SSD Or Hard Drive? Upgrading Your PlayStation 4's Storage

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Thanks for the article. I like the trend of the work you guys are doing, although this one really reminds me why I won't be buying one of the new consoles.

It seems rather shortsighted for Sony to not anticipate users wanting to take advantage of SSD tech. In fact they could have made more $ by offering an upgraded product with an SSD already incorporated (assuming they fixed whataver is causing the negligible difference in performance). Perhaps a few tweaks to the OS through a software update will allow the SSD to make a bigger difference.

It seems that something will need to be done if they hope to have the longevity of the previous generation of consoles.
 
Eventually see 9.5mm 2TB drives? What about the Samsung M9T? Although difficult to find OEM, you can pull it from a Seagate Backup Plus Slim for about $110 (as of writing). Granted some users have had HDMI handshake bootup issues, they seem resolvable by extended power button presses.
 
Interesting concept and nice try Toms. I enjoyed this little read over lunch. I'm not a console fan but I admit that there are times when i wish I could just sit on my couch and play on my TV instead of a piddly little 24". The funny bit is, I only feel this way when I'm actually ON the couch, never when I'm sitting enjoying the beast that blows PS4 away.
 
Guys no, these Seagate SSHD's are crap. Testing it further, yes it cuts down on load times, the boot cycle, and game installations. But game performance is hindered by a random stutter at random periods during gameplay when the disc refreshes its 8GB's of flash memory. If you don't find a random stutter annoying fine get it. But If you really want performance get an SSD. If you want space stick with a mechanical drive.
 
This is why I am sticking with PC gaming. I loved consoles back in the day where you just plugged it in, fed it a disc/cartridge and started playing. But last gen they essentially became crappy computers, so I preferred my nice computer to owning a crappy one. This gen they are still crappy computers with all of the issues that computers have, but without the flexibility or usefulness of one... so again I will stick with my PC.There was a chance that I would pick up a PS4 to get my Final Fantasy fix, but now it looks like they are committed to releasing all titles on the PC, so there went my only real motive to pick up a console.
 
Eventually see 9.5mm 2TB drives? What about the Samsung M9T? Although difficult to find OEM, you can pull it from a Seagate Backup Plus Slim for about $110 (as of writing). Granted some users have had HDMI handshake bootup issues, they seem resolvable by extended power button presses.
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I did not know this. Interesting bit of information.
Interesting article, BUT: laying around ---> lying around.
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Fixed, thanks for spotting the error.
 
This is an interesting concept. You are right sony would have benefitted by adding SSD's as an upgrade, but I have a feeling those console guys are not going to drop added money to make it boot faster, especially since the extra controller, headset, etc cost an additional arm and a leg. PC gaming is where its at, the system runs better, lasts longer, and can be serviced by the user when needed. Also with steambox coming there is really no need to drop money on a console that will be outdated in 2 years.
 


It isn't. Just seems silly to drop $100 on an HDD upgrade instead of getting PSN, which is necessary for online gaming. But I've enjoyed remote play. It's simple, works, and lets me run a couple races of NFS before going to bed. I'm still waiting for the Vita TV to get updated with US PSN account support so I can play it on my bedroom TV too.
 
Guys no, these Seagate SSHD's are crap. But If you really want performance get an SSD. If you want space stick with a mechanical drive.
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SSHD's are total crap, still a point of failure having a half mechanical drive, go SSD or go home.
 
I've had a Crucial M500 960GB SSD waiting 2 weeks prior to my PS4 delivery. The swapping was extremely easy to do with a youtube vid or 2 just to make sure everything goes right. Ofcoarse now I am sitting with a system that cost less than the drive in it and all tests shows it is just slightly faster. I suppose the best if only thing I can take away from this is that the heat generation is taken away.
 
from the benchmarks boot time is good, but load times are still slow, maybe that's due to the OS not being optimized for SSD performance?
 


Yea it technically loads faster, but not enough to justify the cost. The gains aren't as massive as on PC. You're also stuck waiting for the developer logo splash screens and the read speed of the Blu-ray drive too, which just nullifies most speed gains anyways.
 
Interesting article. The one questions I have is why would you compare an Seagate drive that spins at 7200rpm to a WD Blue and a Samsung M8 which both spin at 5400rpm? They should have tested a WD Black and a Samsung MP4 which run at 7200rpm for better comparison.
 


The Samsung M8 is the stock drive in the PS4. The WD Scorpio Blue was a drive I had sitting in a drawer. We were comparing the difference between HDD vs. SSD. Also, there isn't a Scorpio Black 1TB, they top out at 750GB. SSHDs seem to be the future and newer 5400RPM drives are just as fast as older 7200RPM drives.
 
Why is the WD blue drive so slow? Isn't it a 7200rpm drive, why would it be slower than the stock PS4 drive? Interestingly enough, I added a 750gb WD blue drive to my PS3 and the PS3 format took 30 minutes or so. When I replaced it with a 500gb Seagate Momentus XT SSHD, the format only took 5 minutes, I'm not sure why there's such a huge time discrepancy. Maybe Sony will release an update that will allow the PS4 to better take advantage of faster discs but I wouldn't hold my breath. Meanwhile I'll save money by not buying one and buying more games on Steam. I've got an HTPC with a Radeon 7950 in it so that should keep me happy for a while. I only use my PS3 when playing blurays & games exclusive to that platform like Colossus and Wrath of the White Witch; otherwise I prefer to play on the HTPC and avoid the hassle of shuffling discs.
 
The SSD in my computer seems to speed up everything tremendously. The machine boots in literally seconds as opposed to a minute. Why doesn't the PS4 realize similar performance increases when upgrading from a hard drive to an SSD? A console is really just a sort of computer, after all.
 
I may be wrong but the PS4 is x86 based so it is a PC so to speak. so it would be cool if someone manages to make it dual boot to LINUX and turn it into PS4/SteamBox :) Wondering if a PS4 emulator would be possible due to similar hardware as well. I went on a SSD shopping spree. Picked up a 480gb for $230, two 256gb for $75 each and one 120gb for $39 just in the last week. It seems like SSD pricing is finally starting to capitulate.
 


Because on closed platforms, the OS is optimized heavily for the set hardware. They know exactly whats in it and they can optimize it perfectly for the hardware. You get speed boosts from the SSD but the OS isn't quite optimized to take maximum advantage of the performance.
 
Why is the WD blue drive so slow? Isn't it a 7200rpm drive, why would it be slower than the stock PS4 drive?
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It's not just a WD Blue, it's an older WD Scorpio Blue, which I believe was a 5400 rpm drive. So its results compared to the stock hard drive aren't too surprising.
 
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