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

[groundhogdaze]

Someone in the modding community may come up with a way to "optimize" the PS4 OS to better leverage SSDs and faster drives, at least I hope so.

 

[groundhogdaze]

Why is the WD blue drive so slow? Isn't it a 7200rpm drive, why would it be slower than the stock PS4 drive?

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.

Thanks for pointing that out. I would say the best bang for the buck would be to throw in a 500gb-1tb 7200rpm drive which you can get on sale for ~$50 instead of overpaying for a SSD or a SSHD.

 

[AndreasZ]

I dont care much about loading times, i can wait a few extra seconds, what i want to know is if it can improve texture popping and if the menus will run smoother

 

[Haravikk]

The article didn't really cover how exactly the SSHD was tested; since a big part of its performance is based on how well it caches content, to get best-case values you would really need to run the test a couple of times as a warm-up, then run it again to get a final value.For example, the boot-time test showed an improvement, but was that immediately after install? After a few restarts? After installing some games? etc. I mean the 8gb cache will make a difference, but these days 8gb is going to fill up pretty quickly, so it's not clear how close to SSD performance we're really likely to see.Loading recent save-games does seem like the most important case for the SSHD though, as it makes sense for it to use the flash part as a write cache, and recent save games will be more likely to still be cached than other content.Don't get me wrong, SSHDs are still my drive of choice for a single-drive (e.g - small form factor) system, and actually I thought it was what Sony were to going to use, but with the size of these games I'm really hoping there'll be a new generation of hybrids with bigger flash parts soon, as one with 16gb or even 32gb ought to be possible without bumping the cost up too much, and would make a much bigger difference.

 

[fulle]

In most of the PS4 hard-drive comparisons I've seen, the tester uses a hybrid drive (which I think is foolish for console use), but can't put a decent fast 7200rpm drive into the comparison. It's actually getting really irritating at this point.

 

[groundhogdaze]

In most of the PS4 hard-drive comparisons I've seen, the tester uses a hybrid drive (which I think is foolish for console use), but can't put a decent fast 7200rpm drive into the comparison. It's actually getting really irritating at this point.

Based on some of reviews I read, using a SSHD works really well for the PS3 when it comes to smoothing out the gameplay and navigating through the menus and I'm assuming it would apply to the PS4 as well. Even upgrading to a 7200rpm drive helps in this aspect. I had a spare SSHD lying around so I threw it in my PS3 and it does feel subjectively faster all around. What irritates me is that there aren't more 1tb 7200rpm SSHD offerings. Seagate upped their SSHD solution to 1tb but reduced the drive speed to 5400rpm and kept the SSD portion a measly 8gb. You either have that or the funky, overpriced WD SSHD which is a 120gb SSD stapled to a 5400rpm HD. What happened to the offerings in between?

 

[RedJaron]

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.

I've had a 500GB SSHD in my PS3 for two years. I've never seen any stutter effects like you're describing.

Why is the WD blue drive so slow? Isn't it a 7200rpm drive, why would it be slower than the stock PS4 drive?

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.

Right, Caviar is the 3.5" model, Scorpio is the 2.5" model. So far as I recall, only Scorpio Blacks went up to 7200 rpm.

I dont care much about loading times, i can wait a few extra seconds, what i want to know is if it can improve texture popping and if the menus will run smoother

Texture popping is often up to the game itself. Look at Halo 2. I talked with one of Bungie devs and he said they basically pushed the XBox about as far as it could go and the artifact popping was because they ran out of time to optimize texture loading. Considering the PS4 is brand new, I'll guess any artifact popping is because the software is lacking, not because the hardware is overtaxed.

In most of the PS4 hard-drive comparisons I've seen, the tester uses a hybrid drive (which I think is foolish for console use), but can't put a decent fast 7200rpm drive into the comparison. It's actually getting really irritating at this point.

