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[NX Gamer] PS5 SSD Expansion - Beta 2.0 M2 In-Depth Technical Review

sinnergy

Member
He said a tad not a lot. It wouldn't drop to speeds close to the Series X drive for example. The only way that happens is due to really bad throttling due to heat and the PS5 SSD doesn't have that issue.
There are more components that are used for streaming , all need power and produce heat .
 
There are more components that are used for streaming , all need power and produce heat .

Well your assuming the PS5 has overheating issues when we haven't seen any indication of them.

Plus what you said about heat and throttling can apply to the Series X drive BTW.
 
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Posts like these make me feel a lot of headache in the next 6 minutes. What's exactly your point? Oh I see some post above. I suspect you have no idea how important could be such data speed in the future.
Make sure to tag me if I'm shown wrong. I have no issue with being wrong. It's not terribly common, but it would be a positive surprise.
 
Make sure to tag me if I'm shown wrong. I have no issue with being wrong. It's not terribly common, but it would be a positive surprise.

To be fair I've seen both Sony and Microsoft talk about asset streaming improvements with SSDs. I don't believe either are wrong it's just that one placed more of a focus on it than the other. Doesn't mean they don't have similar goals.

But I think we derailed this thread enough. It really isn't about discussing the what will happen to streaming assets 6 months from now. It's not really part of NXGamer NXGamer goal with this video.
 
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To be fair I've seen both Sony and Microsoft talk about asset streaming improvements with SSDs. I don't believe either are wrong it's just that one placed more of a focus on it than the other. Doesn't mean they don't have similar goals.

But I think we derailed this thread enough. It really isn't about discussing the what will happen to streaming assets 6 months from now. It's not really part of NXGamer NXGamer goal with this video.
I was replying to the ifs ands buts, since they are positive they are fine though? My comment which was indifferent is derailment, got it. There is no knowledge gained nor useful discussions in an echo chamber. You need to stop looking at every comment that isn't gushing as vs.
Peace.
 
I was replying to the ifs ands buts, since they are positive they are fine though? My comment which was indifferent is derailment, got it. There is no knowledge gained nor useful discussions in an echo chamber. You need to stop looking at every comment that isn't gushing as vs.
Peace.

Maybe you should look at both sides instead of focusing on just one? A lot of what Sony says about their tech can be applied to the competition and the opposite is true.

As for being against negativity I don't see why yours makes any sense in this thread. Seems like you brought it in just because you could. I don't really understand the purpose of your original comment that's all.
 
Maybe you should look at both sides instead of focusing on just one? A lot of what Sony says about their tech can be applied to the competition and the opposite is true.

As for being against negativity I don't see why yours makes any sense in this thread. Seems like you brought it in just because you could. I don't really understand the purpose of your original comment that's all.
See again it's vs. You look at my posts like I have a horse in this race, but to me there is no race. I like technology in general. Couldn't care less who makes it. I have zero brand loyalty for any product I own.
Read again the 5 posts above mine, and I'm confident you will see how it's relevant, regardless of if you agree or not.
 
See again it's vs. You look at my posts like I have a horse in this race, but to me there is no race. I like technology in general. Couldn't care less who makes it. I have zero brand loyalty for any product I own.
Read again the 5 posts above mine, and I'm confident you will see how it's relevant, regardless of if you agree or not.

I don't know I just think that in 6 years we will have games that will take advantage of each systems I/O. Both companies have sold the importance of asset streaming and we will see it happen at some point in the generation. You really can't expect only loading times to improve with such a massive increase of days transfer rates from HDDs to SDDs.

I don't believe people will be disappointed by the end results because by then fast I/Os will be the standard in the industry.

As for the video I believe it focused more on the NVME expansion more than talking about asset streaming. But he did stress that the slower drives should be fine as long as the I/O requirements never go beyond them. If that will happen that remains to be seen.

I hope this helps.
 
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Asked NXgamer about a potential noise increase. Noise levels remain the same.

Thermodynamic experts am
zzV3M8S.gif
 
Asked NXgamer about a potential noise increase. Noise levels remain the same.

Thermodynamic experts am
zzV3M8S.gif

Why would the noise levels increase? Who argued this?

Clearly, Sony designed the PS5 cooling system with sufficient capacity to accommodate the external SSD--most likely with some margin--without significant acoustic performance impact.

Anyone arguing otherwise isn't a thermodynamics expert. They just lack common sense.
 
I don't know I just think that in 6 years we will have games that will take advantage of each systems I/O. Both companies have sold the importance of asset streaming and we will see it happen at some point in the generation. You really can't expect only loading times to improve with such a massive increase of days transfer rates from HDDs to SDDs.

I don't believe people will be disappointed by the end results because by then fast I/Os will be the standard in the industry.

