SATA 2.5' with max height of 9.5mm[1], minimal storage size 160GB (198 HDD models, 5 SSHD models and 362 SSD models comply to that). Ofcourse if you externalise the harddrive, (e.g. with a NykoData Bank) there is a whole world of 3.5' drives that are larger in storage size and also cheaper to be gotten.
Install the New Internal Hard Drive. Place the replacement hard drive on the mounting bracket for the PS4™ system's hard drive, and then attach it with the screws (four places). Do not over-tighten the screws. Attach the internal hard drive to the system using the screw. Be sure to fully insert the hard drive in the hard drive bay. If you want a PS4 hard drive upgrade, simply buy a PS4 external hard drive. At Best Buy, we carry an array of external hard drives for the PS4 and other video game consoles. These compact, portable, USB-powered data banks connect to your PS4 console through the USB port. The most popular capacity of external hard drive for your PS4 console is 2.
SSD can be used, but it seems that on the PS4 there is even less incentive (compared to PS3) to replace the drive for a SSD, best price/performance are still 7200rpm drives or true hybrid SSHD drives
it is unsure if TRIM is enabled by default for UFS on the PS4, but on BSD in general it can be enabled with tune2fs -t enable : http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=28004 see also : http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/ssd.html
Seagate (STGD2000100) Game Drive for PS4 Systems 2TB External Hard Drive Portable HDD – USB 3.0, Officially Licensed Product 4.8 out of 5 stars 6,019 $89.99$89.99 $109.99$109.99 Get it as soon as Wed, Aug 26. Thinking about taking the plunge and upgrading your PS4 with a shiny new SSD? Check out this video to see just how much of a difference replacing your PS4's.
- 1Size
- 2Replacing the harddrive
- 2.2Storage Speed
- 3Compatibility
Size[edit]
The reason for the discrepancy between 'real' and 'reported' HD size, is because windows reports GiB as GB See verbose explanation here, and a handy unit converter here.
- the standard 500GB harddrive is actually 465.76 GiB as reported by Windows
- after some splitting in 15 partitions, a 420.12 GiB mainpartition is left for the user
- on that mainpartition 408 GB is useable for the user
- after some splitting in 15 partitions, a 420.12 GiB mainpartition is left for the user
Capacity table[edit]
Market size (base10) | Real Size (base2) | mainpartition Size (base2) | Reported Size (base2) | 'diff' Real-Reported (base2) | Free (base2) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
500 GB | 465.76 GiB | 420.12 GiB | 408 GiB | 57.661 GiB | 407 GiB |
640 GB | 596.046 GiB | ||||
750 GB | 698.492 GiB | ||||
1 TB | 931.323 GiB | 862 GiB | 69.323 GiB | 861 GiB | |
1.5 TB | 1396.984 GiB | 1313 GiB | 83.984 GiB | 1312 GiB | |
2 TB | 1862.645 GiB | 1768 GiB | 94.645 GiB | 1767 GiB | |
3 TB | 2793.968 GiB | 2673 GiB | 120.968 GiB | 2672 GiB | |
4 TB | 3725.29 GiB | 3579 GiB | 146.29 GiB | 3578 GiB | |
5 TB | 4656.61 GiB | ||||
6 TB | 5587.935 GiB | 5390 GiB | 197.935 GiB | 5389 GiB | |
7 TB | 6519.26 GiB | ||||
8 TB | 7450.581 GiB | ||||
9 TB | 8381.9 GiB | ||||
10 TB | 9313.226 GiB | ||||
11 TB | 10244.5 GiB | ||||
12 TB | 11175.871 GiB |
Replacing the harddrive[edit]
Replacing the drive does not void warranty and can be done this way:
PS4 harddrive - image 01
PS4 harddrive - image 02
PS4 harddrive - image 03
Source: https://support.us.playstation.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5107/kw/ps4%20harddrive
Migrating / copy original data[edit]
Ps4 With Ssd
Acronis True Image, EASEUS Disk Copy, Clonezilla, Paragon Backup & Recovery, Ghost, Gparted etc. can be used to copy 1:1 the original to the replacement.
