The PS5 is the first PlayStation to come with an internal SSD slot, making it easy to add a super-fast drive for tons of extra game storage for the PS5 or PS5 Pro. Here’s how to identify the best drive for you, Sony’s recommended specs and our top choices for the money in the US and UK. Prices may have risen in recent months, but a powerful NVMe drive is still a reasonably affordable and worthwhile upgrade for your PS5.
Because Sony isn’t making its own official drives, standard PC NVMe SSDs from a wide range of manufacturers will work – as long the drive is fast enough and it physically fits inside the PS5’s SSD slot. This makes expanding your storage way cheaper than on Xbox Series consoles, where there’s only one drive in different sizes available, but also means that there a ton of different options – so which is the best?
That’s where this our article and our testing comes in. We’ve rounded up the best PS5 SSDs on the market based on their specs and our in-house results, to make it easy to pick up a good performance drive for a reasonable price. We’ve also covered the best PS5-compatible SSD heatsinks, dug into Sony’s requirements in more detail and answered your questions.
There are loads of PS5-compatible SSDs, and we’ve kept updating our recommendations below with the ones that we’ve tested and can recommend. Our top picks are at the top of the table, with drives that deliver less performance, are harder to find or offer worse value towards the bottom.
With very small differences in terms of real world usage, we’d strongly encourage you to go for one of the cheaper options in your region – as long as it’s from a brand you trust.
| Best PS5 SSDs | w/ heatsink? | Random reads | UK price (1TB) | US price (1TB) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crucial T500 Heatsink | Yes | 1150K IOPS | £88 | $110 |
| Crucial T500 | No* | 1150K IOPS | £71 | $88 |
| Lexar NM790 | No* | 1000K IOPS | £65 | $65 |
| WD Black SN850x | Yes | 800K IOPS | £81 | $90 |
| WD Black SN850x Heatsink | Yes | 800K IOPS | £97 | $105 |
| Adata XPG S70 Blade | Yes | 740K IOPS | £76 | $92 |
| Corsair MP600 Pro LPX | Yes | 900K IOPS | £83 | $95 |
| Samsung 990 Pro Heatsink | Yes | 1200K IOPS | £93 | $109 |
| Samsung 990 Pro | No* | 1200K IOPS | £93 | $90 |
| Samsung 980 Pro Heatsink | Yes | 1000K IOPS | £80 | $84 |
| Sabrent Rocket 4+ PS5 | Yes | 350K IOPS | £110 | $110 |
| Netac NV7000 | Yes | 740K IOPS | £66 | $132 |
| Addlink Addgame A95 | Yes | 1000K IOPS | £85 | $88 |
| Inland Performance Plus | No* | 350K IOPS | n/a | $75 |
We’re still testing new drives and heatsinks as they become available, so feel free to leave a comment below or tweet @wsjudd if there’s a drive you think should be listed here.
Here are some standalone NVMe SSD heatsinks that meet the height requirements for the PS5. We’ve tested and confirmed the ones below work, but many others should also be fine as long as they are physically small enough!
UK links
Sabrent PS5 M.2 NVMe SSD HeatsinkEluteng M.2 heatsinkGlotrends M.2 heatsink
US links
IcePC M.2 copper heatsinkSabrent PS5 M.2 NVMe SSD Heatsink
Now that we’ve had a look at our recommendations, let’s take a look at the requirements in case you’re considering a drive that we haven’t listed. First of all, only the fastest solid state drives are officially recommended: NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSDs with a sequential read speed of 5500MB/s or faster. These drives use a compact M.2 form factor and measure 22mm across, and can be anywhere from 30mm to 110mm long (most consumer drives are 80mm long, a form factor also known as 2280). So far, all pretty straightforward – but the tricky part is yet to come.