As for the video I believe it focused more on the NVME expansion more than talking about asset streaming. But he did stress that the slower drives should be fine as long as the I/O requirements never go beyond them. If that will happen that remains to be seen.

I hope this helps.
Again please tag me when this happens. I've said it will be a pleasant surprise.
Asked NXgamer about a potential noise increase. Noise levels remain the same.

Thermodynamic experts am
zzV3M8S.gif
Adding another source of heat to a closed box will increase temps or increase acoustics to deal with temps. That's just a fact. The added heat being an issue was quite silly though considering the original temps the fans were already dealing with.
 

sinnergy

Member
Well your assuming the PS5 has overheating issues when we haven't seen any indication of them.

Plus what you said about heat and throttling can apply to the Series X drive BTW.
To my understanding, MS, has a design that doesn’t throttle , that’s why it’s 2400 sustained , they also have the metal that is pressed to a heatsink inside the Series.
 
To my understanding, MS, has a design that doesn’t throttle , that’s why it’s 2400 sustained , they also have the metal that is pressed to a heatsink inside the Series.

Even Microsoft can't design hardware there's immune to throttling. Both I/Os are working as they should. It's not like either is throttling so much that it's operating way below it's peak.
 

sinnergy

Member
Even Microsoft can't design hardware there's immune to throttling. Both I/Os are working as they should. It's not like either is throttling so much that it's operating way below it's peak.
They can If they cap it below max spec , which they probably have.
 
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Sure I'll tag you when it happens with either platform since they both made that claim. Although I have already seen developers talk about making changes to the way they streamed assets. Like streaming in chunks instead of loading the entire level for example.
I'm not arguing it's use, I'm arguing Ratchet is scratching the surface of it's use. If Ratchet wasn't using the 5.5gbs why would a slightly faster drive have slightly better results and a slightly slower drive have slightly slower results?
 
I'm not arguing it's use, I'm arguing Ratchet is scratching the surface of it's use. If Ratchet wasn't using the 5.5gbs why would a slightly faster drive have slightly better results and a slightly slower drive have slightly slower results?

That seems normal to me. A slightly faster drive will move more data and a slightly slower drive will move less data. Which would lead to differences in I/O performance.

What you need to ask if they max out the internal drive what will happen to the NVMEs?

My guess is that there would be a difference in performance but if a drive is extremely slow it could affect the playability of a game.
 

Tripolygon

Banned
I don't know I just think that in 6 years we will have games that will take advantage of each systems I/O. Both companies have sold the importance of asset streaming and we will see it happen at some point in the generation. You really can't expect only loading times to improve with such a massive increase of days transfer rates from HDDs to SDDs.

I don't believe people will be disappointed by the end results because by then fast I/Os will be the standard in the industry.

As for the video I believe it focused more on the NVME expansion more than talking about asset streaming. But he did stress that the slower drives should be fine as long as the I/O requirements never go beyond them. If that will happen that remains to be seen.

I hope this helps.
Games are already taking advantage of the faster IO, we don't need to wait 6 years to see the benefit. The major benefit is to game developers, to the end user you might not notice anything other than super fast, seamless and more detailed games. How will that lead to disappointment? I really do not understand. There is a serious lack of understanding of the benefits of fast IO as it pertains to game development. This is not the fault of Sony or Microsoft but of people not understanding what they are being told. Nobody oversold the importance of fast IO. If we rewatch the Mark Cerny Presentation or look at Microsoft's marketing material they underlined few key things that having fast IO enables.

For developers they underline

1. More available RAM for render budget. You don't have to keep a lot of assets in RAM as a buffer for what might be needed, you only have what you need in the next few seconds of rendering and load as you go. This frees up lots of active RAM and means you don't need to increase RAM. (also means less cost for Sony & Microsoft).

2. No need to design to hide loading. Developers spend lots of time adding sections to artificially hide loading. A recent example of that is Ghost of Tsushima, they added pre-rendered cutscenes to hide transitional loading between environments. On PS5 all cutscenes are now rendered in engine because the SSD is fast enough to stream in the new environment as needed.

3. Less assets duplication to hide seek times and latency. Keeps games sizes down and again we can see that game sizes have not really ballooned significantly, accompanied by really good compression technology.

These are 3 quality of life changers for games developers as they spend less time trying to optimize around slow storage. For example of how that hampers game development see Postmortem GDC talk on Spiderman. How that may lead to some really cool new game mechanics will be interesting to see. It also benefits cost of development in small ways.

For Gamers they underline little to no load times. This is self explanatory and we are seeing more games have less than 3 seconds of loading. And more detailed games.

That is literally it. I challenge someone to find anything from Microsoft or Sony that oversold what fast IO enables.