I upgraded my stock 60GB PS3 HDD to a 250GB Scorpio Black back in 2010. Load times were a little faster, but not by much ( didn't break out a stopwatch, but I'd be surprised if it was more than a few seconds. ) Boot time didn't appear different at all. Biggest difference I saw was in Rock Band and Force Unleashed. I upgraded again in 2012 to a 500GB Seagate SSHD. Boot was definitely a few seconds faster, and larger game loads sped up. But again, it's not earth shattering. I only upgraded because I needed the space, not for faster load times.

So far as I know, the PS3 only had a SATA I connection which would bottleneck fast drives ( I don't know if the later Slim revamps upped it to SATA II. ) So my question is whether the PS4 has SATA II or III ( the M8 is only a 3.0 Gbps drive. ) If the PS4 doesn't support the 6.0 Gbps rate, it won't matter much how well the OS reacts to SSD, you'll never see all the benefits.

 

[jimmysmitty]

groundhogdaze, No. WD Blues in laptops are 5400RPM. Only WD Blacks are 7200RPM.As for the time discrepancy for you, the SSHD is made to be faster. They normally push at least 2x the read and write speeds as well as higher IOPS vs a standard HDD.I don't have a console really. I have a 360 for my wifes much younger brother but I have a small HTPC with a BR in it and my desktop has one.Neither new console is really worth anything really.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Emerald, the Samsung does not spin at 7200RPM but rather 5400RPM. The advantage is that it has a 8GB MLC cache that it uses much like the SSD caching that Intel has on their newer chipsets.

 

[10tacle]

Anyone who has upgraded their PS3 drive years ago knows this. I've upgraded the original 60GB Fat Boy with a 320GB 7200rpm drive around 2008, and in 2011 put in a 500GB 7200rpm drive in a Slim after the FB died. Both offered negligible performance gains. Loading times seemed a little higher on games last played just like this article shows, but that was about it. Like most, I upgraded both for space, not speed, but decided to go for the 7200rpm versions just for "why not" kicks. And like the article states, the PS3/4 architecture is not designed to take advantage of HDD and SSD I/O throughput (and SATA III for SSD specifically).

 

[JOSHSKORN]

I really don't understand why both Sony and Microsoft went with SATA II. I mean, cost is one thing, but overall performance would've been much better, yes?

 

[RedJaron]

I really don't understand why both Sony and Microsoft went with SATA II. I mean, cost is one thing, but overall performance would've been much better, yes?

I know the drives are SATA II, but I've not seen confirmation that the controllers are such.

I can kind of understand it. Relatively few mechanical drives can saturate SATA II right now ( and hardly any 2.5" drives, ) and those that do usually don't sustain it. Still, how much extra would SATA III have cost? It would have given the mech drives a little bonus speed from large caches and would have benefitted those that wanted to go crazy and drop in a SSD.

You want to use a stock SATA II drive, by all means do so. But I see no reason to handicap the controller.

 

[juanml82]

SSDs don't make much of a difference for most games (titles like Skyrim which load maps almost every time you open a door might be exceptions). This isn't news.

 

[sourceplease]

"newer 5400RPM drives are just as fast as older 7200RPM drives"Wow.

 

[hockeyplayer]

I really don't get all the PC lovers that feel the need to hate on consoles. Stating it will be outdated in 2 years blah blah blah, and my computer owns any console out there blah blah. I love my PC games and I love building them, but as far as overall PlayStation is where its at for me as of right now (but hey, just an opinion) I have spent far more money replacing Graphics cards alone in a few years compared to the $325 i've spent on a PS4? Of course you cannot upgrade a playstation gpu after a few years but even at the end of the ps3's life the last of use and even gta v still looked amazing. Anytime I see a forum disputing PC vs Consoles debate it's like 14 yr olds fighting over Battlefield and Call of Duty.

 

[Maziar]

Great article! I thought the effects of a HDD>SSD is similar compared to PC but it definitely isn't for PS4. You won't notice much of a change so as you mentioned,it's not worth upgrading it,at least for now

 

[groundhogdaze]

"I really don't get all the PC lovers that feel the need to hate on consoles"
I've own numerous consoles so I certainly don't hate them but I do prefer gaming on my home theater PC due to having the entire game library on a hard drive which will always be playable on my PC- past, present and future without worrying about backwards and forwards compatibility. I may get a PS4 someday as well but I don't know of a "Killer App" for it and my living room and man-cave are clogged full of consoles as it is. That and games on Steam are dirt cheap when on sale. One Platform to Rule Them All...

