Support NeoGAF

[Foamy]

Pretty cool. I'll plug my 2TB hard drive in, transfer Modern Warfare and Destiny 2 to the internal for "optimal performance" and play everything else off the external.

 

[Bernkastel]

I completely forgot that Microsoft was a bit cheeky in the wording for their partnership with Seagate. Saying that they're the exclusive partner "at launch". Seems to suggest they're open to other manufacturers making expansion cards down the line.

I think Microsoft will give some specifications for licensed 3rd party to create enclosure for the Xbox Series X hard drive to create the expansion card. People dissing it for price and playing console wars didnt realize one important aspect - Microsoft is not selling the expansion card, Seagate is. If theres one thing they learned from Xbox One its that, 3rd parties can make cheaper and better accessories than Microsoft, which is why they advertise PDP Talon Remote Xbox Remote and stopped manufacturing there own official one. Part of the expansion card is the XSX internal storage which is produced in large quantities and bought cheaply to keep XSX price reasonable. As, the price of manufacturing XSX will go down, so will the expansion card, contrary to what GAF thinks.

 

[Bernkastel]

Pretty cool. I'll plug my 2TB hard drive in, transfer Modern Warfare and Destiny 2 to the internal for "optimal performance" and play everything else off the external.

You can only play Xbox One(and backwards compatible) games of your 2 TB hard drive. You need the expansion card to play XSX games.

 

[ZywyPL]

Given how vital the SSDs are to these systems, and how overpriced SSDs can be in general, a consistently priced (assuming it’s a reasonable price) and compatibility assured XsX drive makes me feel a little better than uncertainty around PS5 compatible drives (price wise, availability wise, dimension wise, spec wise).

That's the most underlooked part I often see in the SSD expansion solutions discussion, you can tell how many people really want to put a 50$ SSD into PS5, (while at the same time claiming how game-changing it's SSD will be)... And that's exactly what both Sony and MS have to prevent from happening, MS is, heh, dare I say "brut forcing" that by limiting the options to literally just a single one, whereas Sony is going more "open-source" route, which still gonna be extremely limited nevertheless, and expensive - 1TB 4-5GB/s drives already cost 300-350$, so I can only Imagine what the price will be for the 6+ ones...

 

[itsjustJEFF]

IDK about price, probably not cheap, but those little things look cool as hell! Make me think of memory cards!!!

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Microsoft considers it official though, you wont find that exact drive anywhere else. Unlike Western Digital, if you open a Seagate external drive you will find an internal hard drive from another vendor like Samsung etc, they only design the enclosure. In this case, Microsoft has designed the internal drive(the same mass produced XSX internal drive, so its cheap) and Seagate designed the enclosure as specified by Microsoft.

If that's the case hopefully some people can have their "Seagate fears" put to rest, then. MS did say they got the Surface team to work on the drive, right? So I would assume the internals are being handled by them.

Personally never had too much a problem with Seagate, but hey, maybe someone else has :S

 

[FranXico]

MS' solution is stuck to a single size and manufacturer, so albeit easier to use there will be only one price, and most probably expensive.

What MS are doing around launch will not necessarily be ongoing forever.
We don't know about pricing yet.

 

[kiphalfton]

With such fierce competition on price, I doubt MS would make it expensive on purpose.
Take the 4TB Seagate Xbox One HDD. Currently it costs 119 USD on Amazon, while the STGX4000400 costs 98 USD. But the Xbox One drive(140 MB/s) is also slightly faster than STGX4000400(120 MB/s). This is not the kind of price difference some posts here are projecting.
On the other hand XSX Memory card contains the same mass produced Series X internal drive unlike the Xbox One HDD. I dont see any significant price difference. It also seems like MS wants the XSX memory card to be adopted by majority of Xbox users.

If this card doesn't work with anything else, due to ther form factor or memory interface, then you can't really make the comparison you did. Because there are other options in the scenario you mentioned, namely the Seagate hdd being cheaper, thats because there is competition and since there is competition microsoft had to keep the pricing reasonable. No competition, and they can charge out the ass for this.

 

[Kagero]

Honestly, this feature isn’t talked about enough. I love this sort of tech. Plus it looks slick as heck.

 

[Bernkastel]

If this card doesn't work with anything else, due to ther form factor or memory interface, then you can't really make the comparison you did. Because there are other options in the scenario you mentioned, namely the Seagate hdd being cheaper, thats because there is competition and since there is competition microsoft had to keep the pricing reasonable. No competition, and they can charge out the ass for this.

