of the SN850P. Launching with official PlayStation licensing within the same week as the WD Black C50 expansion card, it's as though Western Digital is desperate to remind console gamers that it's still a🤡 PlayStation Stan, and it's using that as an excuse to scratch back some more profits. 

I suppose what I'm trying to say with all this is that it's hard to find a singular reason to recommend the SN850P off the bat. For $99.99/£99.99 and $84.99/£107.99, you could get a heatsink model of the cheaper SN850 or S⭕N850X. The SN850P will set you back $149.99/£123.99, however. Even setting the price to one side, it's harder to recommend the "P" as I couldn't ꩲget the advertised read speed on the box. 

Design and Features

There's not a lot of change to report about the design of the SN850P. It packs a slightly bulkier heatsink than the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:WD Black SN850X but is otherwise virtually identical. Most notably, there's the officially licensed PlayStation logo which does look great next to WD's classic "Black" branding. Those ridged accents that are seen on all of the company's gaming-related storage devices are back here♉ too, looking as badass as ever.

The rest is as you'd expect, this is a standard format M.2 drive that will work via a PCIe gen 4 interface and can work with one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best gaming PCs or a PS5. Annoyingly, that heatsink might ཧget in the way of a fe🌊w motherboards' bespoke heatsinks, especially since it's a bit taller.

The SN850P weighs approximately 30 grams and has dimensions of 80mm x 24.46mm x 9.89mm (L x W x H). In the console&apo💙s;s SSD tray, that leaves plenty of space - and keep꧂ a hold of your tray lid as this can fit on top when the drive is installed. The quoted operating temperatures are 0-85°C, and while I wasn't able to measure these this time around, it wouldn't surprise me if the SN850P functions in the upper level of that range.

Lastly, the SN850P i🐎s available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB models. I'm testing the 1TB variant for this review.

Performance

In all honesty, the performance of the WD Black SN850P is a bit disappointing. Although the advertised sequential read and write speeds claim to be 7300MB/s and 6,300MB/s respectively, the drive couldn't reach those read speeds in PS5 or our testing PC. Those advertised speeds are a bit puzzling anyway - they're quite literally the exact same as the SN850X, which was able to achieve those speeds when we tested it.

The PS5 benchmarked the SN850P's read speed as only 6,293MB/s, which would not leave me best pleased if I had just forked out more money for the pricier drive. In our testing PC, speeds were a tad better, with CrystalDiskMark giving it an ave✤rage of 6,947MB/s across three separate benchmarking tests. 

This is why I began this review by saying it's an odd device. These read speeds aren't bad by any stretch of the imagination, and they're up there with rival drives in the PS5 market for sure. But 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:WD Black's SN850 line is one of the top dogs in the SSD arena, rivaling 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Samsung's 980 and 990 Pro, and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Seagate's Firecuda 530 for the title of top Gen 4 drive. WD releasing a new model under the SN850 umbrella which is slower than pr🐟evious iterations feels a little disappointing, and even more puzzling.

For sequential write speeds, CrystalDiskMark gave an average of 6,384MB/s. Thankfully🐟, these meet (and exceed) the advertised speeds, it's just a shame the reads aren't as snappy. One thing that disappointed us about the SN850X was that 4K random access numbers weren't what we wanted them to be. Thankfully with the SN850P, random 4K numbers exceed the advertised speeds, so that's one redemption at least. 

But how does this translate to real use cases in gaming? Well, on PS5, the SN850P transferred 50GB of game data from the console to the drive in 30 seconds - which was most impressive. The PS5's write speeds aren't the best, and transferring the same data back took a slower 4 minutes. In larger quantities, results were mainly the same. 150GB transferred 🍒from console to drive in 1 minute and 30 seconds and copied back in 12 minutes. 

Load times were just as solid. GTA V Online lꦦoaded into a game in an average of 48 seconds across five separate attempts. While matchmaking likely made up a small chunk of this time, that isn't bad for such a slow game. HUNT: Showdown's Stillwater Bayou map loaded in an average of 42 seconds across five attempts. This isn't quite as quick as the Verbatim Vi7000G which I'm also testing at the moment, but was still on par, if not a little faster than the console's SSD. Outer Wilds, which loads fast at the worst of times, spawned me into its solar system in an average of 6 seconds flat, which is lightning fast, but again, not quite as fast as the 5.73-second average of the Verbatim which we'll publish our verdict on soon.

Annoyingly, I wasn't able to track temperatures for this revie🦹w, but any time I handled the drive immediately after use, it was at a worryingly hot temperature - more so compared to other drives I've used. 

Should you buy the WD Black SN850P?

I wouldn't say that you shouldn't buy the WD Black SN850P. This is a great internal SSD that will give you plenty of room for extra games on PS5. It'll give you consistently strong load times that are on par with the rest of the Gen 4 class, and you don't need to buy or mess around with a heatsink for PS5 installation. I'm sure that official PlayStation licensing wil💝l attract plenty of people, but don't let that fool you; there are plenty of non-official third-party SSDs that are cheaper and 🍃do a better job than this. 

I know Western Digital would likely thank you for buying its most recent model sin🌳ce it's more expensive and arguably less valuable than an SN850 or SN850X. It is disappointing though, that the SN850P is unable to reach their read speeds. If this was any other market, I might even have some anger at the manufacturer for making a more expensive drive that's arguably a worse product. Such a move is fairly anti-consumer and pro-profit. As it stands, sustained low prices across the board for SSDs mean such a move isn't likely🦄 to last very long.

I don't not recommend the SN850P. When the price comes down - which it inev♌itably will - it'll be almost as viable as its two predecessors. Until then, there are plenty of cheaper drives out there that will give you esse🐼ntially the same performance, or better, for cheaper. I'll let you choose your pick. 

How we tested the WD Black SN850P

I tested the WD Black SN850P by chucking it in my PS5 for a few days to see how it handled my favourite games. I used the PS5's own formatting process benchmark to gauge its read speed, but mainly tested in the PS5 to get a feel for its practical gaming chops. To test thiꦺs out, I moved game files from console to drive, and back again and took not of the transfer times. I then did repetitive (and not very fun) loads of three games to take an average of speeds.

I then installed the SN850P in our testing PC and used CrystalDiskMark to take more in-de📖pth speed benchmarks. 

To read more about the ways we test the latest gadgets and gizmos, have a look at our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:hardware policy.

Why not upgrade the rest of your PS5 loadout while you're at it? Check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 controllers, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best TV for PS5, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 headsets.

Available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities, th🅷e drive launches today for , $249.99, and $549.99 respectiv💯ely in the US. In the UK, the 1TB drive will set you back , 2TBs will cost you £198.99, with the gargantuan 4TB version costing £415.99. 

The previous models of WD_Black's internal drives have both been among the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 SSDs money can buy, offering br🥀eak-neck speeds and reliable build qualities. Thanks to the SN850 line's integrated heatsinks, they require little to no faff during installation, too.

“Continuing to team up with Sony Interactive Entertainment to drive innovation, allows us to keep delivering on our commitment to create solutions that enhance the gam🍎ing experience for gam♏ers,” said Western Digital VP of global strategic partnerships Susan Park.

The 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:WD_Black SN850X is one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for gaming on a PC as well, in our opinion. Although it didn't have massive performance boosts over the SN850 non-x model, in many ways🌳 that was to be expected. These drives very much hit the speed ceilings of Gen 4 PCIe drives. In our testing, th🤡e SN850X reached a sequential write speed of 7,300MB/s, while reads were up to 6,300MB/s. This is up there with the very best on the market inside of the Gen 4 selection.

The SN850P is also a Gen 4 drive, so we'll need to get our hands on it to determi൲ne just how much faster than the SN850X it is.

