This summer you will be able to expand the SSD capacity of the PS5. The PS5’s 825GB SSD drive doesn’t provide much headroom for many users, but that will change in the summer when according to Bloomberg Sony will offer an update that will allow access to SSD expansions like those offered by the Xbox X/S Series.
Sony already made it clear that expanding that storage capacity would not be possible for the first few months after launch, but reports suggest that a new firmware release over the summer will enable the console’s M.2 expansion slot that will allow SSDs with similar performance to the console’s standard SSD to be purchased and installed.
More capacity will make the fans work harder
According to Bloomberg the activation of this feature and the installation of an M.2 SSD in one of these slots will have a collateral effect: That of its impact on cooling.
Thus, starting up that second SSD drive could increase the internally dissipated temperature, which will cause the firmware to also enable the console’s fans to spin at higher speeds to counteract that extra heat dissipation.
Be that as it may, this is a very interesting option in an era where several games easily exceed 100GB of disk space. Although the SSD capacity of the PS5 is 825GB, the space available to the user is 667GB right out of the box.
It remains to be seen what type of drives Sony recommends for this expansion and at what price. Microsoft developed expansion cards together with Seagate that was just M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSDs with slightly different packaging. Their price is still high, and it wouldn’t be surprising if the PS5 drives were around those prices as well.