You know they are competing with PS5 for price ? Do you think they will let it be expensive then PS5 certified drives ?

 

[Panajev2001a]

You know they are competing with PS5 for price ? Do you think they will let it be expensive then PS5 certified drives ?

It could happen, economies of scale will start working against them more and more as time goes on. Consumers are subsiding the main console costs with the peripheral, understandable and not uncommon.
Sure Sony having a much higher base target for SSD speed (luckily building in the HW to make it easy to exploit too) is going to give them grief near launch (despite being able to use external drives as backup and for PS4 titles).

It is interesting how the tune of proprietary HW changes based on the band singing it .

 

[Bernkastel]

It could happen, economies of scale will start working against them more and more as time goes on. Consumers are subsiding the main console costs with the peripheral, understandable and not uncommon.
Sure Sony having a much higher base target for SSD speed (luckily building in the HW to make it easy to exploit too) is going to give them grief near launch (despite being able to use external drives as backup and for PS4 titles).

It is interesting how the tune of proprietary HW changes based on the band singing it .

You know I am replying to a post talking about how Microsoft will just overcharge out of the ass because it can. But if you are here to talk about economics

I completely forgot that Microsoft was a bit cheeky in the wording for their partnership with Seagate. Saying that they're the exclusive partner "at launch". Seems to suggest they're open to other manufacturers making expansion cards down the line.

I think Microsoft will give some specifications for licensed 3rd party to create enclosure for the Xbox Series X hard drive to create the expansion card. People dissing it for price and playing console wars didnt realize one important aspect - Microsoft is not selling the expansion card, Seagate is. If theres one thing they learned from Xbox One its that, 3rd parties can make cheaper and better accessories than Microsoft, which is why they advertise PDP Talon Remote Xbox Remote and stopped manufacturing there own official one. Part of the expansion card is the XSX internal storage which is produced in large quantities and bought cheaply to keep XSX price reasonable. As, the price of manufacturing XSX will go down, so will the expansion card, contrary to what GAF thinks.

As for PS5, theres just too much assumption going on, like the PS5 spec rumours. The Sony certified 7 GB/s(way more than 5.5 GB/s if you hate this term) NVMe drives will not become mainstream within a few years or even the whole PS5 gen. There is a small market for people who actually upgrade their Playstation harddrives. Prices dont just go down like that. Anything below Sony certified NVMe drive speed becoming cheap does not help PS5 in any way.

 

[Bernkastel]

I completely forgot that Microsoft was a bit cheeky in the wording for their partnership with Seagate. Saying that they're the exclusive partner "at launch". Seems to suggest they're open to other manufacturers making expansion cards down the line.

Can you link me to where they said "at launch" ?

 

[Panajev2001a]

You know I am replying to a post talking about how Microsoft will just overcharge out of the ass because it can. But if you are here to talk about economics

As for PS5, theres just too much assumption going on, like the PS5 spec rumours. The Sony certified 7 GB/s(way more than 5.5 GB/s if you hate this term) NVMe drives will not become mainstream within a few years or even the whole PS5 gen. There is a small market for people who actually upgrade their Playstation harddrives. Prices dont just go down like that. Anything below Sony certified NVMe drive speed becoming does not help PS5 in any way.

You are peddling the same argument over and over hoping repeating it may make it true. The fact you keep going on about the 7 GB/s certified drive claims shows you are interested in setting up a narrative for others to read more than stating facts.
It is not the cost influenced by PS5 alone... it is the cost of flash chips themselves, the cost of manufacturer building more and more capacity, the desire in both data centres, workstations, gaming PC’s, and more of extra storage and speed increases. Would not be surprised to see investment in better controllers than the base NVMe specs that allow the over head to be reduced further than the “small” overhead current drives see and future SSD drives that easily go way past 6 GB/s (I think the overhead for drives that lack the full 6 priority levels arbitration may probably mean something like 5.7-6 GB/s required).

Price of Flash itself will go down, price of off the shelves mass produced SSD’s will go down, but the price of the external SSD custom packaged benefits only partially from the reduction in cost of the rest of the supply chain.
Not that one will stop the dreams... like carts on Switch that would bring the cost of games down because they take less space in cargos and Nintendo would subsidise them .

Also, funny how the market for people adding storage for their consoles is small (debatable) and yet the cost of fast SSD drives is a problem worth being concerned about. By getting a far slower drive they would have had less (temporary) headaches allowing people to add their own drive for extra storage for PS5 games, but would the console be better for it? I do not think so.