This news comes after yesterday's 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:long-awaited launch of the WD_🅺B▨lack C50, which is only the second of♉ficial expansion card for the Xbox Series X and S.

Let's give your PlayStation storage a boost with the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external hard drives, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 heatsinks, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS4 SSDs.

Amazon has been one of the retailers leading the charge, today offering a WD Black 1TB SN770 SSD – the lowest ever price for this particular model. This represents a reduction of approximately 54%, equating t😼o a saving of $70 from the typical MSPR of $129.99. It's also just generally cheap considering 1TB SSDs range from $80 to $120 depending on the brand, with WD Black being one of our favorite manufacturers.

Just check out our guide on the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 SSDs in 2023 and you will find꧑ WD Black's name throughout. A s🐻imilar deal is also available at Best Buy , which equals a saving of $68. Either way, it's a great time to upgrade your PS5 storage at a low cost. 

Today's best PS5 SSD deal

More of today's best PS5 SSD deals

One common question that comes with purchasing a PS5 SSD is how many games can you fit on a 1TB SSD? Naturally, this varies with PS5 game storage sizes ranging from 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Olli Olli World at a mere 1.343GB  to 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War at a ginormous 283GB. Usually, though, if you are playing AAA blockbusters, we'd✤ expect anywhere from 10 to 15 games to fill up a 1TB SSD. Again, this differs depending on the many different factors surrounding what titles you play. 

Unsure how to install an SSD? Here's our handy guide on 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:how to install an M.2 SSD into a PS5 so you can get it done in time. Additionally, we've rounded up all the latest 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:PS5 prices and bundles alongside the latest 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best cheap PS5 game sales, so you can put all that extra storage to maximum use.

Immediately becoming the highest capacity drive WD has ever produced, the new My Book Duo Desktop Hard Drive has a sickening 44TB capacity. The 22TB My Book, which we deem to be up there with the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best external hard drives on th🅘e market, was launched back in July of 2022, but this is quite the leap forward.

I have to admit, a press release with a fully caps-locke🍌d title will catch my eye on a bad day, but this one was quite something: "WESTERN DIGITAL BRINGS MILESTONE CAPACITY TO EVERYDAY CONSUMERS AS DATA CREATION CON♔TINUES TO SOAR".

I was intrigued. Noꦦt only would they be expanding the size of their already gargantuan 22TB drive, but they would be doubling it.

The press release continued, with quotes from the research vice president at Global DataSphere at International Data Corporation, John Rydning, who said “While many people rely on the cloud, we know consumers are looking for local storage at their fingertips to help them preserve and readily control their g🌸ro𝄹wing amount of personal and business data.”

He has a point. I can't tell you the number of times Google has sent me a very urgent-seeming email to inform me I'm running out of space on my personal account. Years and years of phone photos, emails, fil𓆉es, and downloads rack up some serious space, after all. 

“With multiple devices used in our everyday life, we have the ability to instantly create, consume and generate massive amounts of content,” said Susan Park, Vice President of product management at WD. "Our goal is to help people easily and reliably store it alꦫl."

In fairness, she is absolutely right. But still, I can't help but find this hilarious. I can only applaud WD for creating something which I'm sure must have been pitched in a product meeting and immed🌠iately met with a couple of rye smiles and nods of approℱval. 44TB is a terrifying prospect! 

"Think of the number of games you could fit on that", I said to one of my colleagues. 🅰"That's 🎃probably the entire Game Pass library", they responded.

Being the editor in charge of all things storage at GamesRadar, my interest was well and truly piqued. Here I was thinking 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:2023 could bring about💃 the death of HDD storage.﷽ So, I decided to find out just how many games 44TB w♊ould really hold. 

I took to Google. "How many GB is the entire Game🎀 Pass library", I searched. 

No luck. 

The last time someone properly ꧙added up the gigabytes was back in ꦺ2019, and Game Pass has grown exponentially since then. 

So, to the official Xbox Game Pass website I went. Surely they had it on record somew✃here?

Nothing. No "required storage for installation" spec♔ifications on each game's retail page. Indeed, if I was going to find the answers I wanted, I would have to get my hands dirty. I&ap🍌os;ve got a journalism degree, this could be my Woodward and Bernstein moment, I thought, comically. 

So here we are, what feels like years later. I scoured the internet to search through every game on Xbox Game Pass (at this specific time of writing) to find each one&apo♛s;s required installation space. I added it all up (all 460 titles that are listed), and found that altogether, the library only comes to a measly 10.289 Terrabytes. 

That means the following. If you were to purchase one of WD's ဣ44TB My Book Duos for ,ꦓ and spent probably a month downloading everything - you could fit the entire Xbox Game Pass Library on it and you'd still only have used up about a quarter of its space. Even the 22TB model could fit the library more than once. 

Essentially, nobody at all, not even the deepest data miners, not the biggest hoarders of digital games, couꦉld ever possibly need that much storage space. But I have to admit, it's the only storage device you'd maybe ever need to be set for life. For now, I'll make do with a couple of 1TB drives at a time.

Don't quite need 44TB for your console games? Take a look at the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 SSDs, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external hard drives, or the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox Series X external hard drives.

The 2TB model is the only version of the drive to go on sale so far, with 1TB and 4TB models supposedly in the works as well. The 2TB has landed the price tag of ¥49,980 which equates to around $350 (£283🍰) once taxes and conversion rates have been factored in.

While CFD Gaming only operates in Japanese market🦹s, it isn't the only brand in the storage sector with plans to release next-gen SSDs in 2023. Back at CES ♐in January, we heard that MSI, Gigabyte, Adata, and Patriot Memory all have PCIe Gen 5.0 models in the works.

Something old...

It hasn't exactly been an easy year for manufacturers of SSDs. After a surge in popularity in 2020 due to everyone upgrading their kits while being at home, SSDs were in high demand. What's more, they weren't cheap. Consumers were battling with one another to get a hold of one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for gaming, and soon after, one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 SSDs. This high demand was slightly offset by a struggle to keep production costs down amidst pandemic restrictions. For companies li𝓡ke Seagate and Western Digital, extra costs had to go in to keep workers safe. For that reason, prices remained high, and it took the better part of two years for things to change.

In 2022, however, demand finally began to subside. With reparation costs to deal with after the pandemic was coming to an end, manufacturers neꦍeded a way of keeping sales as high as possible. Seeing no other cဣhoice, the prices of some of the top SSDs on the market, from the biggest brands out there, began to gradually fall as the year went on.

Something borrowed...

This may sound familiar, since the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best graphics cards have gone through a similar trajectory since 2020. The big difference maker, however, is that in 2022, when the RTX 3000 series became more readily available and a whole lot cheaper, Nvidia and AMD al🅘ready had the next big thing in the works. Now, the 4000 Series, and RX 7000 generatioꦫn GPUs are here, and they've already supplanted the demand for current-gen cards that people were rabidly competing to buy not all that long ago.

Although 30 series cards may seem like the more affordable and readily available option, Nvidia has been able to cripple a lot of desire to buy them because they've boasted about the massive performance leaps its next-generation ꦡboards have managed to find. Meanwhile, in the storage market, the biggest companies haven't been able to do that, which has left them in a bit of a tough spot.

Something new...

"New" products, ⭕and "next generations" of ga🦋ming hardware are probably the biggest weapon manufacturers have to keep demand for their devices high. This is something the storage market has been missing for the entirety of 2022, as prices of SSDs dropped to whole new lows.

Even as 2023 rolls onward, prices of some of our favorite SSDs have continued to be on offer since Black Friday. Moreover, a cornucopia of great models in all sorts of capacities goes on offer every week. It isn't just 𝐆internal SSDs either, externals are experiencing the same price dips too, and this is projected to continue into the first🤡 half of the year at least.

