Despite being a modern console, the Playstation 5’s internal storage leaves a lot to be desired. With a total capacity of 825GB, and only 667GB reserved for you to install games, that’s not a lot of room – especially if your gaming diet is AAA-heavy.
If you’ve owned a PS5 since launch, there’s probably a good chance that you’ve gotten close to hitting capacity and have had to deal with the frustrating dance of weighing up what game data you need to delete to make space for more.
If you’re looking to bump up your PS5’s storage without hurling your current data into the void, you’ve got two options. You can buy an external, portable SSD and ferry data back and forth on there, or you can install an internal SSD into your PS5.
If you’re looking to take the latter route, you can currently grab some great deals on a few PS5-compatible WD Black SSDs.
What WD Black SSDs are on sale?
As far as internal SSDs go, Western Digital’s WD Black series is pretty reliable, and the SN850 is one of the best PCIe Gen 4 SSDs that you can buy, with some absurdly good read/write speeds of up to 7000/5300MB. Sony recommends that you use an SSD with a cooling structure attached to ensure effective heat dissipation. While you can buy a heatsink separately and attach it to your SSD, these WD Black SSD come with a heatsink pre-installed.
Here are how the WD Black sales shake out:
- 500GB – now $189.88, usually around $219 to $259
- 1TB – now $259.03, usually around $359
- 2TB – now $548.55, usually around $690
These price tags may seem a bit steep, but they’re worth every dollar for what you’re getting. The only catch is that these deals are available from Amazon’s US and UK branches, so you’ll have to wait a couple of weeks for your fancy new SSD to arrive. Still, that’s a pretty good tradeoff if it means saving up to $150.
If the PC is your gaming platform of choice, these SSDs would also make a great addition to your rig. Just make sure you’ve got enough space to accommodate them.
What are the requirements for adding an SSD to your PS5?
Apart from having a heatsink attached, there are a few other specifications that need to be met when installing an internal SSD in your PS5.
Here are the spec requirements for your SSD:
- Interface: PCIe Gen4 x4 M.2 NVMe
- Sequential read speed: Minimum 5500MB/s recommended
- Form factor: 2230, 2242, 2260, 2280 or 22110
- Size with heatsink: 110 x 25 x 11.25 mm
- Heatsink size below SSD: 2.45mm
- Heatsink size above SSD: 8mm
The WD Black SN850 SSDs that are currently on sale all meet the necessary criteria for compatible SSDs, so you shouldn’t have any problem installing one in your PS5. You can check out our hands-on experience of the installation process here. To ensure you’ve correctly installed the SSD into your PS5, you’re best to follow Sony’s guidance for proper installation, which Kotaku Australia has previously covered here.
This article has been updated since its original publication.