 

[Bernkastel]

You are peddling the same argument over and over hoping repeating it may make it true. The fact you keep going on about the 7 GB/s certified drive claims shows you are interested in setting up a narrative for others to read more than stating facts.

It is not the cost influenced by PS5 alone... it is the cost of flash chips themselves, the cost of manufacturer building more and more capacity, the desire in both data centres, workstations, gaming PC’s, and more of extra storage and speed increases. Would not be surprised to see investment in better controllers than the base NVMe specs that allow the over head to be reduced further than the “small” overhead current drives see and future SSD drives that easily go way past 6 GB/s (I think the overhead for drives that lack the full 6 priority levels arbitration may probably mean something like 5.7-6 GB/s required).

Also, funny how the market for people adding storage for their consoles is small (debatable) and yet the cost of fast SSD drives is a problem worth being concerned about. By getting a far slower drive they would have had less (temporary) headaches allowing people to add their own drive for extra storage for PS5 games, but would the console be better for it? I do not think so.

It is not the cost influenced by PS5 alone... it is the cost of flash chips themselves, the cost of manufacturer building more and more capacity, the desire in both data centres, workstations, gaming PC’s, and more of extra storage and speed increases. Would not be surprised to see investment in better controllers than the base NVMe specs that allow the over head to be reduced further than the “small” overhead current drives see and future SSD drives that easily go way past 6 GB/s (I think the overhead for drives that lack the full 6 priority levels arbitration may probably mean something like 5.7-6 GB/s required).

Te market for work stations may as well just decide to go up to 3 GB/s, wont help PS5 in any way. Majority of steam users have a weaker PC than Xbox One X. 6+ GB/s NVMe's are a luxury. Thats like saying iPhone will get cheaper if more people buy it.

Also, funny how the market for people adding storage for their consoles is small (debatable) and yet the cost of fast SSD drives is a problem worth being concerned about. By getting a far slower drive they would have had less (temporary) headaches allowing people to add their own drive for extra storage for PS5 games, but would the console be better for it? I do not think so.

How many people decided to upgrade the PS4 internal SSD rather than just get an external one ? Expendable storage needs to be convenient, otherwise it will always be a niche.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Te market for work stations may as well just decide to go up to 3 GB/s, wont help PS5 in any way. Majority of steam users have a weaker PC than Xbox One X. 6+ GB/s NVMe's are a luxury. Thats like saying iPhone will get cheaper if more people buy it.

Oh it does get cheaper... to Apple who has more flexibility in pricing if they were to need it and they take in absurd profit margins in the mean time.
I think the race for fast SSD’s globally is just getting started, I think you are underestimating it.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Expendable storage needs to be convenient, otherwise it will always be a niche.

It is really really easy to upgrade.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Good to hear (as suspected) games on HDD work fine. You just don't get SeX perks.

As for the Seagate SSD, it'll be steep, but at least you know it works and it'll be ready day one. What sucks is if MS/Seagate only focus on a single 1 tb card. They should offer 2 or 4 tb cards too.

PS5's external PC SSD hook up is fine too, assuming there's good ones that match it's requirements. Given PS5's high end SSD requirements, by the time it releases in Q4 there may be a possibility none of them classify as compatible.

PS5 SSD is already at sky high 5.5 gb/s. When I did a skim of PC SSDs weeks ago, I think there was one model at the time with around 5 or so gb/s. And there's no guarantee that one is even compatible.

Cerny was trying to sway the gamers watching the show saying PC "should" have tons of 7 gb/s models later in the year, but says who? And who says any of them are compatible either? Right now, PC external SSDs are at about 5 gb/s max.

 

[Okami Haundo]

Can you link me to where they said "at launch" ?

Surely!

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/16/...sion-cards-removable-storage-support-features

Seagate will be the exclusive launch partner for these expansion cards, too. “At launch, the Seagate Storage Expansion Card for Xbox Series X will be the only Expansion Card available,” reveals a Microsoft spokesperson to The Verge.

 

[kiphalfton]

You know they are competing with PS5 for price ? Do you think they will let it be expensive then PS5 certified drives ?

Who cares? This isn't about the PS5, nor did I say anything about the PS5.

Look at the OG Xbox 360 proprietary hard drive, and how expensive it was. Even the OG xbox 360 memory cards were expensive. Both these were proprietary pieces of tech. There was no substitute. So Microsoft really ran with it and charged out the butthole. If you dont think they'll do the same with this, especially with the whole "you need to use this to get the best performance" spiel, I dunno what to tell you...