So where do the biggest names in storage turn? They need to keep units moving, but they're now in a prolonged period of low prices, where MSRPs aren't worth the price tags they're written on. "New" in the form of Gen 5.0 PCIe SSDs seems like the only escape rope for an industry that's struggling - especially if it can use those 10GB/s speeds as a selling point. As nice as lower prices are for consumers, a change needs to come soon because no market benefits from its apex predator being so cheap for so long. Many analysts are even saying that if nothing changes, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:2023 could b𒊎ring about the death of 🌃HDD.

CFD Gaming's Gen 5.0 SSD becoming available in Japan could be a light at the end of the tunnel for SSD makers - a sign that demand might finally increase again if this new generation can reach international markets soon. As new processors, more powerful GPUs, and wider adoption of DDR5 RAM creates a demand for faster sequential speeds, this could be the "something new" that the storage mark꧙ets need.

If you're on the hunt for a new SSD, I'd act quickly. This could be a small catalyst in SSD prices starting to climb once agaiꦍn.

Looking for something a bit more portable? Check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best external hard drives. If you need something more specific to your platform, take a look at the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external hard drives, or the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox Series X hard drives.

Of course, this may not come as a surprise if you've been following things closely. The 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for gaming took a dominant position in the mainstream market as soon as they were adopted by consoles like the PS5, the Xbox Series X, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best gaming PCs. It's safe to say that before that point, the cheaper ♏prices ofꦉ HDD meant it was the go-to solution for system storage.

But ever since the tide turned in 2020, things have been very interesting indeed. SSD has been the premium option for gamers as they've realised that it vastly out performs HDD. Load times have become a thing of the past as sequential read and write speeds have suꦑrpassed 7,000MB/s, compared to the fairly pathetic 200MB/s an HDD would be lucky to reach. 

For that reason, getting a hold of an SSD in recent years has been tough - demand has been at an all time high. HDD, playing to its capacity strengths, kept a low profile, and even lower prices. In that way, it's clung to a market position that'sꦉ solely dependent on people needing cheap and cheerful external storage.

It's not easy at the top...

But SSD hasn't had it easy, especially not recently. ♔2022 proved tumultuous for the biggest names in storage, because as they've tried to recoup the higher production costs of the pandemic era, they've had a slowly decreasing demand as more and more people have gotten their desired drives. Executives at Seagate and Western Digital even came forward in September to say that both companies were struggling to meet꧙ their sales targets for the year. This announcement came after nine months of gradual SSD price decreasing, too.

SSD prices in October were roughly the same as their discounted Black Friday price🥃s almost a year previous, which led to historically low prices for Black Friday 2022. Although nothing is certain, SSD is pr🐠ojected to remain cheap throughout the first half of this year, and that certainly wouldn't surprise me.

This is, of course, incredible for consumers. The top performing storage drives on the🔥 market are now more affordable than ever. SS✱D must be one of the only commodities to get cheaper during worldwide cost of living crises. While manufacturers struggle to bring SSD prices back up, HDD is at serious risk of being left in the dust.

The last days of HDD?

HDD's Ragnarok prophesy isn't as clear cut as many are making it out to be though, because it does have a few practical uses left. Like I've mentioned, external storage you can take on the go, especially for gamers, is a big one. External HDDs still sell very well, especially in capacities over 2TB.

On the business side of things, higher capacities of largely unused data is still cheaper in HDD form. Things like CCTV footage, archived data, and anything that doesn't need to be accessed speedily. Having said that, external SSD options have been stealing a significant market share recently. There&a🧸pos;s a real risk that if this continues to be the case, HDD will be left with no leg to stand on because it has all its eggs in that one external basket.

It's highly probably that for many years to come, HDD won't die out thanks to the professional uses I've stated. But for your average consumer looking for a new storage solution, HDD is hanging on by a thread. All it could take 𝓡is a small technological advance, or say, a continued period of lower prices, for external SSDs to knock them off completely. 

The th🌄ing is, that isn't even that improbable. SSD technology continues to advance as time goes on. Meanwhile, HDD i⛎s stuck in the mud with spinning discs that have no way of reinventing the wheel.

Who knows what's to come, bu💟t 2023 is shaping up to be an extremely interesting year for the storage market.

The chip shortage is over, meaning it's the easiest time in years to get the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best graphics cards, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best CPU for gaming, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best RAM.

Even now, many Sony fans don't realize how easy it is to fully upgrade the PS4's internal HDD to a SATA SSD. The process may take a few hours, depending on data back-up, restore times, and your comfort level with computer-style surgeries, but it is easily done if you have the right tools. While you may not get the massive speed boosts from the likes of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSD for gaming, or even the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 SSDs, but an internal SATA SSD cou🐈ld make your PS4 or PS4 Pro ~30% faster.

One of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best external hard drives will absolutely do the trick too, especially since there are now great SSD options available at affordable prices. If you'd rather go for sheer capacity and you aren't worried about performance, you could always go for one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS4 external hard drives, as an HDD will undoubt♔edly be cheaper. To make upgrading your PS5 a breeze, we've listed all the best PS4 SSDs for 2025 below.

The best internal PS4 SSDs

When it comes to SSDs, the EVO series has long been the gold standard, and the 860 EVO offers serious performance, teamed w꧋ith modern design and parts.

SSD speeds are 3 to 4 tim꧒es quicker than those of HDDs, and while there are a number of other factors at play when it comes to console gaming, you will notice a boost in performance with a pure, internal SSD. What's more, this is actually a cheaper option than buying an external SSD drive for your PS4. While the EVO is mid-range in terms of price, it's one of the best SATA drives for performance. What's more, you'll often find the EVO series on sale via sites like Amazon, so you'll rarely pay full price for it.

This is such a good SATA-type SSD, that I'm even considering it for my PS3 to breat🐬he ⛦new life and durability into that console!

Anyway, there's never been a better time to go for an SATA drive for your PS4 or PS4 Pro as they are superior to hard drives, and the value they offer is incredible - you can pick them up so cheap now t𝄹hat they are one of the best PS4 SSDs on value alone.

The Crucial MX500 is one of the best going, too. Especially since it costs considerably less than other SATA SSD models at just $80-90 or £60-70 for 1TB. And for that investment, you're getting a reliable drive, with fewer moving 🍨g parts than an HDD, and one that will last a while. The speeds are decent for an SSD and definitely great for a PS4: about 550MB/s read speed, and 460MB/s write speed.

We're sort of cheating (but not really) with this option. The Seagate Firecuda offers SSD-like performance but is technically a hybrid drive. This keeps the price down in the first instance, but also gets you a solid performer that brings good elements of both drive type to the party. It's a 2.5" drive, so it'll fit neatly into your console (doubling the storage of your PS4 Pro, and potentially quadrupling the size of a regular 500GB model), and Seagate is a big, well-established name in PC stor🃏age, so this model is always going to be reliable and efficient.

What's more, the Firecuda offers bette♛r read and write speeds than a standard HDD, which means you get near-SSD performance at a che🅺aper price. That's common sense, right there.

The best PS4 external SSDs

The WD_Black P40 SSD is the latest in WD's gaming-focused external hard drives, and it's one of the best performers you can get your hands 🌳on. It takes the speedy specs and robust design of the P50 and carries both over to a small form factor body that makes use of some lovely ambient RGB lighting.

Read and write speeds were great in testing. The 2000MB/s speed you see on the box is as good as you'll get in an external hard drive, but in reality, it translates to some great load times and transfer speeds on PS5 and PC. I had a load of game capture footage stored on my PS5 I had been meaning to move across to my computer for video 💮editing, and even though it was about 30 clips spanning a total of 22GB, the P40 swallowed it up from the PS5 in about a minute. The same was true of games once I formatted the drive for some extra storage. I transferred thr♕ee games that added up to 18GB, and it moved across in just shy of a minute.