- http://superuser.com/questions/99211/free-way-to-clone-hdd-to-ssdent Acronis True Image - free alternatives
Storage Speed[edit]
Speed comparison - video[edit]
(Tested: PlayStation 4 Hard Drive vs. SSD vs. Hybrid Drive)
HDD Speed - table[edit]
HDD Speed | Stock Drive | 1TB Hitachi Z7K1000 | 1TB Seagate Hybrid | 240GB Crucial M500 SSD | 2TB Seagate |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Read Speed (Sequential/512K) | 116.5MB/s / 40.4MB/s | 132.9MB/s / 42.6MB/s | 95.9MB/s / 40.6MB/s | 191.9MB/s / 189.7MB/s | 122.1MB/s / 39.6MB/s |
Write Speed (Sequential/512K) | 114.4MB/s / 40.7MB/s | 127.9MB/s / 55.7MB/s | 106.7MB/s / 62.8MB/s | 211.8MB/s / 62.7MB/s | 120.9MB/s / 42.6MB/s |
Access Time | 21.1ms | 17.3ms | 6.9ms to 20.9ms | 0.06ms | 14.9ms |
Gigs per GBP | - | 18.7 | 13.3 | 2.7 | 31 |
source:http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-how-to-cheaply-upgrade-your-ps4-to-2tb
HDD Speed - Video[edit]
Stock HGST 500GB HDD vs OCZ Trion 100 480GB vs 1TB Seagate hybrid.
Compatibility[edit]
Economic contemplation[edit]
Type | €/GB | % |
---|---|---|
3.5' 7200 rpm HDD | 0,048 | 90.6 |
3.5' 5400 rpm HDD | 0,049 | 92.5 |
2.5' 5400 rpm HDD | 0,053 | 100 |
2.5' 7200 rpm HDD | 0,061 | 115.1 |
3.5' 7200 rpm SSHD | 0,071 | 134 |
2.5' 5400 rpm SHDD | 0,076 | 143.4 |
2.5' 1TB SSD | 0,358 | 675.5 |
2.5' 7200 rpm SSHD | NA | NA |
3.5' 5400 rpm SHDD | NA | NA |
3.5' 1TB SSD | NA | NA |
=>2TB HDD 2.5' 9.5mm or thinner[edit]
Harddrives, with =>2 TB of space, which fits inside the PS4 without modding the case (like explained at the top of this page)
SKU | Size | Compatible | Remarks | EAN | TweakersID | ASIN |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Seagate Spinpoint M9T - ST2000LM003 aka Samsung HN-M201RAD | 2 TB | Yes | 411214 | B00LB5Y450 | ||
Seagate Spinpoint M9T - ST2000LM004 | 2 TB | Yes | 411214 | |||
Seagate Spinpoint M9T - ST2000LM005 | 2 TB | No | USB Interface | |||
Seagate Spinpoint M9T - ST2000LM006 | 2 TB | Yes | 411214 | |||
Seagate Backup Plus Slim Portable Drive - STDR2000100 | 2 TB | Yes | Contains Seagate Spinpoint M9T series ST2000LM003 | 364111 | B00FRHTSK4 | |
Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Slim Portable Drive - STEH2000200 | 2 TB | Yes | 7636490071966 | |||
Seagate Mobile HDD - ST2000LM007 | 2 TB | Yes | 7mm Height only | |||
Seagate Mobile HDD - ST2000LM009 | 2 TB | Yes | 7mm Height only | |||
Seagate Mobile HDD - ST2000LM010 | 2 TB | Yes | 7mm Height only | |||
Toshiba HDTB330EK3CA | 3 TB | Pending | ?USB Interface? length is 11.9cm | 446560 | B00WIMBNGI | |
Toshiba MQ03ABB300 | 3 TB | Pending | 15mm thick | 430568 | ||
Toshiba HDTC615XK3B1 | 1.5 TB | Yes | contains MQ01ABC150 with SATA | |||
Toshiba HDTB210XK3BA | 500 GB | No | 11.9mm length / contains MQ01UBD050 with USB | B005J7YBRW | ||
Hitachi Travelstar 7K1000 | 1 TB | Yes | 7200rpm, also PS3 suitable | 328664 | ||
Seagate BarraCuda ST2000LM015 | 2 TB | Yes | 5400rpm, 7mm Height 128MB Cache | |||
Seagate BarraCuda ST1000LM048 | 1TB | Yes | 7mm Height only | 763649098301 |
Hybrid SSHD 2.5' 9.5mm or thinner[edit]
SKU | Size | Compatible | Remarks | EAN | TweakersID | ASIN |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Seagate Laptop SSHD ST1000LM014 | 1 TB | Yes | 0763649042670, 7636490041228 | 331296 | ||
Seagate Laptop SSHD ST1000LM015 | 1 TB | Yes | Self-Encrypting Drive | 0763649044315, 7636490042867 | 385738 | |
Seagate Laptop SSHD ST1000LM028 | 1 TB | Yes | Self-Encrypting Drive | |||
Seagate Laptop Thin SSHD ST500LM000 | 500 GB | Yes | 7636490041242 | 331388 | ||