Proprietary tech costs more. Whether that's with sony or microsoft. Why anybody is supporting it doesnt make any sense. Why would you want to have less options is beyond me.

 

[DeepEnigma]

It could happen, economies of scale will start working against them more and more as time goes on. Consumers are subsiding the main console costs with the peripheral, understandable and not uncommon.
Sure Sony having a much higher base target for SSD speed (luckily building in the HW to make it easy to exploit too) is going to give them grief near launch (despite being able to use external drives as backup and for PS4 titles).

It is interesting how the tune of proprietary HW changes based on the band singing it .

Getting the same shades that we have gotten before about streaming as well.

 

[abcdrstuv]

Under $150 would be great..

assume MS has data on how customers use their hard drives, downloads, what they play when..

they’ve put effort into making games playable before they’ve finished downloading.. assume there’s also room to lower game sizes with a little effort, and the possibility of compressed downloads..

And 1TB at $200 or more is the launch day point - prices should go down, sizes may go up..

 

[longdi]

It is really really easy to upgrade.

Almost stripped my ps3 drive bay screw when changing.

Idk if this round require us to remove the stock nvme heatsink, will be more work. Fast nvme drive have bigger heatsink and some may void your warranty once removed!

 

[LOLCats]

Proprietary shit, honestly i thought we were past that.

 

[LittleBusters]

I can imagine there being a 2/4 TB cards by 2022 and much lower prices.

 

[Bernkastel]

Proprietary shit, honestly i thought we were past that.

Tell me an open memory card like format for SSDs then.

 

[Silver Wattle]

I hope $149 but expect $199.

 

[CrustyBritches]

There's benefits to both approaches, but the bottom line is pricing.

 

[longdi]

You are peddling the same argument over and over hoping repeating it may make it true. The fact you keep going on about the 7 GB/s certified drive claims shows you are interested in setting up a narrative for others to read more than stating facts.
It is not the cost influenced by PS5 alone... it is the cost of flash chips themselves, the cost of manufacturer building more and more capacity, the desire in both data centres, workstations, gaming PC’s, and more of extra storage and speed increases. Would not be surprised to see investment in better controllers than the base NVMe specs that allow the over head to be reduced further than the “small” overhead current drives see and future SSD drives that easily go way past 6 GB/s (I think the overhead for drives that lack the full 6 priority levels arbitration may probably mean something like 5.7-6 GB/s required).

Price of Flash itself will go down, price of off the shelves mass produced SSD’s will go down, but the price of the external SSD custom packaged benefits only partially from the reduction in cost of the rest of the supply chain.
Not that one will stop the dreams... like carts on Switch that would bring the cost of games down because they take less space in cargos and Nintendo would subsidise them .

Also, funny how the market for people adding storage for their consoles is small (debatable) and yet the cost of fast SSD drives is a problem worth being concerned about. By getting a far slower drive they would have had less (temporary) headaches allowing people to add their own drive for extra storage for PS5 games, but would the console be better for it? I do not think so.

Actually i doubt fast nvme drives will come fast and cheap, due to your stated desires.

Because moving from raid hdd to an average ssd is fast enough. What data centres and workstations want is more reliable drives. PS5 approach is an outlier, which is fine if you stay within #psecosystem.

Just read up Anandtech enterprise ssd page, you see where the sequential r/w numbers stand and required.

Enterprise SSDs - Latest Articles and Reviews on AnandTech

Here are AnandTech’s latest articles filed under Enterprise SSDs

www.anandtech.com

 

[ZywyPL]

Proprietary shit, honestly i thought we were past that.

The consoles themselves are proprietary hardware to begin with. But hey, you can always build yourself a PC.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Actually i doubt fast nvme drives will come fast and cheap, due to your stated desires.

Because moving from raid hdd to an average ssd is fast enough. What data centres and workstations want is more reliable drives. PS5 approach is an outlier, which is fine if you stay within #psecosystem.

Just read up Anandtech enterprise ssd page, you see where the sequential r/w numbers stand and required.

Enterprise SSDs - Latest Articles and Reviews on AnandTech

Here are AnandTech’s latest articles filed under Enterprise SSDs

www.anandtech.com

Literally the second link in the page you selected:https://www.anandtech.com/show/15537/kioxia-releases-first-pcie-40-ssds-cm6-cd6

6.2-6.9 GB/s reads

Data Centers and workstations want both reliability, storage (related to the former, and viceversa), and speed.
If MS had not announced their cards and Sony had announced theirs they would have been dragged through the coals and mocked and there would have been tons of concern, but shoe on the other foot and here we go: “it is for ease of use”, “you need proprietary cards because of the drive is so fast (not true, 2.4 GB/s is not far from what SSD’s in the market can deliver now)“, “it is pro consumer because... reasons”.

