SSDs for PCs and PS5: knowledge, buying tips and market overview

SSDs for PCs and PS5

SSDs for PCs and consoles

In our hardware special, we focus on the topic of SSDs - at least for Windows you shouldn't do without an SSD these days. The last guide on this is less than four months old - but a refresher makes sense for a current reason that complements the topic and affects fans of the Playstation 5. Sony recently activated support for the internally available M.2 slot - if you want and trust yourself, you can expand the hard drive of your PS5 with an M.2 SSD.

Table of Contents

Page 1 SSDs: Introduction, differences to hard disk 1.1 SSDs for PCs and consoles 1.1.1 Difference between SSD and hard disk Page 2 SSDs: SATA, M.2 and PCIe 4.0 2.1 hard disk, SATA SSD and M.2 SSD with PCIe 3.0 and 4.0 Page 3 SSDs: Expand Playstation 5 with SSD 3.1 SSDs for the new game consoles Page 4 SSDs: Market overview with 56 model series 4.1 Market overview with 56 SSD series 4.1.1 Overview: SATA SSDs 4.1.2 Overview: M. 2-SSDs Page 5 Picture gallery for "SSDs for PCs and PS5: Knowledge, buying tips and market overview" Expand However, there are a few things to consider that we will explain to you and also mention the SSDs that have so far been confirmed as compatible.

Before we get to this complex of topics, we will give you some general information convey it on the subject of SSDs. Finally, on the subject of PS5 SSDs, we have also prepared a market overview with internal SSDs of the two types mentioned.

Difference between SSD and hard disk

In the case of a hard disk, the data is stored in the form of magnetic information on disks, which are located inside the hard disk housing with usually 5400 or 7200 RPM (revolutions per minute ) rotate. Small read and write arms, which from now on we will only call arms for the sake of simplicity, float at a wafer-thin distance above the panes - the units that can read and write data are located at the ends of the arms. Similar to the arm of a record player, through which the needle reaches the correct position on the record, the arms of a hard drive have to move the read and write heads to the positions where the data is or is to be stored.

The diagram shows Seagate's multi-actuator technology, in which two units with read and write arms are used. Source: blog.seagate.com These movements cause slight delays, and since data is mostly scattered across the panes, the arms have to jump back and forth over and over again. The small delays in the search for data packets add up. Every single search process for a data packet has a so-called access time. Much more than 7200 RPM are also not possible in terms of disk rotation speed at reasonable prices with simultaneous data security, which therefore limits the data rate regardless of the access time. A decent hard drive achieves a maximum of around 140 to 150 MB / s in the end. SATA3 would actually enable up to 600 MB / s.

An SSD with a SATA connection, on the other hand, usually reaches over 500 MB / s, some models are close to the 600 MB / s limit. Because an SSD consists of memory chips on which the data resides. There is no delay in searching for data or searching for storage locations, as no mechanical processes are involved.

A SATA SSD is 2.5-inch in size and needs a SATA power cable and a SATA- Data cable Source: Crucial This is the key advantage of an SSD - many believe that the great advantage of an SSD is the data flow speed. But that's only part of the truth - especially when not a lot of data has to be loaded, the effect of the lack of access time of an SSD is the much more important factor. We will see this later when we compare SATA SSDs with the much faster M.2 SSDs. Compared to a hard drive, the effect is noticeable when opening a folder in Windows Explorer, for example. Although only preview icons and file names have to be displayed, which is really not a hundred megabytes of data, a hard drive likes to idle for a while, also because the information about the files in the folder is scattered on the disks. An SSD is significantly faster, and not just because it can rake in three to four times more megabytes per second. An SSD is also significantly faster than a hard drive when loading games, and a large part of the advantage lies solely in the lack of search time for an SSD. You can see the differences between a hard drive and SSDs with SATA and M.2 on the next page.