Seagate Laptop Thin SSHD ST500LM001 | 500 GB | Yes | Self-Encrypting Drive | 0763649042946, 7636490041495 | 385751 | |
Seagate Laptop Thin SSHD ST500LM020 | 500 GB | Yes | Self-Encrypting Drive | |||
Seagate Ultra Mobile SSHD ST500LX012 | 500 GB | Yes | ||||
Seagate Ultra Mobile SSHD ST500LX014 | 500 GB | Yes | Zero Gravity Sensor | |||
Seagate Ultra Mobile SSHD ST500LX016 | 500 GB | Yes | Self-Encrypting Drive | |||
Seagate Ultra Mobile SSHD ST500LX013 | 500 GB | Yes | Self-Encrypting Drive | |||
Seagate Laptop SSHD STBD750201 | 750 GB | Yes | Kit | |||
Seagate Laptop SSHD STBD1000400 | 1 TB | Yes | Kit | 0763649046852, 7636490045400 | 344102 | |
Seagate SSHD STBD1000101 | 1 TB | Yes | Seagate | 7636490072956 | ||
Toshiba MQ02ABD100H | 1 TB | Yes | ||||
Toshiba MQ02ABF050H | 500 GB | Yes | ||||
Toshiba MQ01ABD100H | 1 TB | Yes | ||||
Toshiba MQ01ABD075H | 750 GB | Yes | ||||
Toshiba MQ01ABF050H | 500 GB | Yes | ||||
Toshiba H200 | 1 TB | Yes | [1] | |||
Toshiba H200 | 500 GB | Yes | [2] | |||
Western Digital Black-II WD1001x06xdtl | NA | No | NonHybrid |
=>1TB SSD 2.5' 9.5mm or thinner[edit]
1tb Ssd For Ps4
SKU | Size | Compatible | Remarks | EAN | TweakersID | ASIN |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adata Premier Pro SP610 1TB | 1 TB | Yes | 4712366960336 | 412687 | ||
Adata Premier Pro SP910 SSD 1TB | 1 TB | Yes | 4712366960206 | 431358 | ||
Crucial BX100 1TB | 1 TB | Yes | 0649528770660, 4540395601506 | 430405 | ||
Crucial M550 2,5' 1TB | 1 TB | Yes | 0649528766120, 4540395601186 | 376081 | ||
Crucial MX200 2,5' 1TB | 1 TB | Yes | 0649528770936 | 430409 | ||
Fixstars SSD-1000M | 1 TB | Pending | $990 press | 435159 | ||
Fixstars SSD-3000M | 3 TB | Pending | press | 435138 | ||
Fixstars SSD-6000M | 6 TB | Pending | spec | 435160 | ||
Mushkin Reactor 1TB | 1 TB | Yes | 0846651023070 | 425959 | ||
Plextor M6 Pro 1TB | 1 TB | Yes | 4718390737173 | 417659 | ||
Samsung 840 EVO 1TB | 1 TB | Yes | 8806085767584 | 340877 | ||
Samsung 850 EVO 1TB | 1 TB | Yes | 8806086523042 | 422397 | ||
Samsung 850 Pro 1TB | 1 TB | Yes | 0887276036304, 0887276057514, 8806086264679, 8806086338141, 8872760363044 | 398668 | ||
Samsung 850 EVO 2TB | 2 TB | Yes | € 860 press | 455056 | ||
Samsung 850 Pro 2TB | 2 TB | Yes | € 1080 press | 455116 | ||
Samsung Enterprise SSD PM863 SATA 3.84TB | 3,84TB | Yes | $2200 pressprod.page | 456001 | ||
Sandisk X300 2,5' 1TB | 1 TB | Yes | 6196591215948 | 434082 | ||
Sandisk X300s 2,5' 1TB | 1 TB | Yes | 0619659116651, 0619659116682, 6196591166820 | 400714 | ||
Transcend SSD370 (Premium) 1TB | 1 TB | Yes | 0760557829782 | 400541 |
Reliability[edit]
Notes[edit]
- ↑Sony lists compatibility as 9.5mm height, physically a 12.5mm can also fit, though a bit snuggly. Tried it with an ancient ST9190AG 0.504' 12.80mm (measured 12.3mm) drive, including the sled as usual
|
Way back in 2013, the idea of upgrading a PlayStation 4 with solid-state storage was an option - but not a realistic one when the cost per gig was so prohibitively expensive. Today though, SATA-based SSDs are more affordable and as developers push the hard drive harder, loading times and streaming issues are more prevalent. We've been asked to revisit SSD performance for PS4 for some time - and to do so, we've deployed a nuclear option: Samsung's new 870 QVO SSD. To test PS4 SSD performance to its ultimate potential, we effectively have an eight terabyte console. Even factoring in reserved space, we should be getting an order of magnitude more storage than the 825GB PlayStation 5.