With a console shell that big and the supposedly infinite MS pockets all available for Xbox: why not give users also the ability to use an off the shelf NVMe drive and insert it too? Why not have support for a solution that allowed you to use your own fast enough external NVMe drive in an enclosure?

 

[Panajev2001a]

The consoles themselves are proprietary hardware to begin with. But hey, you can always build yourself a PC.

That is a fair comment, hopefully the next time Sony inevitably uses a proprietary standard the crowd cheering this proprietary memory card will also cheer Sony’s solution .

Still, the big tower design not allowing you the option to slot in an NVMe drive (2.4 GB/s standard SSD’s are not crazy impossible to find) and their prospective customer not even demanding it and benefit from SSD tech price drops in a competitive market seem two odd statements (I can understand why MS does not want to offer such a solution, makes no money out of the desire for additional storage, but not the customers cheering for the prospect of paying more).

 

[Panajev2001a]

Tell me an open memory card like format for SSDs then.

Big tower? Slot for an NVMe caddy, trivial to install... MS to sell the caddy and making it plug and play, problem solved... but then they do not get to make a nice markup off their customers as they actually cheer for paying extra.

 

[SoloKingRobert]

Big tower? Slot for an NVMe caddy, trivial to install... MS to sell the caddy and making it plug and play, problem solved... but then they do not get to make a nice markup off their customers as they actually cheer for paying extra.

It's better than Sony's solution. Internal SSD only supports 800gb that will be lower when you install the Operation System. These Certified SSD will be more expensive than PS5 and it'll probably won't be available within 2 years.

Microsoft Memory card solution is more friendly consumer, take the card out and play on your friends console. It'll be cheap since its the same card Xbox Series X is using.

 

[martino]

That is a fair comment, hopefully the next time Sony inevitably uses a proprietary standard the crowd cheering this proprietary memory card will also cheer Sony’s solution .

we know how sony handled the thing.
don't remember how bad was 360 hdd situation ? anyone remember ?

 

[TBiddy]

Was it ever explained how a replacement/additional SSD would work on the PS5? Would you need to open the case to change it, or is there a port in the back?

 

[longdi]

Literally the second link in the page you selected:https://www.anandtech.com/show/15537/kioxia-releases-first-pcie-40-ssds-cm6-cd6

6.2-6.9 GB/s reads

Data Centers and workstations want both reliability, storage (related to the former, and viceversa), and speed.
If MS had not announced their cards and Sony had announced theirs they would have been dragged through the coals and mocked and there would have been tons of concern, but shoe on the other foot and here we go: “it is for ease of use”, “you need proprietary cards because of the drive is so fast (not true, 2.4 GB/s is not far from what SSD’s in the market can deliver now)“, “it is pro consumer because... reasons”.

With a console shell that big and the supposedly infinite MS pockets all available for Xbox: why not give users also the ability to use an off the shelf NVMe drive and insert it too? Why not have support for a solution that allowed you to use your own fast enough external NVMe drive in an enclosure?

What about the writes, which are only 4gbs?

Why do you keep assuming fair gamers will call out Sony if they use proprietary storage for PS5? As many have said here, times are different. A standard nvme portable storage makes most sense for now and at least a 3 years time frame.

It is all about actively considering the situation and not just keeping to old ways. I think thats why you see Series X doing well in terms of hardware design wins.

 

[sendit]

Honestly, this feature isn’t talked about enough. I love this sort of tech. Plus it looks slick as heck.

Agreed. I love it when companies take ownership and design their own proprietary storage devices.

 

[Panajev2001a]

What about the writes, which are only 4gbs?

I think you will find out both MS and Sony are quoting read speeds in their specs as they are not designing server grade HW that needs almost symmetric read and write speeds.

Why do you keep assuming fair gamers will call out Sony if they use proprietary storage for PS5? As many have said here, times are different. A standard nvme portable storage makes most sense for now and at least a 3 years time frame.

It is all about actively considering the situation and not just keeping to old ways. I think thats why you see Series X doing well in terms of hardware design wins.

I believe what changed is who is doing the proprietary solution... for 3 out of 4 generations (Xbox One initially had no external disk expansion, then added USB storage support, props).

