The best SSDs for PS5 in 2025

When Sony first PlayStation 5 releasedit was not possible to expand the console’s storage space. Fortunately, that changed with A Software update Which the company paid less than a year later. And with the volume of some game installs in recent years, that’s a good thing too: the PS5’s built-in 667GB of space may have been good enough in the system’s first year, but now, the virtual drive is quite limited.

The good news is that the PCIe Gen4 x4 M.2 NVMe SSD standard can solve all your PS5 storage problems. If this mess of shortcuts has you turning away, don’t worry: you’ll see that it’s not that complicated. And if all you want to know is what are the best PS5 SSDs, we’ve got them right up top.

Read more: These are the best SSDs in 2025

The best PS5 SSDs in 2025

How we test PS5 SSD drives

I’ve tested most of the recommended SSDs on this list, whether for PS5 or PC use. I’ve also purchased and used our top pick in my PS5.

How much PS5 storage space do I need?

PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro It can accept internal drives with storage capacities between 250GB and 8TB. If you already own a PS5, you probably have a reasonable idea of ​​how much storage space you need for your game library. If you’re buying an SSD with a new PS5 or PS5 Pro, or buying for someone else, it’s hard to know what you might need for a high-performance experience.

PS5 games are smaller on average than their PS4 counterparts, typically taking up between 30GB and 100GB, with a few notable (and very common) exceptions. If you are a fan of the Call of Duty series, install Black ops 6 and Warzone 2.0 It can eat up to 240GB. In other words, a full Call of Duty install will take up more than a third of your PS5’s internal storage space. If you’re not a CoD fan, it’d probably be a good idea to store between six and 10 games on your regular PS5 internally before running into issues.

You also need to consider your internet speed. If you live in an area with slow broadband, the “you can just download it again” logic doesn’t really work. In my old house, a 100GB download took about eight hours, during which time it was difficult to watch Twitch or, say, post articles about upgrading PS5 SSDs. Keeping games in case you don’t want to play them at some point makes sense.

Off the bat, there’s no point in buying a 250GB PS5 SSD. Economically, 250GB drives aren’t much cheaper than 500GB drives – and in practical terms, that’s not a lot of space to play modern games. 500GB drives can be a decent option, but after years of falling prices, I think the best option for most people is to opt for a high-capacity 1TB or 2TB drive, which should cost you $200 at most. The latter will double the PS5 Pro’s storage space without breaking the bank.

Unless you’re trading in cash and want flexibility, you should mostly avoid the 4TB and 8TB models, as you’ll end up paying more per gigabyte than you would with a 1TB or 2TB drive.

While the 825GB PS5 only offers 667GB of storage space, this is largely due to reserving storage space for the operating system and caching. If you install a 1TB PS5 SSD, you will, within the margin of error, have 1TB of storage space available for games. Out of the box, the PS5 Pro offers 1.86TB of storage for games, although you can get more if you delete the pre-installed Astro’s Playroom (gasp).

Since neither the PS5 Slim nor PS5 Pro have the updated CPU architecture, all of our recommendations will work with any PS5 model you own.

Can you play PS5 games on an external SSD?

External SSDs tend to be less expensive than their internal SSD counterparts (and there’s a good chance you already own one). Unfortunately, there are limitations to what you can do with them. An external SSD connects to your PS5 via USB, and is only suitable for playing PlayStation 4 games or storing PS5 titles. This is useful if you have anything other than the best high-speed internet – transferring a PS5 game from “cold storage” onto an external drive is faster than re-downloading it – or want to keep your PS4 library on hand.

Given the limitations here, you don’t need the highest-performance model, although you should opt for SSDs over hard drives to improve transfer speeds and load times. Any basic flash drive from a reputable brand will do, with the Crucial X9 Pro and Samsung T7 being options we’ve tried and can recommend.

What SSD cards are compatible with PS5?

the The official answer This question is “M.2 Socket 3 (M Key) Gen4 x4 NVME SSD.” But even within this seemingly specific description, there are additional factors to consider. The main requirements set by Sony for compatibility are speed, cooling and physical dimensions.

As for speed, Sony says the drives should be able to handle 5,500MB/s sequential reads. Early testing has shown that the PS5 will accept slow drives of up to 4800MB/s, and games that regularly use an SSD drive — such as Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart – It will not cause any problems. The only thing the PS5 will completely reject is something that doesn’t match the Gen4 x4 specs.

In our opinion, though, using a slower-than-spec drive is a risk that, if you don’t already have that drive, isn’t worth doing. Just because we haven’t found issues yet doesn’t mean there won’t be games that can cause issues in the future. The price difference between the slightly slower Gen4 drives and those that meet Sony’s specifications isn’t huge, and might as well cover all your bases.

What’s a little more complicated than speed is cooling and volume. Most new SSDs will be fine; The PS5 can fit SSDs up to 22mm wide and of almost any length (30mm, 40mm, 60mm, 80mm or 110mm to be exact). The vast majority of drives you find will be 22mm wide and 80mm long, so no problem there.

It should be noted that the system can fit a 25 mm wide engine, but this width must include the cooling solution. Speaking of which, Sony says that solid-state drives require “effective heat dissipation through a cooling structure, such as a heatsink.” The maximum height supported by the Sony slot is 11.25 mm, of which only 2.45 mm can be “bottom” of the drive.

This previously meant that some of the most popular Gen4 SSDs, including Corsair’s MP600 Pro LP, wouldn’t fit into the PS5’s storage expansion slot. Since Engadget first published this guide in 2021, most NVMe makers, including Samsung, have come out with PlayStation-specific models that meet those requirements. However, if you want to save some money, bare drives are often cheaper and it’s easy to find a suitable cooling solution for your PS5.

The only component in an NVMe SSD that really requires cooling is the controller, which without the heatsink will burn a (very small) steak. Most SSDs only have chips on one side, but even on double-sided SSDs, the controller will likely be on top, as manufacturers know it should be placed there to dissipate heat better.

So, head to your computer hardware vendor of choice and buy anything that meets the recommended dimensions. A good search term is “NVME laptop heatsink,” as it will be designed to fit within the confines of gaming laptops, which are more restrictive than the PS5. They’re also usually cheaper than those labeled “PS5 heatsinks.”

This is one recommendation Copper heatsink $6which is attached to the PS5 SSD using a viscous thermal interface material. It works well, and while running stress tests on the PC, we couldn’t find anything metal that didn’t keep temperatures under control. When you’re researching, just make sure the solution you choose is no more than 25mm wide or 8mm tall (including the thermal interface material) and has a simple installation method that won’t cause any headaches.

One last thing: When shopping for a PS5 NVMe console, there’s no reason to buy the Gen5 model instead of the less expensive Gen4 model. As it stands, Sony’s console can’t take advantage of the new standard, and although Gen5 drives are backwards compatible, they’re more expensive than their Gen4 counterparts. Just buy the fastest, highest capacity Gen4 model you can afford.

How to install an SSD in your PS5

If you need guidance on How to install the new NVMe on your PS5 Or PS5 Pro, we have a separate guide detailing all the steps here. Installation is very simple, but our instructions can help you if you get stuck. Just make a note: Before you try to add more storage via a PS5 SSD, make sure you have that The latest Sony software is installed.