To put the drive more fully through its paces, we opted to install it in PlayStation 4 Pro where its SATA-3 interface could perhaps offer more bandwidth and where the faster 2.13GHz AMD Jaguar CPU cores should crunch through compressed data far more quickly. It's the best way possible to enhance the console - but what advantages does it actually deliver? Can we address the long load times of games like The Witcher 3? Can we mitigate the ugly pop-in issues in Final Fantasy 7 Remake? And crucially, what's the difference between running this beast as a USB add-on drive as opposed to using it to replace the internal stock hard drive? These are the questions we've been asked over the months and now we've got some answers.
You can find out more about the Samsung QVO line in prior coverage but how it achieves its remarkable level of storage is fascinating and indeed controversial. Along with other recent high capacity drives, QLC NAND is used, allowing four bits per cell (as opposed to the two to three bits in prior NAND technology). This is combined with the vertical stacking of memory modules to increase storage density. The downside to QLC NANDs is slower read and write speeds but Samsung mitigates this with a large DRAM cache - 8GB in the case of the 8TB QVO 870. Samsung promises a max read of 560MB/s and write of 530MB/s - and our tests pull respectably close to both. There are concerns about QLC NAND's longevity in terms of endurance but that's unlikely to be a concern on games console where data is written relatively infrequently.
Previous tests have demonstrated that consoles never use the full extent of an SSD's speed boost vs the same drive running in a PC, but there is perhaps room for improvement here. When used as external storage via USB, the same drive should be hot-swappable between PS4 and PS5 and with the new architecture, we should expect to see a higher bandwidth USB interface along with a far faster processor to decompress incoming data. You won't be able to use an external SATA SSD to run PS5 games but there could be good benefits for faster loading and better streaming for your existing PS4 library.
We'll kick off the tests with the crucial loading times - tested with the SSD mounted within PS4 Pro, and also attached via a USB to SATA connector and configured as extended storage. In an era where some loading times can exceed one minute or even 90 seconds, there must surely be scope for improvement - and the good news is that an SSD can deliver some excellent returns. With the Samsung drive installed internally, loading up our Novigrad save game in The Witcher 3 delivers a 32 per cent reduction in loading times.
There's a nice boost to fast travel times too, and this does make playing the game a little more pleasurable to the experience of dropping in out of regions on the map. However, even with the SSD, we're still looking at loading times in excess of a minute - and the same drive handling the same task in the same game on PC does this a lot, lot more quickly. Again, I do have to wonder whether PlayStation 5 will do better here under backwards compatibility.
To see another big upgrade, Battlefield 5 is worth a look. Booting a War Stories mission in Nordlys usually takes a whole 60 seconds to get to any gameplay, but the SSD cleaves that straight in half to 30 seconds. Other missions see even greater gains - the next mission along, Tirailleur, hits the same 30 seconds figure on an SSD, down from 66 seconds on stock. All of which gives us an extreme cut in loading times: 45 per cent of the wait you'd experience on the stock HDD. To pick another title with a big opening load ahead of a sprawling open field, we have Day's Gone, again making a significant improvement with a reduction from 87 seconds down to 47.