With that said, I believe you may be genuine about assessing the situation and proprietary vs off the shelves solution, just that I disagree on the cost : benefits analysis and I would have expected MS to allow you to expand or replace the internal storage with an off the shelves NVMe drive.
They are not taking a yet to be released NVMe drive with custom specs (6 priority QoS levels instead of 2), but a fast yet regular 2.4 GB/s SSD drive so less excuses for not allowing customers to get a cheaper off the shelves solution.

“Fair gamers” may or may not call Sony out and I think times are different and the same at the same time , but the reaction from one side of the hardcore fan base...

 

[CrustyBritches]

Was it ever explained how a replacement/additional SSD would work on the PS5? Would you need to open the case to change it, or is there a port in the back?

I'm curious about this as well. Is this an add-on that plugs into a separate bay and give you additional storage on top of the 825GB in the system, or are they having you swap the drives? I originally envisioned storage that was soldered onto the motherboard, then a separate bay maybe on the bottom that you'd install the expanded storage into.

After reading DF's article I'm not too sure how it works. Sounds like you swap the main drive for a new one. That would be really weird way to do it like that, hopefully that's not the case. Some of the marketing surrounding PS5 is muddy and needing of clarification. Eurogamer's article:

Replacing the internal SSD with a larger drive

The internal SSD can be replaced with a bigger hard drive with an off-the-shelf drive - meaning NVMe PC drives will work on your console.

However, it's not as straightforward as picking a larger sized hard drive and expecting the same benefits as what comes with the PS5, as many SSDs on the market today don't have the same bandwidth specifications.

Again, Digital Foundry explains the technical reasons behind this in closer detail, but the long and short of it is - though today's SSDs will physically fit, they won't get as much out of the PS5's dedicated hardware in the same way.

Saturated PCIe 4.0 hard drive on paper looks to offer a similar solution to the PS5's offering - but don't expect them easily at launch, and for Sony to certify them first.

However, Sony will be validating hard drives which do offer similar or improved speed capabilities as its own proprietary drives over time - but this might not be possible at launch.

To quote Digital Foundry's Rich Leadbetter: "In the short term at least, the advice is simple: don't buy an NVMe drive without Sony validation if you plan to use it in PlayStation 5. Also remember that extreme bandwidth PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives are likely to be very expensive - in the short term, at least.

"This is cutting-edge technology, after all. Obviously though, the outlook should improve significantly as the next generation progresses - and prices do tend to drop significantly over time."

So - though you're likely stuck with your 825GB of super fast storage at launch, the good news is the industry will catch up to offer suitable replacements which can replace your internal PS5 drive.

This is making it sound like you don't retain the 825GB storage with the installation of the new drive. I'm confused and in disbelief over this. That would mean that only 2TB SSDs are suitable upgrade, that won't come cheap and you'd be losing the original storage? Perhaps someone can offer clarity on this issue?

 

[Panajev2001a]

It's better than Sony's solution. Internal SSD only supports 800gb that will be lower when you install the Operation System. These Certified SSD will be more expensive than PS5 and it'll probably won't be available within 2 years.

Microsoft Memory card solution is more friendly consumer, take the card out and play on your friends console. It'll be cheap since its the same card Xbox Series X is using.

Just because of the pop and play it is now the more consumer friendly solution?! Keep believing in $400 drives that won’t be available for years and years and the Certified as if they have to be sold with a made for PS5 license on top.
The XSX cards will be cheaper than a faster drive because they are targeting lower specs, but it is your assumption that 1.) MS will pass the savings into you and 2.) it has to be the same exact internal drive repackaged and it is repackaged only for XSX and sold only by MS.

You have a big tower design and seemingly do not care about even asking them to allow off the shelves SSD’s to be used (slide in from the back, not like the design does not have the space or is not modular enough to handle even the system storage being removable... think PS3 and PS4, but it could be easier to handle even, but they designed to force you to get nothing or their card).

For all we know Sony I designing similar custom NVMe drives that are easy to insert in and out of the console, support 5.5 GB/s and the 6 priority levels, and are just the internal m2 drives repackaged for real... It will be fun to read the “concern” around it if / when they will announce it.

 

[Panajev2001a]

This is making it sound like you don't retain the 825GB storage with the installation of the new drive. I'm confused and in disbelief over this. That would mean that only 2TB are suitable upgrade, that won't come cheap and you'd be losing the original storage? Perhaps someone can offer clarity on this issue?

Rewatching Cerny’s interview it looks like you are adding onto it and connecting to the same bus (the internal one is likely soldered onto the motherboard), but they were not clear about which one is active at any one time, but this could be handled smartly and automagically by the system for you (as far as you are concerned it may appear as a single giant drive, but with limitations as a 1 GB game could not be split into two 512 MB slices for each of the two drives).
I doubt they both are though and you may have to switch between both, similar to the situation on PS3 and PS4, but as I was saying they can be made look like a single logical volume.

