The Best PS5 SSDs in 2023: Speedy NVMe storage for your console

The Best PS5 SSDs

Finding the best PS5 SSD might seem like a daunting task due to the wide range of choices, but the reality is there are plenty of SSDs for the PS5 that will provide a simple and hassle-free capacity upgrade for your game library. To narrow down the options, we put a wide range of the speediest drives from our SSD benchmarks hierarchy through a battery of our tests to find the best SSDs for the PS5, and then we picked the cream of the crop based on both performance and pricing. Given that nearly any new drive you buy for the PC can also be used in the PS5, you can also find many of these same picks on our list of Best SSDs for desktop PCs.

The PS5's internal SSD is a restrictive 825GB, and after formatting, updates, and bloatware it typically leaves you with about 670GB free for games. That's bad news, because today's games are becoming larger with each new release, and you'll also need somewhere to store all the screenshots and video clips you gather while you play. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War all by itself uses more than 200GB!

The good news is that Sony has an M.2 expansion slot where you can put a second SSD for the PS5, and updated system firmware now allows you to use an SSD with up to 8TB of capacity. That capacious amount of storage should satiate even the most demanding of gamers, but there are also more affordable options, and modern 2TB and 4TB models are particularly attractive choices for the PS5.

The TLDR: Best SSDs for the PS5 (more info below):

Here's the quick list of the best SSDs for the PS5, but we have further breakdowns and testing results below. When searching for the best SSD for the PS5, you'll want to be careful about which drive you pick. The Samsung 990 Pro and WD SN850X are hands-down the best two SSDs for the PS5, though pricing tends to tilt things in Samsung's favor. The SN850X also comes as an SN850P that's just an overpriced SN850X with a different heatsink and PlayStation 5 branding.

We've broken things down by category, and the Samsung 990 Pro and WD SN850X are both the fastest and best overall picks. Samsung also chalks up another category win as the best high-capacity 4TB option, though if you're looking for more storage on the cheap, the Addlink A93 4TB certainly warrants consideration. Last, we have the "cheap" options, and while we're still biased in favor of 2TB models, the Crucial T500 in 1TB trim, including a heatsink, is only $64. Our alternate pick of the Silicon Power US75 1TB costs about half as much as the 2TB drive we've tested, so if you're okay with half the capacity, give that some thought.

Tips for Finding the Best SSD for the PS5 in 2023

Which SSDs are compatible with the PS5? Luckily, finding a spacious PS5 SSD to complement your console's internal drive isn't too difficult — any PCIe 4.0 SSD that provides a minimum of 5,500 MBps of throughput over the NVMe interface can be used as a PS5 SSD, provided it comes with a heatsink that doesn't take the overall height above 11.25mm. In fact, many PCIe 3.0 SSDs will also be perfectly fine, though the PS5 may warn you about the potential for reduced performance if you opt for such a drive.

Do you absolutely need a heatsink for a PS5 SSD? Sony says yes, and you can easily add your own heatsink to SSDs that aren't marketed specifically for the PS5. You can also use one of the best external drives with the PS5 to store games, but these are only for game storage — you'll need an internal expansion drive to actually play the games.

What size of SSD should you buy for the PS5? You might =be fine with a 1TB drive, but we recommend selecting a 2TB or 4TB model due to the current low pricing trends for these models. Besides, who wouldn't want more storage for extra games?

Ultimately, the best drive for your PS is one that provides enough capacity to hold your games and data at a price you can afford. To help you choose, we've tested a number of the top SSDs in our labs — see the results further down the page — and pulled out the top performers for a list of the Best PS5 SSDs.

Best SSDs for PS5

If you're looking for the absolute fastest drive for the Sony PlayStation 5 that money can buy, the Samsung 990 Pro is your drive. The Samsung 990 Pro's new hardware and new options, including a heatsink with RGB and a 4TB variant, have allowed Samsung to take the PS5 SSD crown. The 2TB model comes with a relatively high $189 MSRP, and the 4TB model has a $349 MSRP, which are both substantially higher than current street prices ($119 and $249, respectively)

The Samsung 990 Pro's performance is excellent across the board, setting a few new performance records, such as with 4K random read performance. In our testing, the drive was consistent, power-efficient, and cool. The drive is also backed by a competent warranty and decent support.

The competition is still fierce, and you do pay a bit extra for the Samsung name and support. Still, we'd generally opt for peace of mind if looking at a 4TB drive rather than saving $50 with a lesser known brand (see below). Also, $20 extra for a heatsink and RGB is a decent deal, though you won't be able to see the bling when the SSD resides inside the PS5.

Read: Samsung 990 Pro Review
Samsung 990 Pro 4TB Review

WD took its popular Black SN850 SSD and turned it up to 11, but luckily the price isn't nearly so extreme. The $130 price point for the 2TB model is a steal, but make sure you check current pricing. The Black SN850X leverages an improved controller and newer flash to get the most out of the PCIe 4.0 interface, thus delivering excellent performance with the Sony PlayStation 5. Performance is improved across the board, and the drive comes with a heatsink option at 1TB and 2TB. 