Unfortunately, the P40 is one of the more expensive options up and down this list, particularly because it's a recent release from one of the biggest names in stor🗹age. For your purchase though, you get the drive itself, WD's Windows dashboard, a USB-C cable and USB-A adapter, a quick install guide, and a 5-year warranty I'd be surprised if yo♈u need to use.

It's a tough call at the top of our best PS4 SSD list but the🌠 P50 probably just about takes it. The P50 has it all: a quality, cool design, a robust build, and exquisite speeds.

On the outside, it's a palm-sized rectangular drive that has a very cool-looking military style with molded metal and the traditional sleek WD_Black aesthetic and marking. Its USB-C port can be used on your devices as either a USB-A or USB-C connection an𒉰d in our testing, we got the same speeds through either port so it shouldn't matter which y🌜ou have free or available, or if you change the device it's used with during its lifetime. There's a small but clear LED indicator on one of the short ends which is always a help, but one small downside is that it does get a little warm when in use so it'll pay to keep that in mind when positioning it.

When it comes to speeds, what you're told you're getting and what happens is pretty much bang on. Its incredible performance for an external SSD and the stated speeds of 'up to 2000MB/s' was on the money in our testing. Real-world performance-wise, the P50 gives you everything a high-quality external SSD should do: games were loaded incredibly quickly, files were retrieved in the snap of a finger, and the performance levels were incredibly consistent. Of course, it might almost be too fast for the standard USB ports on the PS4, but it certainly maximises the use out of them and their own speeds - and it'll also be a perfe💦ct PS5 SSD for when you need to move everything over to the new generation.

It's a surefire SSD that will rapidly imꦿprove your gaming experience by far reducing the time looking at loading screens and increasing the time when you're actually playing. A true winner.

As youꦛ may have found, if you rummage around the PS4 SSD market a bit more thoroughly, you'll find 'hidden' gems, away from the usual suspects. The drives from the likes of OWC and Silicon Power are absolutely indicative of that. And the Bolt B75 Pro is no different: it's a cracking little drive and will offer a great value alternative from a smaller, but equally reliable name. In short, the Bolt B75 Pro is dependable, robust, competitively priced, and quality.

This is an Incredibly light, but incredibly robust unit, which means it's easily transportable yet you can have great confidence in it if you're prone to mishaps, or just want that extra protection. Its military-grade shockproof, aluminum case will look after the important stuff inside easily and the casing definitely exudes the rugged quality that was intended. The unit as a whole doesn't feel solid but that come🌊s from its lightness - some folks may prefer a more hefty unit.

The SSD's performance is very solid, but nothing too spectacular. As a result, if you're after something that offers good value, want to upgrade from an existing HDD to SSD to ensure you get that better and faster performance without number chasing too much, and you 💎want something robus🌞t then this is a great contender.

Crucial is another well-known and trusted sဣtorage maker, and their most recent additions - the X6 and X8 primarily - Emake for solid PS4 SSD🍨 options - as well as cross-gen ones for when you're ready to move to PS5. (Please note: this is a USB-C drive but comes with an adapter.)

The speeds might not be as astronomically quick as some on this list, but at 540 MB/s or so,༺ it's still perfectly adequate for PS4 - and PS5 for that matter - anꦏd the lower speeds also help the bang for buck ratio to be weighted firmly in your favour. Its speeds are just as much of an upgrade from an HDD in real-world testing as any other SSD feels, and will have your games loaded snappily and safely.

However, there are a couple of caveats: the USB-C cable is very short and left the SSD hanging a bit when using it vertically. But the drive is so small and lightweight, it never feels at risk of coming loose. Grabbing an extra terabyte or two of reliab🌟𝄹le and speedy storage for our PS4 at a reasonable price makes this very bearable though.

The Crucial X10 Pro truly is a tiny drive - you can very easily fit in your pocket. While I was a bit too scared to test its durability properly, it's🙈 marketed as being resistant to splashes, dust, and drops. For those reasons, we award it with the best external hard drive for portability.

Its speeds aren't too shabby either. Used with the PS5, I managed to move a hefty 439.5GB from the console to the X10 Pro in 34 mins. While that might seem like a🥀 small eternity with today's Gen 5 SSD speeds, just imagine the time it'd take to download that much raw data. Transferring 46GB worth of 2018's God of War from the hard drive to console storage, meanwhile, took only 5 minutes and 16 seconds. The speeds on the box here are 2,100MB/s read, and 2,000MB/s write, so it wouldn't shy away from the absolute best options on the top of this list.

The only problem is, this is meant for pro🅰fessionals, not necessarily gamers. Its short cable is almost as annoying as its high price tag. Regardless, this is definitely one of the best external hard drives on the market if you want a portable solution for gaming, work, oꦛr content creation.

The best PS4 SSD Coming Soon

Sony: June has been a busy month for Sony. On June 4, State of Play returned to show us glimpses of upcoming PS5 games, including Pragmata, Silent Hill f, and 007 First Light. Meanwhile, Days of Play ran until June 11, 2025, and brought with it discounts on some Sony accessories, including $30 USD off Pulse Explore wireless earbuds🐎 and $50 USD off the PlayStation VR2 and PlayStation VR2 Horizon Call of the Mountain Bundle.

With the PS5 the current-gen beast of choice, nothing shown was compatible with the older PS5 s꧃ystem, however.

Upcoming PS4 SSD reviews: Currently, there are no PS4-compatible SSDs available on my testing bench. With the PS5 coming up to its fifth anniversary, it's instead SSDs like the WD Black SN7100 that I'm busy putting through its paces for review, which is not compatible with the older PS4 consol🅷e.

How we test PS4 SSDs

You can find out the specifics of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:how we test SSDs in our full 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:GamesRadar Hardware Policy, but it's worth going stating here, too. At GamesRadar, we utilize extensive testing methods when reviewing 🦄the latest SSDs and hard drives, either for standalone write-ups or in lists just like this one.

For P45 SSDs, the biggest tests🅠 that we conduct are simil🌼ar to that of the PS5 and are as follows:

CrystalDiskMark benchmarking tests

File transfer speed tests (from the console's internal storage and back again)

In-game loading times (time clocked between menus and gameplay, etc.)

When considering what makes a PS4 SSD one of the best available right now, we believe that money and price-to-performance ratio are paramount. When testing, we make sure to put the SSD through its paces on the PC, as well as the PS4, unless there are compatibility issues as play.

We also use CrystalDiskMark to benchmark the PCs in an enviroꦺnment where they're more likely to show their potential. We'll then install an SSD inside a PS4 and look at the console's own formatting benchmark, which shows just how much you'll get out of one in an actual PS4 console.

How to change your PS4's hard drive

If you're still unsure of the process, here's a quick video that shows you how to chan𝓡ge your PS4's hard drive.

Best PS4 SSD FAQ

If you're after more ways of upgrading your PlayStation set up, take a look at the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 accessories, or the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 controllers and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 headsets, many of which are compatible with Sony's last-gen console.

The best Xbox Series X hard drives we've found so far are the offic🔴ially licensed Seagate Storage Expansion card and the WD Black C50, though we'd opt for the latter. Both allow for native performance that's on par with the Xbox Series X's very speedy internal SSD, and the Seagate card now has a 4TB model up for grabs. Keep in mind that you cannot boot Xbox Series X games off of an external hard drive right now, whether it's an SSD or HDD, so we tend to view these options more as expanded storage for unused last-generation games. The C50 gets the edge in its slightly lower price point, and there’s now a 2TB version available too.