The advantages would be:

• Being able to switch between the two discs means that you are easily getting to near 2 TB of effective storage without having to fork out for a 2 TB drive
  
  
• It is possible the OS partition needs only to be on the internal drive and upon boot up the user added SSD can then be used as the OS is loaded in memory (and maybe part of it in a temporary location of the new SSD)

 

[Tamy]

For all we know Sony I designing similar custom NVMe drives that are easy to insert in and out of the console, support 5.5 GB/s and the 6 priority levels, and are just the internal m2 drives repackaged for real... It will be fun to read the “concern” around it if / when they will announce it.

What? where did you read that? According to Cerny:

Sony will be certifying individual M.2 SSDs for the PS5, which uses the new PCI Express 4.0 standard. Cerny said that it’s “likely” that certifications will begin arriving “a bit past” the console’s launch this fall.

PS5 won’t require a proprietary solution for storage upgrades

Internal storage will still need to be certified as compatible by Sony

www.polygon.com

and where did Sony say that you can insert it in and out easily?! Did sony mention it anywhere? Would be awesome! But I couldn't find anything?! Can you point me to that please?

For PS4 you actually had to use a Phillips screwdriver:

PlayStation® Official Site: Consoles, Games, Accessories & More

Explore the new generation PlayStation 4 and PS5 consoles - experience immersive gaming with thousands of hit games in every genre to rewrite the rules for what a PlayStation console can do.

support.playstation.com

 

[CrustyBritches]

I hope that's the case. Like I was saying, I envisioned it as an add-on to the existing storage. It's fine if it sees it as 2 drives, but it needs to be like the XSX where you have the original drive with the new storage space on top of it. So you'd have 1TB+1TB on XSX, and 825GB+1TB on PS5. It was just weird how Eurogamer was describing it.

Are you referring to the "Road to PS5" deepdive video? I'll check it out again and see if I can find any more info.

 

[sonomamashine]

Price 119$ at best.

 

[Panajev2001a]

I hope that's the case. Like I was saying, I envisioned it as an add-on to the existing storage. It's fine if it sees it as 2 drives, but it needs to be like the XSX where you have the original drive with the new storage space on top of it. So you'd have 1TB+1TB on XSX, and 825GB+1TB on PS5. It was just weird how Eurogamer was describing it.

Are you referring to the "Road to PS5" deepdive video? I'll check it out again and see if I can find any more info.

Yeah that is the video. Worth watching to see someone speaking technically and competently for almost 54 minutes straight without almost any pause as if it were a single smooth act.

 

[longdi]

I think you will find out both MS and Sony are quoting read speeds in their specs as they are not designing server grade HW that needs almost symmetric read and write speeds.

I believe what changed is who is doing the proprietary solution... for 3 out of 4 generations (Xbox One initially had no external disk expansion, then added USB storage support, props).

With that said, I believe you may be genuine about assessing the situation and proprietary vs off the shelves solution, just that I disagree on the cost : benefits analysis and I would have expected MS to allow you to expand or replace the internal storage with an off the shelves NVMe drive.
They are not taking a yet to be released NVMe drive with custom specs (6 priority QoS levels instead of 2), but a fast yet regular 2.4 GB/s SSD drive so less excuses for not allowing customers to get a cheaper off the shelves solution.

“Fair gamers” may or may not call Sony out and I think times are different and the same at the same time , but the reaction from one side of the hardcore fan base...

But i dont think Sony or MS quote read/write. Just i/o throughput. Would it make more sense to assume symmetric numbers?

What changed about proprietary storage is that we are back to portable sizes. And it happened that nvme is still 'new' expensive tech. In this regards, Series X is a way smarter solution. When Xbox OG introduced hdd, every PC have a hdd already.

I think MS will allow more vendors to sell this new 'memory card' but the portable nvme still have very limited adoption, because, well, nvme ssd are 'new' tech!

I dont see it as hardcore fan basis. Just calling a spade a spade.

 

[Panajev2001a]

But i dont think Sony or MS quote read/write. Just i/o throughput. Would it make more sense to assume symmetric numbers?

Common sense... anyways for PS5 games playback read speed is what would certainly qualify the external drive or not. I do not see scenarios where you are heavily writing to the disk at that speed: it is the steaming flow from disk to memory to CPU/GPU that matters.