WD also supports the SSD with a respectable five-year warranty that will let you game with peace of mind. This drive is made for the PlayStation 5, but it is a bit pricier than other options, so you'll want to keep an eye out for sales. It's also super fast for gaming on a PC, particularly with DirectStorage on the horizon.

WD has taken the course of releasing an officially-licensed SN850P. That drive is a glorified heatsinked SN850X and should only be picked if you want the heatsink at 4TB. Even then, it's far less expensive to get a bare SN850X and add your own heatsink. This goes for PC use, too, where the SN850X also shines. 

Read: WD Black SN850X Review

High-Capacity SSD for PS5

We already talked about the Samsung 990 Pro above, but if you want a large and spacious SSD, it's still the top pick. The 4TB model currently sells for $249 at Amazon, and many other 4TB SSDs that aren't even as fast will cost more. Which isn't to say there aren't some potential alternatives (see below), but we'd rather pay extra for peace of mind.

The Samsung 990 Pro 4TB still provides excellent performance. More importantly, it's available as a single-sided drive with 4TB — many 4TB drives will use both sides of the SSD, which could create issues if you try to stuff them into the PS5. Samsung's latest 236-Layer V-NAND is what allows for such a high capacity with just two NAND packages, and the drive runs generally cool.

Do you want to save money and forego the Samsung name? There are a few reasonable alternatives below.

Read: Samsung 990 Pro 4TB Review

Addlink isn't a familiar name among SSDs for most enthusiasts, though the hardware is sound enough and the company seems to be gaining some traction. The A93 pairs the Maxio MAP1602A controller with 232-layer YMTC TLC NAND for a potent combination of performance, efficiency, and perhaps most importantly: price. Right now, you can pick up the 4TB model for just $193 — over $50 less than the Samsung 990 Pro.

In our testing, the Addlink A93 performed just as well as more expensive PS5 SSDs. The PS5 read speed test, as well as our copy to and from results, were practically indistinguishable from most other drives. The drive even comes with a heatsink as standard equipment, though we still think the Sabrent PS5 heatsink is a better option overall (since it provides direct airflow access rather than putting the SSD under a cover).

Note that the Maxio MAP1602A doesn't include DRAM, and on Windows PCs it would use the HMB (host memory buffer) feature to get around this. But even in the PS5, performance still appears fine. If you want other alternatives, the Lexar NM790 4TB and Silicon Power US75 4TB (see below) use the same controller and NAND, while the Netac NV7000 4TB opts for a Phison E18 controller and 176-layer Micron TLC NAND.

Read: Addlink A93 Review

Best Cheap SSD for PS5

The Crucial T500 is a high-performance PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe SSD that dishes out speeds of up to 7.4 GB/s of read and 7.0 GB/s write throughput, along with up to 1.18 million IOPS. The 2TB model checks in at just over $100 (sans heatsink, which costs an extra $23), while the 1TB with a heatsink only costs $64. That 1TB drive is particularly tasty as a budget upgrade option.

The drive dishes out plenty of performance for the PS5, and while it's not quite as fast in the PS5 read test as the top drives, it was basically just as performant in our real-world file copy tests. As noted in our test section, the differences between the fastest and slowest SSDs in real-world gaming are incredibly slim, meaning that the T500's price tag will draw in the value seekers among us.

The endurance ratings on the various T500 models are a bit lower than some of the competition, topping out at 1,200 TBW for the 2TB drive, but is anyone really going to completely fill and erase the drive 600 times while using it in a PS5? We think not. You can also look at the Crucial P5 Plus as a similar performing alternative that may save you a few dollars, depending on sales.

Read: Crucial T500 Review

The Silicon Power US75 is another Maxio MAP1602A SSD, like the above Lexar and Addlink. Performance will be similar, and there's a 4TB option as well. But we're mostly interested in the 1TB drive that can be had for as little as $56.

Silicon Power has been around for quite a few years as a purveyor of inexpensive SSDs, though support and warranty service tend to less than what you'd get from a major brand like Crucial or Samsung. You get what you pay for, in other words.

There's no heatsink option on the US75, which means you'll want to pick up the Sabrent heatsink cover for the PS5 for $15. At which point, you could have purchased the above T500 1TB with an included heatsink for less money. The Addlink A93 and Lexar NM790 mentioned above are viable alternatives here as well, depending on current prices, as they use the same controller and NAND.

What about 8TB SSDs? Technically, they can work in the PS5, but prices are way too high to justify the added capacity. Just give a look at the 8TB M.2 drives listed on Newegg: The cheapest options cost close to $800, or nearly double the price per GB of the 4TB models.

Benchmarks / How We Tested PS5 SSDs

Some of the best SSDs for the PS5 are either specifically designed for the console, or come with an integrated heatsink. However, some drives don't come with a heatsink, so we equip them with the Sabrent M.2 NVMe heatsink for the PS5 to both meet the requirements for the PS5 and to ensure a level playing field. We've found that this cooler is a great solution if you're looking for a cheap, versatile, and easy-to-install solution.