Annoyingly, there's no M.2 port in the Xbox Series X or S, so you won't quite get the benefits of the澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询: best SSDs for gaming as PS5 owners do. But you can still use third-party Xbox Series X hard drives to keep all your games in o⛄ne place, and we've tested the lot, and gathered our top picks for the best hard drive, SSD, and memory card solutions for your Xbox below.

The Quick List

The best Xbox Series X and S hard drive overall

There's a new king of Xbox Series X and S storage, and it's the WD Black C50. This is as close as you'll get to the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best SSDs for PS5 because it boosts your console's internal capacity without dropping perf🔯ormance rates. In testing the C50🔯, we found exactly what was promised, and it's almost a like-for-like match with the original Seagate Expansion Card.

If you want to maximize value as well as features🏅, this is probably the best option on the market for Xbox gamers. You simply slot this into the back of your console, do a quick format, and you're off to the races. The speed of this small card is such that you canℱ quick resume between games stored on the console's internals and the expansion seamlessly, without any delays signaling there are even two drives in play.

Besides some slow-downs during transfers, the C50 performs excellently, and just about keeps up with the Series X's ridiculous internal SSD. While that speedy drive managed to transfer Atomic Heart whiꦦch ranges 78.96GB to the Expansion Card in just under two minutes, the C50 wrote it back in just under four. In specific speeds, that equates to the internal d🔜rive having a write speed of around 5.95GB/s, and the C50 having roughly 3.94GB/s.

All in all, if you want excellent value for a 512GB or 1TB drive, the C50 is the best you can go for. Plus, now the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:WD Black C50 2TB is available, providing double the storage of the 1TB version, so you can expand your available Xbox storage even further. Although there really isn't much th🎀at separates it from the Seagate option.

The best budget Xbox Series X hard drive

We've seen the outer casing change a few times in recent years, but Western Digital's My Passport series has been a great fit for expanding the storage capacities of Xbox and PlayStation consoles for a few years now. In fact, this is undoubtedly one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external hard drives and remains one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox One external hard drives. This series is always on lists of recommended options from ourselves and plenty of other sites too, mainly for th﷽e capacity-to-price ratio you get with them. With cheap and cheerful HDD storage, you won't get very good speeds, but you also won't break the bank.

Via the retailer links above y🥂ou'll generally land on our favored 4TB model, but you can find smaller capacity drives are more than enough depend꧅ing on how many games you want immediate access to without having to re-download them all the time.

WD My Passport has been released in a wide range of colors, so you will have more options to choose from and you should never pay the full MSRP for one of these as they're seemingly always on sale. If you just want 🍨plenty of space for the lowest cost without risking losing your data, the WD My Passport is the way to go for on Xbox Series X hard d🍸rive.

The best Xbox Series X external SSD

The WD_Black P40 SSD is the latest inꦐ WD's gaming-focused external hard drives, and it's one of the best performers you can get your hands on. It takes the speedy specs and robust design🍰 of the P50 and carries both over to a small form factor body that makes use of some lovely ambient RGB lighting.

Unfortunately, the P40 is one of the more expensive options up and down this list, partไicularly because it's a recent release from one of the biggest names in storage. For your purchase though, you get the drive itself, WD's Windows dashboard, a USB-C cable and USB-A adapter, a𒈔 quick install guide, and a 5-year warranty I'd be surprised if you need to use.

Read and write speeds were great in testing. The 2000MB/s speed you see on the box is as good as you'll get in an external hard drive, but in reality, it translates to some great load times and transfer speeds on PS5 and PC. I had a load of game capture footage stored on my PS5 I had been meaning to move across to my computer for video editing, and even though it was about 30 clips spanning a total of 22GB, the P40 swallowed it up from the PS5 in about a minute. The same was true of games once I fo🃏rmatted the drive for some extra storage. I transferred three games that added up to 18GB, and it moved acros🙈s in just shy of a minute.

The best 2TB expansion card for Xbox Series X

The official Seagate Storage Expansion Card for Xbox Series X is the other bes🉐t option for expanding your storage with no compromises🦩 on performance.

We've extensively tested the load times of this card vs the internal storage of the console along with performance on games enhanced for Series X and it matches the internal NVMe SSD at every turn. As we mentio🏅ned, there really isn't much separating the C50 from this when it comes to expanding your game storage. Both are the best options you can go for.

If you can afford it, this is⛦ certainly the card to go for if you want larger capacities. the WD Black C50 only goes up to 1TB drives, whereas this goes up to 4TB as of June 2025. Admittedly though, that 4TB is more expensive. Thankfully, the 1TB model has dropped mostly everywhere to match the price of the C50 at £159 / $159. Hopefully, as the 2TB model continues to age, we will see more price drops.

The best value external SSD for Xbox Series X

The Samsung T7 Shield is the latest in Samsung's range of high-speed performance-first external SSDs but this one has an emphasis on durability. As the picture above might indicate, it doesn't matter which platform you plan to use it with, this is a universal drive. In fact, it's been on our list of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS4 external hard drives for a while now.

Samsung says that the T7 drives should offer double the performance of the still-excellent T5 drives - and our testing proves that's very much the case. While the 1,050 MB/s read and 1,000 MB/s write won't bother NVMe counterparts, as far as external drives go, the Samsung T7 Shield is certainly offering excellent sequential performance. We found that the claimed figures wer𒁏e largely in keeping with th🦄e maximum sequential performance, and solid figures from an external drive plugged in via USB 3.2.

Anꦚother main selling point of this drive is the rugged nature of its outer casing. Samsung has stated that🐼 the T7 Shield is able to withstand all manner of harsh conditions, with drop tests being done four times from three meters in the air onto solid concrete with no signs of physical damage to the casings or internals.

At around $160 / £130 mark for a 1TB model or $290 / £215 mark for 2TB, it's far from the cheapest Xbox Series X external hard drive around, but those speeds, and tank-like shell, may justify the investmen🍸t for you.

The best budget external SSD for Xbox Series X

Away from the me🍎ga-big boys of the best Xbox Se🐽ries X hard drive market, manufacturers and brands like Silicon Power quietly go about their business of making equally dependable, robust, competitively priced, and quality hard drives. And SP's Bolt B75 Pro SSD drive is exactly that.

This is an Incredibly light, but incredibly robust unit, which means it's easily transportable yet you can have great confidence in it if you're prone to mishaps, or just want that extra protection. Its military-grade shockproof, aluminium case will look after the important stuff inside easily and the casing definitely exudes the rugged quality that was intended. The unit as a whole doesn't feel solid 𝔉but that comes from its lightness - some folks may prefer a more hefty unit.

The SSD's performance is very solid, but nothing too spectacular. As a result, if you're after something that offers good value, want to upgrade from an existing HDD to SSD to ensure you get that better and faster performance without number chasing too much, and you want something r📖obust then this is a great cont🐻ender.

The most portable SSD for Xbox Series X

Crucial by Micron is no stranger to anyone that knows the digital storage🥂 market. In this portable SSD, the Crucial Xඣ10 Pro, the brand gives you either 1TB, 2TB, or 4TB of space in a tiny drive you can fit in your pocket. While I was a bit too scared to test its durability properly, it's marketed as being resistant to splashes, dust, and drops. For those reasons, we award it with the best external hard drive for portability.

Its speeds aren't too shabby either. Used with the PS5, I managed to move a hefty 439.5GB from the console to the X10 Pro in 34 mins. While that might seem like a small eternity with today's Gen 5 SSD speeds, just imagine the time it'd take to download that much raw data. Transferring 46GB worth of 2018's God of War from the hard drive to console storage, meanwhile, took only 5 minutes and 16 seconds. The speeds on the box here are 2,100MB/s read, and 2,000MB/s write, so it wouldn't shy away from the absolute best optio𝕴ns on the top of this list.