Loading Times (Seconds) | PS4 Pro Stock 1TB HDD | 870 QVO 8TB SSD: External | 870 QVO 8TB SSD: Internal |
---|---|---|---|
Battlefield 5: Mission 3 Nordlys | 59.35 | 34.46 | 30.10 |
Battlefield 5: Mission 4 Tirailleur | 66.04 | 36.18 | 31.01 |
The Witcher 3: Novigrad Centre | 91.20 | 67.46 | 62.36 |
The Witcher 3: White Orchard | 40.43 | 22.52 | 22.46 |
Bloodborne: Iosefka's Office (From Hunter's Dream) | 23.45 | 12.05 | 13.38 |
Bloodborne: Central Yharnam (From Hunter's Dream) | 25.22 | 13.37 | 15.34 |
Fallout 4: Diamond City | 44.39 | 19.44 | 14.18 |
Fallout 4: Commonwealth | 48.25 | 23.01 | 20.49 |
Gran Turismo Sport: Sunday Cup 3 Dragon's Tail | 22.49 | 20.17 | 20.24 |
Gran Turismo Sport: Sunday Cup 4 Alsace | 19.25 | 17.58 | 17.36 |
Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Sector 7 Slums Residential Area | 33.29 | 20.55 | 19.54 |
Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Sector 5 Slums Church | 24.31 | 17.17 | 16.08 |
Day's Gone: 1st Mission Load | 87.28 | 50.16 | 47.16 |
Plenty of other titles show off the merits of the SSD. Bloodborne, Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Gran Turismo Sport all see improvements to varying degrees - shown below. Perhaps the best one to call out from the bunch is Fallout 4, a game that does involve entering and leaving interiors, like Diamond City, which cues up some lengthy loads. In this case, loading our Diamond City save takes just 14 seconds on the internal SSD, down from 44 seconds usually. That gets us our biggest relative saving, at 32 per cent of the overall load time. Again, impressive stuff for the SSD - and even accessed via USB it's a remarkable gain.
In terms of how game loading times compare with the SSD mounted internally or connected via USB, our results demonstrate that there is indeed an advantage in going through the upgrade procedure and removing your stock HDD completely, but the results are variable. Looking at our Final Fantasy 7 Remake result, the load time is just one second faster than using the same drive externally via USB - 19.5 seconds vs 20.6. Bizarrely, in Bloodborne, both of our loading time tests saw the internal result being one to two seconds slower. However, elsewhere, the scores were either on par or significantly better. Our Witcher 3 Novigrad save test saw an internal SSD lop off five seconds from the external result. Similarly, we saw three to five second gains in Fallout 4 loading. That may not sound too amazing but when the load times are in the 20 second range with the external SSD, an extra three to five second time saving is proportionally very impressive.
If I were doing the upgrade, I'd likely opt to mount the drive internally to get as much performance back as possible from what is, after all, a very expensive upgrade. However, external USB storage has a key advantage - as long as you're using the same PSN login, you can share the drive between multiple consoles... and this should include PlayStation 5.
The next big question then: can upgrading to an SSD improve the actual playing experience? Games rely heavily on streaming, and in his recent Road to PS5 presentation, Mark Cerny explained the many challenges of working with a mechanical hard drive. Moving to SSD effectively eliminates the bottlenecks inherent in the hard drive. We've see a raft of games battle with the seek times of the PS4's internal HDD in this sense, like Final Fantasy 7 Remake's slum area, for example. The results are usually mitigated by buffering data in the background into system RAM but games like Final Fantasy 7 Remake still clearly depend on the drive for streaming some assets. The result is glaring pop-in, and textures that at times do not load until you've walked right past them.
Tests at the time of review were inconclusive, but a more detailed look with the QVO 870 does seem to show clear and dramatic boost to texture loading and even a noticeable upgrade in geometry pop-in. There's also a good improvement in The Witcher 3's more challenging areas too. Galloping from the outskirts of the Novigrad region to the inner city, this run is a perfect stress test for a stock PS4 Pro drive versus an SSD. Again, there's an undeniable upgrade here. Much like Final Fantasy 7 Remake, textures on building sides can't load in time on the stock PS4 Pro HDD, leaving a blurry mess on the first run, with no problem at all on SSD. There are no improvements to geometry pop-in, however.
Other more subtle improvements are also evident. On Day's Gone, there are some improvements to texture pop-in during cutscenes. Then there's the storage-bound monster that is Fallout 4. We run a set route of the commonwealth just outside Diamond City, and again, textures underfoot fail to resolve in time as we run over the terrain while the SSD saves the day yet again - faster seek times to its flash memory serve up the assets faster.