What changed about proprietary storage is that we are back to portable sizes. And it happened that nvme is still 'new' expensive tech. In this regards, Series X is a way smarter solution. When Xbox OG introduced hdd, every PC have a hdd already.

PSP and PSVita are portables and evening Memory Sticks on PSP were criticised despite being multiple vendors, not just Sony, manufacturing and selling them and they had genuinely good read and write sustained specs.
Series X is a smart design just like PS5, but they had very very different design goals: MS wanted to provide better loading speeds and upgraded to an SSD (realising ask it could help then expand memory), Sony looked at making the SSD an integral part of game design and went 120% committed on the whole SSD as virtual memory going with an insanely fast drive and ensuring it had all the custom HW it needed to be used by developers with little to no effort too.

 

[longdi]

Rewatching Cerny’s interview it looks like you are adding onto it and connecting to the same bus (the internal one is likely soldered onto the motherboard), but they were not clear about which one is active at any one time, but this could be handled smartly and automagically by the system for you (as far as you are concerned it may appear as a single giant drive, but with limitations as a 1 GB game could not be split into two 512 MB slices for each of the two drives).
I doubt they both are though and you may have to switch between both, similar to the situation on PS3 and PS4, but as I was saying they can be made look like a single logical volume.

The advantages would be:

• Being able to switch between the two discs means that you are easily getting to near 2 TB of effective storage without having to fork out for a 2 TB drive
  
  
• It is possible the OS partition needs only to be on the internal drive and upon boot up the user added SSD can then be used as the OS is loaded in memory (and maybe part of it in a temporary location of the new SSD)

This DF quote

The PS5 will have an NVMe slot, but drive compatibility will be paramount.

Sounds like PS5 will use the 'standard' zen2 lanes, 16 for graphics, 4 for internal storage, 4 for audio/network/expansion (this is where you slot in your off the shelf nvme).

I wonder if the last 4 lanes used for expansion of nvme addon, will it result in congestion? Because i believe the network and audio will run through these lanes too.

Series X will probably just need 16 for graphics + 2 for internal storage + 2 for audio network and + 2 for the expansion ssd + 2 for redundancy. Probably cheaper to build for these section of the apu and no congestion! Smart design again?

Meaning the faster SSD choice may eat into PS5 performance because of amd designs limited by its time

 

[CrustyBritches]

Yeah that is the video. Worth watching to see someone speaking technically and competently for almost 54 minutes straight without almost any pause as if it were a single smooth act.

*edit* I'm going through the video and PS5 definitely has a separate bay for the add-on drives. Eurogamer had no reason to use the word "replace" in their article multiple times. Just cause confusion.

Here's the explanation. Sorry about the formatting, it's the Youtube transcript and I'm too lazy to fix it.

having said that expandability of our
SSD is going to be quite important
flash is costly and you may very well
want to add storage to whatever we put
in the console now the kind of storage
you need depends on how you're going to
use it if you have an extensive
PlayStation 4 library and you'd like to
take advantage of backwards
compatibility to play those games on
PlayStation 5 then a large external hard
drive is ideal you can leave your games
on the hard drive and play them directly
from there thus saving the pricier SSD
storage for your PlayStation 5 titles or
you can copy your active PlayStation 4
titles to the SSD if your purpose in
adding more storage is to play
playstation 5 titles though ideally you
would add to your SSD storage we will be
supporting certain m2 SSDs these are
internal drives that you can get on the
open market and install in a bay in the
playstation 5 as for which ones we
support and when I'll get to that in a
moment they connect through the custom
io unit just like our SSD does so they
can take full advantage of the
decompression io coprocessors and all
...

having said that we are comparing
apples and oranges though because that
commercial m2 Drive will have its own
architecture its own flash controller
and so on for example the nvme
specification lays out a priority scheme
for requests that the m2 drives can use
and that scheme is pretty nice but it
only has two true priority levels our
drive supports six we can hook up a
drive with only two priority levels
definitely but our custom IO unit has to
arbitrate the extra priorities rather
than the m2 drives flash controller and
so the m2 drive needs a little extra
speed to take care of issues arising
from the different approach that
Commercial Drive also needs to
physically fit inside of the bay we
created in PlayStation 5 for m2 drives
unlike internal hard drives there's
unfortunately no standard for the height
of an m2 Drive and some m2 drives have
giant heat sinks in fact some of them
even have their own fans right now we're
getting in to drive samples and
benchmarking them in various ways

This is more clear cut that there's a bay and you add storage in addition to the SSD.