The only problem is, this is meant for professionals, not necessarily gamers. That means it's arguably missing some gaming flare in its design, but I think for such a powerful drive in as small a package as it is, we can't make too many demands. On that "meant-for-professionals" note, it is fairly pricey. Regardless, this is definitely one of the best external hard drives on t♍he market if you want a portable solution for gaming, work, or content creation.

The best Xbox branded HDD

Editor's note: The Seagate Halo Infinite Special Edition Game Drive can be a bit difficult to find sometimes since its popular among a lot of Xbox fans. While that specific option might not be readily available, the other Xbox-branded Seagate Game Drive (which also has green lighting) is easier to find.

US:
UK:

The Seagate Halo Infinite Special Edition Game D♛rive for Xbox is a mouthful but in essence, what we have here is a supremely c🧜ool, special edition hard drive to team with your Xbox console.

While ostensibly this is just a simple-but-effective🎀 and ever-reliable Seagate external HDD, the attraction comes hard and heavy with the design and RGB effects. This really sets the hard drive apart and is perfect for Xbox and Halo fan🦹s.

Yes, the performance won't be blistering - it's only an HDD after al💟l, offering those limited speeds, but at least with USB 3.0 interfaces - so it's not going to be one for those looking for only optimized game storage and being able to play those games from the drive. But if you've got a whole bunch of older games, perhaps, that you're keen to keep within arms reach, and keep on something that looks cool as heck then this is an absolutely blinding choice.

The best xbox Series X hard drive coming soon

Xbox: On June 9, 2025, Seagate unveiled a new 4TB variant of its existing Storage Expansion Card. Previously, the official storage solutions were only ava🔯ilable up to 2TB, but this new card, available directly from Seagate or the retailer Best Buy, turns things up a notch with 4TB wor🧸th of storage space for all your Game Pass games.

Seagate states that as AAA titles are regularly exceeding 100GB, "higher capacity storage is essential for uninterrupted gameplay. Seagate’s new 4TB Storage Expansion Card gives Xbox players the freedom to download and play their favorite blockbuster games, indie favorites, and media without worrying about running out🌺 of space." ()

Upcoming best Xbox Series X hard drive reviews: As of typing, I don't have any Xbox Series X hard drives, SSDs, or memory card solutions on my testing bench. With the Xbox Series X/S being fairly limited when it comes to supported storage sol🅠utions, it's more common for me, and others on the team, to have PC and PS5-compatible SSDs currently being tested instead. For example, currently, the WD Black SN7100 is on my testing bench, but as a Gen 4 SSD, it's not compatible with Xbox hardware.

How we test Xbox Series X storage

We don't just test external hard drives, SSDs, and memory cards in a lab - we run them direct on our own Xbox Series X consoles to ensure we get real-world results. That means running data transfer speed tests on the latest and greatest games that you're actually playing, not synthetic numbers that mean nothing outside of their respective programs. We run these tests on a launch edition Xb𒈔ox Series X console, exploring a range of different size capacities a🍎nd brands.

Plug-in devices like Xbox Series X hard drives are generally only used for storage. The console doesn't allow for games to be loaded from an external drive, so we base our testing around data transfer times. We move games across a rang꧅e of sizes from the system's internal memory to the hard drive device, focusing on repeatable tests on a roster of titles.

Beyond performa𝄹nce, we also ensure each drive is durable in its design and build and feels secure when plugged into the console. We also watch for any fiddly formatting or recovery processes and ꦿtest the overall reliability of the device across disconnects as well.

For more information on 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:how we test SSDs and hard drives, check out our full 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:GamesRadar+ hardware policy.

Best Xbox Series X hard drives: FAQs

If you're still unsure of what to go for, have a look at our frequently asked questions below. We've tried to cover the bases of what you need to 🐭know when buying one of the best Xbox Series X hard drives.

Is 1TB enough for Xbox Series X?

1TB is more t🍌han enough storage, since it's already more than double what you have to play with in terms of base internal storage. However, if you can get more than 1TB, that will definitely give you more futureproofing. As games 🍷continue to get larger, a 1TB Xbox Series X hard drive might not go as far. Whereas a 2TB drive may not cost much more (like the WD Black C50 2TB model with its MSRP of $249.99 / £213.99), but it will give you ample storage as we get further into the Xbox Series X/S's lifespan.

Should I get SSD or HDD for my Xbox Series X/S? 

We'd always recommend that you get an SSD, if you can afford it. SSD, even externally, massively outperforms the fastest HDD. While it is more expensive than a typical HDD, we'd say it's worth the extra money for the transfer, read, and write speeds you get. If you're looking for larger capacity drives for more than just games, HDD is much cheaper, and we'd definitely recommen💯d HDD in those cases. Overall though, we'd say the best Xbox Series X hard drives are SSD ones.

How to choose an Xbox Series X external hard drive

If youꩲ're heading out to shop for your own Xbox Series X external hard drive or are considering seeing if an old drive you have at home might be usable instead, there are a few things to bear in mind.

It's worth double checking what USB type the drive has. For Xbox Series X you'll need one that has a USB 3.0 connection or higher. Legac💝y USB 2.0 and 2.1, often found on older drives, are a no go. Unlike the PS5, the Series X console does not have a modern USB-C (sometimes listed as 'Type-C') port, so we'd avoid drives that only have UꦦSB-C connections as even USB-C to USB 3.0 adapters aren't guaranteed to make them work. Some drives like the Samsung T5 mentioned above have a USB Type C connection going into the drive itself and a USB 3.0 connection on the other end of the cable - this is fine.

When you plug an external hard drive into your Xbox Series X, it will ask for permission to format it. Full warning - this will delete everything else on the drive. So be sure to remove or backu🌱p anything on there you were thinking of using. Sadly, you cannot use a single external hard drive to store both PlayStation and Xbox games, so if you had the smart idea to buy one massive drive to use for both, thi🃏s unfortunately won't work.

Another excellent upgrade to your new console we'd recommend looking into is audio and the best options are covered in our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox Series X headsets guide. We've got you covered if you'd like to see what the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best TV for Xbox Series X is too. Of course, if you're after something cheaper, take a look at the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox Series X accessories on the market.

The best PS5 SSDs we've tested for this list fit into that M.2 port by removing the back of the console's rear face plate. Most of the澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询: best SSDs for gaming these days easily slide and click into place, ju🌟st like the Samsu🔯ng 990 Pro. This drive can reach unearthly speeds for the PS5, and make loading screens a thing of the past. Overall, it’s the best PS5 SSD we’ve tested so far, but there’s plenty of other options out there, including external SSDs.

Your PS5 can be extended internally and externally. However, it's worth knowing that you can't load PS5 games off of external ꧟drives, even when it comes to official ones. You can store game files and back up your screenshots and video clips, but you'll need to transfer them over to the internal drive if you want to play anything. Using any Gen 5 drives is also out of the picture, as the Sony console's architecture isn't compatible with the next-gen of SSDs right now. More importantly however, if you get an internal PS5 SSD, you'll need a heatsink too. Luckily, a lot of SSDs built for the PS5 have a heatsink built right into their designs, so you don't have to worry about any overheating or damage to your drive.

The Quick List

The best PS5 SSD overall

The Samsung 990 Pro is the latest Gen 4 M.2 SSD from the brand and offers some top-contender performance for PS5 and PC. Unlike most SSDs at the moment, its price is holding pretty firm (since it's never exactly gone for cheap prices). It's also readily available, perhaps since Samsung makes a lot of its own parts. I use the 4TB version of this drive in my PS5, and I can thoroughly reco༒mmend it.