So, the evidence for an SSD upgrade is looking good then. Loading times aren't improved in step with the generational leap in hardware performance, but they are substantially better. On the titles most egregiously impacted by asset pop-in, we can confirm that there are improvements. We are using what may well be the best possible SSD for the job here with a storage level that commands a stratospheric price-point but smaller capacity drives are available and the storage-side bottleneck should be mostly eliminated even on much cheaper SSDs.
But one lingering question we've been asked many times concerns the PS4's front-end menus, which can get a little laggy. Using the SSD as external storage won't mitigate this, but the theory is that using it internally will. Well, from a cold boot, PS4 Pro gets to the menus much faster than it does on stock - and likewise for switching between games. It's a swifter process on the SSD with less stutter. That's the extent of it though in our testing; for actual menu navigation there's only small gains in smoothness. Most elements of PS4's UI are more dependant on network speed, like the tiles of your games library, or the social details under each game. An upgrade to an SSD - either external, or installed internally - doesn't make a huge difference in this sense. Really, the biggest upgrade relates to the loading speeds.
To see another big upgrade, Battlefield 5 is worth a look. Booting a War Stories mission in Nordlys usually takes a whole 60 seconds to get to any gameplay, but the SSD cleaves that straight in half to 30 seconds. Other missions see even greater gains - the next mission along, Tirailleur, hits the same 30 seconds figure on an SSD, down from 66 seconds on stock. All of which gives us an extreme cut in loading times: 45 per cent of the wait you'd experience on the stock HDD. To pick another title with a big opening load ahead of a sprawling open field, we have Day's Gone, again making a significant improvement with a reduction from 87 seconds down to 47.
Loading Times (Seconds) | PS4 Pro Stock 1TB HDD | 870 QVO 8TB SSD: External | 870 QVO 8TB SSD: Internal |
---|---|---|---|
Battlefield 5: Mission 3 Nordlys | 59.35 | 34.46 | 30.10 |
Battlefield 5: Mission 4 Tirailleur | 66.04 | 36.18 | 31.01 |
The Witcher 3: Novigrad Centre | 91.20 | 67.46 | 62.36 |
The Witcher 3: White Orchard | 40.43 | 22.52 | 22.46 |
Bloodborne: Iosefka's Office (From Hunter's Dream) | 23.45 | 12.05 | 13.38 |
Bloodborne: Central Yharnam (From Hunter's Dream) | 25.22 | 13.37 | 15.34 |
Fallout 4: Diamond City | 44.39 | 19.44 | 14.18 |
Fallout 4: Commonwealth | 48.25 | 23.01 | 20.49 |
Gran Turismo Sport: Sunday Cup 3 Dragon's Tail | 22.49 | 20.17 | 20.24 |
Gran Turismo Sport: Sunday Cup 4 Alsace | 19.25 | 17.58 | 17.36 |
Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Sector 7 Slums Residential Area | 33.29 | 20.55 | 19.54 |
Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Sector 5 Slums Church | 24.31 | 17.17 | 16.08 |
Day's Gone: 1st Mission Load | 87.28 | 50.16 | 47.16 |
Plenty of other titles show off the merits of the SSD. Bloodborne, Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Gran Turismo Sport all see improvements to varying degrees - shown below. Perhaps the best one to call out from the bunch is Fallout 4, a game that does involve entering and leaving interiors, like Diamond City, which cues up some lengthy loads. In this case, loading our Diamond City save takes just 14 seconds on the internal SSD, down from 44 seconds usually. That gets us our biggest relative saving, at 32 per cent of the overall load time. Again, impressive stuff for the SSD - and even accessed via USB it's a remarkable gain.
In terms of how game loading times compare with the SSD mounted internally or connected via USB, our results demonstrate that there is indeed an advantage in going through the upgrade procedure and removing your stock HDD completely, but the results are variable. Looking at our Final Fantasy 7 Remake result, the load time is just one second faster than using the same drive externally via USB - 19.5 seconds vs 20.6. Bizarrely, in Bloodborne, both of our loading time tests saw the internal result being one to two seconds slower. However, elsewhere, the scores were either on par or significantly better. Our Witcher 3 Novigrad save test saw an internal SSD lop off five seconds from the external result. Similarly, we saw three to five second gains in Fallout 4 loading. That may not sound too amazing but when the load times are in the 20 second range with the external SSD, an extra three to five second time saving is proportionally very impressive.