I don't understand. 6 years? I might even have a PS6 by then. Why would I be disappointed in 6 years time?
You won't.
 
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Games are already taking advantage of the faster IO, we don't need to wait 6 years to see the benefit. The major benefit is to game developers, to the end user you might not notice anything other than super fast, seamless and more detailed games. How will that lead to disappointment? I really do not understand. There is a serious lack of understanding of the benefits of fast IO as it pertains to game development. This is not the fault of Sony or Microsoft but of people not understanding what they are being told. Nobody oversold the importance of fast IO. If we rewatch the Mark Cerny Presentation or look at Microsoft's marketing material they underlined few key things that having fast IO enables.

For developers they underline

1. More available RAM for render budget. You don't have to keep a lot of assets in RAM as a buffer for what might be needed, you only have what you need in the next few seconds of rendering and load as you go. This frees up lots of active RAM and means you don't need to increase RAM. (also means less cost for Sony & Microsoft).

2. No need to design to hide loading. Developers spend lots of time adding sections to artificially hide loading. A recent example of that is Ghost of Tsushima, they added pre-rendered cutscenes to hide transitional loading between environments. On PS5 all cutscenes are now rendered in engine because the SSD is fast enough to stream in the new environment as needed.

3. Less assets duplication to hide seek times and latency. Keeps games sizes down and again we can see that game sizes have not really ballooned significantly, accompanied by really good compression technology.

These are 3 quality of life changers for games developers as they spend less time trying to optimize around slow storage. For example of how that hampers game development see Postmortem GDC talk on Spiderman. How that may lead to some really cool new game mechanics will be interesting to see. It also benefits cost of development in small ways.

For Gamers they underline little to no load times. This is self explanatory and we are seeing more games have less than 3 seconds of loading. And more detailed games.

That is literally it. I challenge someone to find anything from Microsoft or Sony that oversold what fast IO enables.


You won't.

I don't think it's complete BS. Even PCs are moving in that direction with RTX I/O and Direct Storage. At some point it will become the standard in the industry and we will see big benefits by then.

We can even see benefits now but that's limited to exclusives at the moment.
 

assurdum

Banned
6 years being an approximate time when the next gen will start, and the massive differences from now that people expect will not of come to fruition.
Based on what you say that exactly? You are incredible naive if you think such data speed won't change anything in the next 6 years. Data size increase terribly from a generation to another. You will see.
 
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ethomaz

Banned
If I was MS I would bring new manufacturers in after a year. That way you have competition and drive down the cost.
That is not the issue actually.

The M.2 format is used in basically everything so you are to a potential billions userbase os devices… so it sell a lot that makes it cheaper.

The only way to MS proprietary option become cheaper like the M.2 is if all PC devices manufacturers adopts it as standard… that means all motherboards starts to have this type of connection by default.

That won’t happen… well at least not in the Series lifetime… who knows in the very long term.

More partner to produce the model will create a range of prices due competition but won’t make it cheaper like M.2.
 
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phil_t98

#SonyToo
Like previous tests showed there is little to no gain with faster SSDs like 980Pro at 6900GB/s showed a increase of avg. performance in 1%… the biggest gain is indeed in copying speeds.

With slower SSDs like MP600 at 4950GB/s showed an avg. drop in performance of 3%.

While the drop is not that big it make me question the use of even slower SSDs on the system.
3% is miliseconds and you wouldn't even notice
 

ethomaz

Banned
To my understanding, MS, has a design that doesn’t throttle , that’s why it’s 2400 sustained , they also have the metal that is pressed to a heatsink inside the Series.
So you believe that MS created a machine that a safe of throttling while Sony have one that most likely will throttle?

Mother of God lol


They can If they cap it below max spec , which they probably have.
Hummm… Séries SSD isn’t a well know retail SSD? SN530?

“Read speeds up to 2,400 MB/s and low power consumption leverages both the PCIe Gen3 x4 interface, as well as sophisticated NVMe power management”

It is already working at max specs it was designed.
 
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So you believe that MS created a machine that a safe of throttling while Sony have one that most likely will throttle?

Mother of God lol



Hummm… Séries SSD isn’t a well know retail SSD? SN530?

“Read speeds up to 2,400 MB/s and low power consumption leverages both the PCIe Gen3 x4 interface, as well as sophisticated NVMe power management”

It is already working at max specs it was designed.

Honestly I believe both designed their I/O with throttling in mind. And from seeing some temperature tests with heatsinks you can avoid throttling with them. Both systems have ways to stop throttling from happening. It's why Sony (for example) put that giant heatsink right against the chips and there's even one on the other side.

images


Now while both systems can suffer from throttling, it won't he a big issue on either.
 

Tripolygon

Banned
So you believe that MS created a machine that a safe of throttling while Sony have one that most likely will throttle?