Design and features: The 990 Pro is available wi𒆙th or without a heatsink, now in up to a 4TB capacity. Its heatsink is incredibly stylish and has some lovely red flashes that line its face. In an instant, you can recognize this drive's gaming chops just from its appearance.

On the box, you're told this drive can re✅ach u🌃nearthly speeds for a Gen 4 drive - 7,450 / 6,900 MB/s. It has a new controller that hasn't been seen in other models, which is codenamed Pascal. Beyond that, we don't know all that much about the innards of this SSD, but its numbers do speak for themselves.

Performance: This is the gen 4 SSD maxed out - the 2TB model of this drive we tested for review nailed Samsung's quoted figures, scoring 7,462MB/s reads and 6,877MB/s writes. From extensively using the 4TB version of this drive in my own PS5, I've found much the same, and it's the fastest SSD Sony's own benchmark has ever recognized. Inඣ short, this is the pound-for-pound fastest Gen 4 drive on the market, and if you don't mind paying a bit more for it, it's an easy recommendation from us.

Read more: 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Samsung 990 Pro review

The best integrated heatsink PS5 SSD

The Corsair MP600 Elite is the latest Gen 4 SSD from Corsair, and it carries with it the quality we've come to know from the previous MP600 models. The biggest names on this 🉐list have needed a shake-up for a while, and we're happy to say that beyond this drive's excellent and classy heatsink design, it's also one of the strongest-performing SSDs you'll find on this list.

Design and features: Disappointingly, you'll only find the MP600 Elite in 1TB and 2TB sizes, but luckily it is available with a black heatsink, a white one, or without a heatsink. Prices across the range seem to be pretty competitive, so with a h𝐆eatsink this good, we'd always recommend opting for 💧it to keep your installation nice and simple.

The reason we love this drie's heatsink is because it blends the aesthetic choices more boisterous SSDs aim for, but is actually pretty innovative in its own right. Beneath the drive, you'll see a space for air to flow through it. Admittedly, this does make the drive somewhat chunkier than others, but it also ma🃏tches the rest of Corsair's cooling components, most of which rely on sol𝓰id airflow.

Performance: The Corsair MP600 Elite stands toe-to-toe with the likes of Samsung, WD Black, and Seagate in the PS5 race, and we're happy that a new Gen 4 drive has come along 🌊in 2024 to shake things up. As those drives get 𝔉older, this one comes in to match their performance while also offering a fair price.

The quoted read/write speeds on the box here ar🅘e 7,000MB/s and 6,500MB/s respectively, and in testing we actually found these numbers were surpassed (albeit slightly). CrystalDiskMark found read speeds of 7,038MB/s and writes of 6,587MB/s. That comes in just under the Seagate FireCuda 530, but given just how good thꦅat drive is, these numbers are a real win. Inside the PS5, it formatted to a read speed of 6,539MB/s, which is up there with the fastest internal speeds within the PS5 we've come across.

This all equates to an SSD that's pretty much as fast as the PS5 will really allow. Taking everything into account here, you're getting a really solid SSD for the money, and one that's heatsink is♈ going to give you peace of mind too.

The best budget PS5 SSD

Nextorage is a relatively new brand on the scene in the storage market. It's a company made up of former Sony employees who have now broken off to start a very successful solo career. Sony, admittedly does own a share in its new solo ac𒉰t, but when looking for an SSD for P🤪S5, that might actually be a good thing. Nextorage has been turning heads with its NEM-PA Series because as all the other cotenders have been getting more expensive, this lovely little drive has remained more affordable.

Design and features: The design of the NEM-PA Series i💜sn't as flashy as the big names on this list, but it's available with a reꦚally solid heatsink that will slot easily into the PS5's M.2 tray. It's all black in color, so aesthetically it isn't massively interesting, but the vent lines along its body will do the trick, and that's the main thing when the drive will be covered by a faceplate anyway.

Advertised speeds here are 7,300MB/s / 6,900MB/s read/write respectively, and the NEM-PA is available in 1, 2, 4, and 8TB shapes. Architecturally, there's a dynamic SLC cache, up to 2GB of DDR4 DRAM, and 4th Gen PCIe interface support. Those numbers, in partic🐼ular, put it up there with the giants oဣf the market, and are very comparable with the likes of the Samsung 980 Pro.

Like all Gen 4 opt𒊎ions with the required read speed, this is compatible with PC and PS5, but its emphasis on PS5 specifically means it doesn't seem available without a heatsink. Luckily, its price is fair, so you shouldn't feel th💙e need to look for a cheaper option anyway.

Performance: Inside the PS5, Nextorage's option scored a solid ❀6,539MB/s in Sony's formatting benchmark. This is actually up there with the highest internal PS5 numbers we've come across, which speaks to its quality against much bigger, much pricier brands. CrystalDiskMark showed us numbers that actually surpassed the advertised write speeds, clocking in an average of 6,924MB/s across three tests.

Transfer times were equally as impressive, as Alan Wake 2 moved from the internal stock SSD in the PS5 to the NEM-PA Series in only 30 seconds from an average of 3 tests. That’s 77.87GB in less than half a minute. In return transfers, Alan Wake 2 moved back to the internal SSD of th🍌e PS5 in 5 minutes and 20 seconds.

We noticed quicker-than-usual load times on the co⭕nsole as well, so it's safe to say we're thoroughly impressed by what Nextorage has made here. A lot of the time with products we award "best budget" labels to, the quality isn't qui💙te up there with the others we review. It's usually a sign that for the money, that product is good, and does the trick. With this, however, you get something genuinely competitive with what is typically pricier.

Read more: 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Nextorage NEM-PA Series 5 review

The best 1TB SSD for PS5

Technically, this was the first SSD confirmed for PS5ಞ. T🔥he Seagate FireCuda 530 is undoubtedly one of the best PS5 SSDs, and definitely one of the most popular. Touted to have blistering speeds, and confirmed to be a solid performer with or without a heatsink, this is truly a staple of the SSD market. While it enjoyed a long while at the top of this list, it's getting harder to get a hold of. When stock does return, it's usually gone very quickly, and it's hard to find at a reasonable price.

Nonetheless, 𒆙this is one of the best SSDs for PS5 money can buy at the moment.

Design and features: The Firecuda 530 has a recognizable black body with some lovely orange branding highlights. Its heatsink is a f𓆉airly understated black with one simple orange strike through it. A classy and less bold design than a lot of the fancy heatsinks you'll fi🀅nd on SSDs these days. Oh, there is also a fantastic Star Wars limited edition that makes your drive look like a lightsaber, but it doesn't fit inside the PS5, so there's no point in us getting you excited.

In a more technical world, the 530 comes in sizes of 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB, and you can choose whether or not you want the heatsink attached. On the box, you're quoted to get speeds of up to 7,300MB/s read, and 6,900MB/s write. The drive uses the Phison E18 controller and its cache scales dependꦉing on what size you✃ opt for. Crucially it's got the latest in tech inside it as it sports 3D TLC NAND memory and next-gen PCIe 4.0.

Either way, this is a slimline and compact M.2 drive that has some of the best Gen 4 features you'll fi♚꧒nd on the shelves.

Performance: In our formal review tests we found that the Seagate Firecuda 530 2TB matched its on-the-box speeds, which is very impressive. Having used this drive for my gaming PC build, I can per🌟sonally attest to how consistent it is a𝓡t loading up games quickly. It's a noticeable boost over a lot of the other Gen 4 drives out there. Short of going for either the SN850X or the Samsung 990 Pro, it doesn't get as good as this in the Gen 4 arena.