 

[beavermml]

do the "not so fast" gain by the SSD is due to the SATA controller? can we know what type of SATA controller the PS4 uses? seeing that the PS3 employ SATA 1 ( 1.5Gbps ), which will heavily bottleneck the SSD drives, maybe PS4 is using older tech to really saves the total cost...

 

[beavermml]

do the "not so fast" gain by the SSD is due to the SATA controller? can we know what type of SATA controller the PS4 uses? seeing that the PS3 employ SATA 1 ( 1.5Gbps ), which will heavily bottleneck the SSD drives, maybe PS4 is using older tech to really saves the total cost...

 

[waikano]

I dropped a 1TB Seagate SSHD into ours before we even used it for Christmas, I got the drive on some insane NewEgg sale for $90...so overall I'm happy. I knew back then the gaines would be minimal, but we have a family of 6 with all separate profiles so I didn't want to hassle with migrating all of that once we were hitting the 500gb limit.

 

[hockeyplayer]

I am newer to gaming on PC, and I do get that games are cheaper on PC, but you cannot sell them is that right? or if you can sell them it isn't very profitable to sell them. I only ask this because I run my own eBay and Amazon business, and never actually pay for a game unless I keep it. I will usually buy a game like GTA V (on ebay) used for cheap and usually end up selling it for slightly more when I am done with it. So I do see how games are cheaper, but for someone like me who usually trades them in, or used to trade them in to places like GameStop as a kid, and would get ripped off getting like 10% of its value if I was luck, BS. Now with eBay it's been kid off a sweet deal being able to grab a deal and play it through and still coming out on top. Just s thought.
I got into this debate with a neighbor who seemed to defend pc to the death. When he mentioned prices being way cheaper I told him about how I sell mine and he stated you can sell your steam games to, but didn't really explain it. I figured it would be a hassle?? with the game being tied to your Steam Acct?

 

[waikano]

I dropped a 1TB Seagate SSHD into ours before we even used it for Christmas, I got the drive on some insane NewEgg sale for $90...so overall I'm happy. I knew back then the gaines would be minimal, but we have a family of 6 with all separate profiles so I didn't want to hassle with migrating all of that once we were hitting the 500gb limit.

 

[slyu9213]

Everytime I stop by the game section at Best Buy and Walmarts around town I see that there are no PS4's. I'm surprised PS4 is still in the lead. Luckily I got mine back in November. My plan: Get a 2.5" 9.5mm 2TB HDD for internal storage, Get a PS Vita (though there is not a lot of games I like on there) and wait for external storage compatability. Then my quest for every game begins.

 

[groundhogdaze]

I am newer to gaming on PC, and I do get that games are cheaper on PC, but you cannot sell them is that right?

That's a good point you bring up. I don't know of a way to sell individual games on Steam but I suppose you can sell your Steam account unless you are buying games and not activating them, you could actually make a profit off that. Buy a game key on steam sale for $5, wait for the sale to be over, and then sell the key a week later on ebay for $10. I sold physical copies of games and software on ebay, but after a while, decided it was too much of a hassle. Once you sell a console game, its gone. I like to keep my games because, though I'm tired of it, I have friends and family visit and it's nice to be able to let them play stuff. The average price I pay for a game is ~$5 so it's like buying a hamburger. I wouldn't want to sell it to someone after I took a bite. The fact that your neighbor loves his PC so much is a testament to how awesome it is, haha..

 

[groundhogdaze]

Now with eBay it's been kid off a sweet deal being able to grab a deal and play it through and still coming out on top.

These days I hardly have time to play so games sit in my queue for months & years. I also buy multiple copies of the same game for LAN party purposes so the low upfront pricing is a big factor for me.