If I were doing the upgrade, I'd likely opt to mount the drive internally to get as much performance back as possible from what is, after all, a very expensive upgrade. However, external USB storage has a key advantage - as long as you're using the same PSN login, you can share the drive between multiple consoles... and this should include PlayStation 5.
The next big question then: can upgrading to an SSD improve the actual playing experience? Games rely heavily on streaming, and in his recent Road to PS5 presentation, Mark Cerny explained the many challenges of working with a mechanical hard drive. Moving to SSD effectively eliminates the bottlenecks inherent in the hard drive. We've see a raft of games battle with the seek times of the PS4's internal HDD in this sense, like Final Fantasy 7 Remake's slum area, for example. The results are usually mitigated by buffering data in the background into system RAM but games like Final Fantasy 7 Remake still clearly depend on the drive for streaming some assets. The result is glaring pop-in, and textures that at times do not load until you've walked right past them.
Tests at the time of review were inconclusive, but a more detailed look with the QVO 870 does seem to show clear and dramatic boost to texture loading and even a noticeable upgrade in geometry pop-in. There's also a good improvement in The Witcher 3's more challenging areas too. Galloping from the outskirts of the Novigrad region to the inner city, this run is a perfect stress test for a stock PS4 Pro drive versus an SSD. Again, there's an undeniable upgrade here. Much like Final Fantasy 7 Remake, textures on building sides can't load in time on the stock PS4 Pro HDD, leaving a blurry mess on the first run, with no problem at all on SSD. There are no improvements to geometry pop-in, however.
Other more subtle improvements are also evident. On Day's Gone, there are some improvements to texture pop-in during cutscenes. Then there's the storage-bound monster that is Fallout 4. We run a set route of the commonwealth just outside Diamond City, and again, textures underfoot fail to resolve in time as we run over the terrain while the SSD saves the day yet again - faster seek times to its flash memory serve up the assets faster.
So, the evidence for an SSD upgrade is looking good then. Loading times aren't improved in step with the generational leap in hardware performance, but they are substantially better. On the titles most egregiously impacted by asset pop-in, we can confirm that there are improvements. We are using what may well be the best possible SSD for the job here with a storage level that commands a stratospheric price-point but smaller capacity drives are available and the storage-side bottleneck should be mostly eliminated even on much cheaper SSDs.
But one lingering question we've been asked many times concerns the PS4's front-end menus, which can get a little laggy. Using the SSD as external storage won't mitigate this, but the theory is that using it internally will. Well, from a cold boot, PS4 Pro gets to the menus much faster than it does on stock - and likewise for switching between games. It's a swifter process on the SSD with less stutter. That's the extent of it though in our testing; for actual menu navigation there's only small gains in smoothness. Most elements of PS4's UI are more dependant on network speed, like the tiles of your games library, or the social details under each game. An upgrade to an SSD - either external, or installed internally - doesn't make a huge difference in this sense. Really, the biggest upgrade relates to the loading speeds.
Ps4 Ssd Hard Drive
Ultimately, at the beginning of the generation, the concept of upgrading to an SSD for PlayStation 4 perhaps didn't make a lot of sense. However, the arrival of the enhanced machines, the drop in prices and the fact that developers are clearly pushing storage to breaking point helps to make the case somewhat more compelling. As for spending £800/$900 on an 8TB Samsung drive - well, it's difficult to justify but just seeing whether it would work has been reward enough. And yes, all of the results we've collected will be revisited once we have PlayStation 5 in our possession. I'm hopeful we'll see a further uptick in loading speeds and also in streaming quality for assets - all areas we'll be investigating once the new console lands a few months from now.
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Digital Foundry specialises in technical analysis of gaming hardware and software, using state-of-the-art capture systems and bespoke software to show you how well games and hardware run, visualising precisely what they're capable of. In order to show you what 4K gaming actually looks like we needed to build our own platform to supply high quality 4K video for offline viewing. So we did.
Ps4 Pro Ssd Vs Hdd
Our videos are multi-gigabyte files and we've chosen a high quality provider to ensure fast downloads. However, that bandwidth isn't free and so we charge a small monthly subscription fee of €5. We think it's a small price to pay for unlimited access to top-tier quality encodes of our content. Thank you.