The best part is, like many great SSDs at the moment, this is extraordinarily affordable for just how good it is. If you can get this for under $70, which is more than likely, you should do it. Your PS5 will thank you for fitting in the best all-round SSD on this list.

Read more: 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Seagate FireCuda 530 review

The best no fuss SSD for PS5

While we held off adding the SN850X to this list for a while, its price has finally leveled out so that the extra performance you gain with this model versus the SN850 isn't a huge trade-off. The SN850 is still a great option, although it may get ha🅘rder to find as it continues to age.

Design and features: The WD Black SN850X has one of the more stylish heatsink designs on this list, and to be honest, the same can go for any of WD Black's SN850 series. A big problem with the SN850 was that it could run fairly hot when it was wo💖rking hard. The SN850X does a great job of dealing with that though, because WD implemented a new thermal management profile that reduces performance throttling when it's under pressure.

Performance: Although the 4K performance and random speeds underperformed compared to the older model in our tests, the SN850 X is one of the strongest all-rounders you'll find on the market. It can actually be found cheaper than a lot of the entries on this list for the ✱most part, and it's right up there with the FireCuda ﷽530 and the 990 Pro in terms of speeds.

During our tests, we found it achieved 7,300MB/s reads, while wr꧙ites leapt up from 5,300MB/s to 6,300MB/s. IOPS were really impressive too. It may not be a massive improvement over its predecessor, but it is an improvement - and one that can be found a darn sight cheaper these days thanks to the introduction of the S🐈N850P.

If you want one of th♔e very best SSDS out there, the SN850X will 🍬be a great purchase.

Read more: 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:WD Black SN850X review

The best PS5 SSD with a separate heatsink

The SK Hynix Platinum P41 is a great SSD in its own right, sitting just under the top dogs of the Gen 4 as a fast performer. Combined with its companion Haechi H01 and H02 heatsink, however, it's a perfect fit🍬 for PS5 if you want to futureproof yourself with a separate cooling device.

Design and features: The idea of buying aꦺ separate heatsink might not make a lot of sense at first - with so many great options out there, why not just make your installation easier and buy something with a heatsink pre-attached? Well, it's well-known that buying drives without heatsinks is a bit more affordable. Buying a separate heatsink like this means you'll be able to swap out your drive and sꦚpend less money because you already have a perfect heatsink for your PS5.

The Haechi H༒01 is ideal for anyone with a launch ♉PS5, but for any PS5 Pro owners or PS5 Slim owners, the H02's slightly smaller build will make it easier to fit your faceplates back on after installation.

The Platinum P41 itself has advertised sequential speeds of 7,000MB/s and 6,500MB/s, which is reflected in its middling price point, and comes with the 3D NAND cache tech we know and love from the latest drives - which is great for something that's now a few years ol༒d.

Performance: In testing, however, we actually found an increase in the P41's speeds from what was advertised. CrystalDiskMark showed us an average of 7,206MB/s for sequential read speed, which will be hard to notice but is still a decent score for a drive that, again, has had a lot of competition launch sinc⛦e it's been on the shelves.

Inside the PS5, the formatting 💞test showed us 6,188MB/s, which is a tad more disappointing if you're looking for the fastest drive in Sony's console. Still, your mileage may vary, and it's the addition of the hefty separated heatsink we're really here for anyway.

Read more: SK Hynix Platinum P41 + Haechi Heatsink review

The best value PS5 SSD

The Samsung 980 Pro is still one of the best PS5 SSDs on the market, especially considering that the heatsink model is now widely available, and frequently discounꦜted, too. While this drive may no longer be the absolute fastest Gen 4.0 unit that you can slot into your So꧟ny system, the all-star sequential rates of up to 7,000 MB/s read cannot be denied.

Design and features: While Gen 4 drives running the likes of the Phison E18 controller are going to offer more consistent, and faster overall random performance, the Samsung 980 Pro matches the console's internal storage and is usually available substantially cheape🐻r than newer drives on the market. The addition of a dedicated heatsink custom-made for the system is going to be ideal for anyone preferring the plug-and-play approach as opposed to𝄹 having to go all DIY, too.

In terms of potential sizes here you get 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB models, and you can elect to get one with or wi🐠thout the heatsink.

Performance: Even if the ꦿ990 Pro is a bump up i💙n terms of speed, the 980 Pro is still one of the fastest drives going, offering speeds of 6.7GB/s read and 4.9GB/s in our review tests. Since this is likely found discounted these days, the value for money here is pretty outrageous.

If you want faster, the SN850X and 990 Pro will give you that, but certainly, if you're waiting to buy until deals season, the 980 Pro will have you covered.

Read more: 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Samsung 980 PRO Review

Best external PS5 SSD

You can now transfer PS5 games to one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 external hard drives, meaning you don't have to keep redownloading games when you want to make room for other games. You can't play these games on an external PS5 SSD, but transferring from the external to internal PS5 SSD is super quick. While PS5 games can't be played from an external drive, PS4 games can, and loading times are m𓂃uch faster than on a PS4 or PS4🀅 Pro.

The WD Black P40 SSD is one of the best external storage devices we've ever tested, whichꩵ is why it finds itself as the only external device we recommend on this list of PS5 SSDs. The uses 🃏for an external drive are a bit more limited on PS5, but they can still come in very handy.

Design & Features: 💃Disappointingly, the P40 is one of the pricier external options available, particularly because it's one of the higher-end external SSDs that's capable of some great speeds. For your money, you get the drive which comes with WD's Windows dashboard, a USB-C cable and USB-A adapter, a quick install guide, and a 5-year warranty I'd be surprised if you need to use. The build quality here is strong, with an aluminium chassis protecting the data stored within.

It also has some flashy RGB lighting on i♕ts sides that'll 🐓give you a bit more personality than other storage devices. What may be surprising is how compact this external drive is. It could easily fit in your pocket if you want to take a game file over to a friend's house, or just move around your screenshots and capture files quickly.

Performance: Read and write speeds were great for an external drive. The 2000MB/s speed you see on the box isn't now the top of the external pack - there are newer options that are slightly quicker, but only marginally. For an📖 external SSD, the P40's speeds are still great, and they translate to snappier loading times than the HDD in the PS4 (by some margin). Transfer speeds on PS5 and♍ PC are impressive too, and may be the main appeal for most users.

When testing the P40, we managed to move a load of game capture footage fr𒈔om PS5 to PC (22GB), and the P40 managed it in just shy of a minute. The same was true of game storage. We transferred three games that added up to 18GB in just under 60 seconds thanks to the P40.

Editor's note:

If you go for another M.2 SSD, that's totally fine, but make sure it's in line with the PS5's int🎐ernal SSD specifications. We've listed the most important ones belo💟w.

• PCIe Gen4 interface (not Gen 5, sadly)
• 250GB - 4TB capacity
• Minimum 5,500MB/s read speed or faster
• 22mm width (do not go for 25mm units)
• a heatsink is required (built-in or DIY)

Best PS5 SSD: Heatsinks

While some SSDs that are specifically designed with the PS5 in mind come with a heatsink built-in, others do not. Either way, you will need to pair your PS5 SSD with one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 heatsinks.

On the plus side, you can buy them separately from a wide range of manufacturers. They're very easy to fit and will stop your new SSD from overheating and being damaged as a result. It's usually fairly easy to see if an SSD doesn't have a heatsink already, because it will be very thin, and will most likely have elements of the circuit board on show. Products with a heatsink attached will usually say on the listing page, and will often be a little thicker, with vent-looking elements ꧃on one or both sidꦅes.

Som෴e𝔉times built-in heatsinks drive up the cost quite a lot, so buying your own can save you a decent amount of cash. We've listed a few of our favorite options below.

Best PS5 SSD FAQ