Best SSDs for PS4

In this article, we make an SSD recommendation for PS4 and PS4 Pro. Although PlayStation 5 is a console designed to use NVMe SSD technology, we can use it with SSD.

The main reason to do this is because you want the console to last you for several years, and since hard drives tend to degrade over time, solid state drive is preferred to keep our games safe and not get scared over time when we want to play with our favorite console again.

Importance of using SSD for PS4 and PS4 Pro

In any case, do not expect the speed of the next-gen console itself, because not all PS4 variants are designed for SSD and use a SATA interface when communicating with the system, which actually becomes a USB 3.0, so the maximum bandwidth is 5 Gbits per second, which means 625 MB / s. income. That doesn’t put it anywhere near the speed of a PS5 drive, but it’s fast enough to seamlessly support most SATA SSDs on the market.

Moreover, the PlayStation 4 drive reaches 300MB/s at best, so technically what we talked about in the previous section means doubling the bandwidth between the storage drive and the console, but that doesn’t mean doubling the upload speed.

In any case, we give you a few details so that you have an idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe improvement: The Witcher 3 using SSD takes 45 seconds to load, if we use a hard disk it takes another 20 seconds to load. In Just Cause 4, if we have a solid state drive, the game menu will take 21 seconds to load, while with the hard drive, it will take 34 seconds. In Crysis Remaster, it takes 70 seconds to load a level if we’re using an SSD, instead loading times are up to 20 seconds if we’re using the unit that comes standard with the console.

As you can see, the load times are better, but the difference is not that much, as games are not designed to use a solid state drive and given the limitations of the SATA interface compared to an NVMe. In any case, there’s no interface for installing an M.2 on the PS4, and we’re limited to 2.5-inch SSDs.

The best SSDs for your PS4 console

After the introduction, we will present to you a selection of 2.5 inch SATA SSD models that we believe are ideal candidates for replacing the hard drive of your PS4 Pro consoles.

Samsung SSD 870 EVO

We start with the Samsung driver, which comes in 1, 2, 4 and 8 TB versions. It is a long-lasting unit as it supports up to 2880 TBW of writes during its useful life, so if you are one of those who have a huge collection of games purchased from PSN, you can download and install them to enjoy.

In terms of bandwidth, the Samsung 870 EVO can perform sequential reads and writes of up to 560 MB/s and 530 MB/s respectively, as expected from this type of drive. If we already talk about its performance when accessing random data, then reading goes to 98,000 IOPS and writing goes to 88,000.

Crucial MX500

The second SSD for PS4 we bring to you is the Crucial MX 500 with very close specs as it has a sequential read speed of 560MB/s, but slightly worse than the Samsung model with 510MB/s when running at sequential writes. As for random read performance, that’s 95,000 IOPS, but 90,000 on writes.

For all this we need to clarify this last piece of information, which is hardly relevant for a video game console, because it will rarely do random writes because it only accesses the storage to autosave or load the game. In any case, this is a good option if you want to replace your PS4’s HDD with an SSD.

WD Blue 3D and SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD

No, it’s not a mistake, we’re not telling you to buy and install both SATA SSDs on your PS4, but if we’ve put them together, it’s because it’s the same hardware with the same specifications, even under a different brand from the same company. The sequential read speed is 560 MB/s, which is standard on all such drives. As for the sequential write speed, it stays at 530MB/s so it’s on par with the Samsung model.

If we go for random performance, this solid state drive reaches 95,000 IOPS in reads and 84,000 IOPS in writes, so both hard drives take the silver medal in performance, but WD Blue usually costs less as we have to choose either one for price.

ADATA SU800r

The last one on the list is the ADATA SU800, we won’t say as the read speed is the same as the others but the write speed is 520 MB/s, the IOPS performance is 95,000 for read and 84,000 for write.

It has a dynamic SLC cache and a RAID Engine, meaning its performance remains stable and does not drop. This is ideal for very large gaming systems.