The Sony PS5 has an internal benchmark measuring how fast the system can read data from the drive. This is the most critical performance metric for gaming, as a speedy response time is responsible for ensuring a smooth gaming experience. As you can see in the 'PS5 Read Benchmark' column above, the fastest SSD in our test pool was 90% faster than the slowest model. Sony will even flag performance as being potentially inadequate if the read score is below about 4,000 MB/s.

However, other real-world tests show much smaller differences. For instance, our 'Copy to M.2' benchmark consisted of timing how long it took to move four games totaling 192.6 GB (Mass Effect: Andromeda, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Elden Ring, and Astro's Playroom) from the internal PS5 SSD to the expansion drive. In most cases, we only logged a difference of a few seconds, and converting to MB/s the fastest and next-slowest drive only showed a 10% difference.

There's one exception to this, and that's the Transcend 250H 1TB that has a relatively small ~100GB pSLC cache; it was less than half as fast as most other drives on this write-heavy (for the M.2 drive) test. If you're moving more data, of course, it's possible to exceed the pSLC cache size of other, larger SSDs. Check our sustained write performance in the individual SSD reviews and choose a drive with an appropriately fast minimum speed to avoid slowdowns in such cases.

On the flipped side, we also tested this process in reverse, moving the four games back to the internal drive for our "Transfer From M.2" benchmark. Here, the sustained write speed of the integrated 825GB SSD becomes the limiting factor, and there's only a 1% difference between the fastest and slowest SSD we've tested. The current 825GB SSD only appears to write data at up to 250 MB/s, and all of the M.2 SSDs are easily able to maintain read speeds higher than that figure.

Likewise, extensive testing has failed to expose meaningful differences between the drives — it's common to see at most a one to two second difference between drives in game load times. Other testing we've seen from multiple outlets indicates very few meaningful differences, if any, for game loading times. Overall, you're unlikely to notice the speed difference between most Gen4 SSDs and could make a good argument for simply selecting the most cost-effective drive that meets the capacity target that you want — 4TB and 2TB drives are particularly popular.

Naturally, not all of the drives that we test will make the final cut for our list of Best SSDs for the PS5, but that doesn't mean those drives failed the test, or wouldn't be a great deal if you can catch them on sale. The Solidigm P44 Pro is a great SSD that delivered respectable performance in our PS5 SSD benchmarks, and given the slim difference between the fastest and slowest SSDs on our list, it could make a great drive if the price is right. The only thing we'd try to avoid is any SSD that uses QLC NAND, as those drives can slow down significantly as they're filled to capacity.

There's also no benefit at present to selecting any of the PCIe 5.0 SSDs, and in fact performance can suffer. We only tested the Crucial T700 2TB, which like all currently available Gen5 drives uses a Phison E26 controller with Micron TLC NAND. The PS5 appears to limit read performance to around 4,100 MB/s on such SSDs, even though in theory they should be fully backward compatible with the Gen4 interface. They also tend to use more power then PCIe 4.0 drives, making them a poor choice for the PS5.

Sony PS5 SSD Requirements

The Sony PS5 requires an M.2 SSD that communicates over the NVMe protocol. Officially, you'll need a PCIe 4.0 x4 model that can deliver up to 5,500 MBps of sequential read throughput. In practice, you can use slower SSDs, even PCIe 3.0 models, and they'll still work — you'll just get a warning that performance may be inadequate. The console supports 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB and 8TB models.

These small, rectangular drives look like sticks of RAM, only smaller, and the PS5 accepts both single-sided and double-sided versions. You'll also need to ensure that your drive has a cooling solution pre-applied. These can consist of thin copper heat spreaders that look like a label, or a full-fledged metal heatsink with a thermal pad.

Unfortunately, not all of the best SSDs for the PS5 come with a heatsink, but you can use your own double- or single-sided heatsink. We recommend the Sabrent M.2 NVMe heatsink for the PS5, which actually replaces the outside SSD panel on the PS5 with a heatsink, giving the SSD access to nice cooler air from outside the system. We've found that this cooler is a great solution if you're looking for a cheap, versatile, and easy-to-install solution, but there are many options on the market. For instance, TeamGroup has its new TForce AL1 heatsink, which operates similarly, coming to market soon.

Just make sure the SSDs don't exceed 110 x 25 x 11.25mm. M.2 SSDs are usually 80mm long by 22mm wide, described as size 2280, but some may be shorter or longer, so make sure you get one that matches your slot. The PS5 supports M Key Type 2230, 2242, 2260, 2280 and 22110. Some M.2 drives support SATA instead of NVMe, but those are rare. Regardless, make sure your SSD supports NVMe.

Sony has detailed instructions on how to install a PS5 SSD. As you can see in the video above, installing the SSD is a simple process that only requires a #1 Phillips head screwdriver. After you've installed the SSD, you can navigate through the menus to the 'Settings→Storage→Installation Location' area and change it to your new SSD. All new games will now install directly to the SSD.

To move existing games to your new drive, select the internal SSD, highlight the item you want to move, press the Options button, and then select 'Move Games and Apps.' Select any other games that you would like to move in the checkboxes, then select 'Move.' As noted in our above testing, moving from the integrated SSD will generally be much faster than moving to the integrated drive.