PS5 came to me with a standard (and small) internal storage - you have about 825Gb and you can fill only 667.2Gb, according to my PS App. Once you have Call Of Duty installed (not even all it's parts, only multiplayer and zombie mode), you stay with 474Gb. It's ok, if you play only 2 or 3 games, but what if you don't want to download every time games which you occasionally play? Here comes storage expand slot.

I chose Samsung 980 Pro 1Tb mainly because it fits Sony requirements for M.2 SSD storages. And because it already has radiator case which is important for work with PS5: overheating can cause storage throttling.

What's inside?

Inside the box you'll find SSD storage, which is pretty small and installation guide (I don't know, why it is sealed with piece of paper, really).

SSD is really small, compared to what I've seen before. Samsung 980 Pro form-factor is M.2 2280.

Let's upgrade PS5 already!

I followed official Sony guide, so I won't duplicate each step here.

First step is to turn off your PS5, cool it down and disconnect all cables from it. Remove platform and follow further instructions. All I have to say is that the step where we must 'gently lift the cover up with your right hand and slide the cover off with your left thumb while using the fingers of your left hand to stable your PS5 console' was the hardest one for me. I was afraid of cracking the plate but luckily I was able to slide it after my third attempt.

It's worth mentioning that disk drive has rubber buffers for screws, which ideally will extinguish screw fluctuations and rattling (but not all the time).

Three easy steps:
1) Remove expansion slot's plate
2) Remove the screw and choose proper size of your ssd
3) Place ssd on it's place gently pushing it into socket and then - place screw back

First disappointment

If you return to the first photo with SSD box, you will see that it has label 'up to 7000MB/s'. But the real speed which you will see out of the box in your PS5 will be about 5500-5600. It's not bad and you will never notice it without special tests, but why the speed is slower?
Some people say that this occurs due to old SSD firmware which you can update via Samsung Magician Software...if you have another M.2 slot in your laptop or PC. External cases are not the answer so don't waste your time with 'em. Buying PCIE Card adapter probably will help.

Apart from not being able to update firmware on this SSD I'm happy, because I was finally been able to move some of games to another storage and install more games.

As for PS App (mine is for iOS), you can only delete games from drives and view how much of the space is occupied by your games. It will be cool to have ability to move games between storages from your mobile app.

I'm Nikita Makhov. I make modern websites.

I'm front-end developer in VK, passionate about Jamstack and performant web pages. Also I love running and driving my Volvo V40 CC.

Latest posts

Upgrading PS5 SSD storage

Hello World

I'm Nikita Makhov.
I make modern websites.