Mother of God lol



Hummm… Séries SSD isn’t a well know retail SSD? SN530?

“Read speeds up to 2,400 MB/s and low power consumption leverages both the PCIe Gen3 x4 interface, as well as sophisticated NVMe power management”

It is already working at max specs it was designed.
Sometimes I'm reminded that not everyone who frequents these forums are technical minded. I think what S sinnergy believes is that Microsoft made an SSD that is capable of 5GB/s but Microsoft artificially capped it at 2.4GB/s to ensure sustained performance. This is not the first time I have seen this reasoning.
Now while both systems can suffer from throttling, it won't he a big issue on either.
Neither SSD is throttling based on thermals. They are performing within the optimal temperature range for SSD. There is no discernible difference between using an SSD with and without heatsink on PS5. It is within margin of error. Though a heatsink is highly recommended to prolong the longevity of the SSD.
 
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Sometimes I'm reminded that not everyone who frequents these forums are technical minded. I think what S sinnergy believes is that Microsoft made an SSD that is capable of 5GB/s but Microsoft artificially capped it at 2.4GB/s to ensure sustained performance. This is not the first time I have seen this reasoning.

Neither SSD is throttling based on thermals. They are performing within the optimal temperature range for SSD. There is no discernible difference between using an SSD with and without heatsink on PS5. It is within margin of error. Though a heatsink is highly recommended to prolong the longevity of the SSD.

Oh jeez no. They definitely couldn't do that with two lanes. A 5GB/s Gen4 SSD requires 4 lanes not two.
 

ethomaz

Banned
Sometimes I'm reminded that not everyone who frequents these forums are technical minded. I think what S sinnergy believes is that Microsoft made an SSD that is capable of 5GB/s but Microsoft artificially capped it at 2.4GB/s to ensure sustained performance. This is not the first time I have seen this reasoning.

Neither SSD is throttling based on thermals. They are performing within the optimal temperature range for SSD. There is no discernible difference between using an SSD with and without heatsink on PS5. It is within margin of error. Though a heatsink is highly recommended to prolong the longevity of the SSD.
I’m not sure what people things with sustained speeds because the NAND chip in SSDs all have sustained speeds… it is designed to run at that speed unless you over/down clock it.

It is like saying a DDR4 you brought to your PC won’t run at designed specs.

People buy better and expensive DDR4 ram on PC for two things: latency and potential overclock.

All DDR4 designed at 2133MHz will run at that speed no matter what manufacturer you choose… it can have latency (CAS for example), voltage and potential overclock differences but that is all.

BTW Series X uses 2 PCI-E 4.0 lanes… they can at max reach 4GB/s with a faster SSD (if the offer it in future)… but the internal one just use 2.4GB/s of that bus.
 
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ethomaz

Banned
Oh jeez no. They definitely couldn't do that with two lanes. A 5GB/s Gen4 SSD requires 4 lanes not two.
Actually it requires 3 lanes but odd numbers are very unusual in PC industry and I believe PCIe was not designed for that (at least I never saw one)… so you really need to go with 4 lanes.

But MS was a custom machine so they could with custom number of lanes if they wish I believe… it just out of the standard.
 
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Connxtion

Member
BTW Series X uses 2 PCI-E 4.0 lanes… they can at max reach 4GB/s with a faster SSD (if the offer it in future)… but the internal one just use 2.4GB/s of that bus.
From my testing the XSX ssd internal and external can reach over 4.2GB/s (over 600MB second read and write) though I suspect there is a cache.

I copied 42GB in 1m16s back and forth between the internal and external expansion card multiple times. (4442MB/s was what it calculated to)

Anyways after a while and playing other games, i was recording a video and it took over 2 minutes to copy the same data back and fourth. So that’s why I suspect the content is cached somewhere on the drives.

Edit:
Or both drives throttled, but I think it’s a cache thing. As the transfer worked out about the same as the PS5 internal write speed.
 
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From my testing the XSX ssd internal and external can reach over 4.2GB/s (over 600MB second read and write) though I suspect there is a cache.

I copied 42GB in 1m16s back and forth between the internal and external expansion card multiple times. (4442MB/s was what it calculated to)

Anyways after a while and playing other games, i was recording a video and it took over 2 minutes to copy the same data back and fourth. So that’s why I suspect the content is cached somewhere on the drives.

Curious as to why they gave us the lower numbers if it's capable of more.
 

ethomaz

Banned
From my testing the XSX ssd internal and external can reach over 4.2GB/s (over 600MB second read and write) though I suspect there is a cache.

I copied 42GB in 1m16s back and forth between the internal and external expansion card multiple times. (4442MB/s was what it calculated to)

Anyways after a while and playing other games, i was recording a video and it took over 2 minutes to copy the same data back and fourth. So that’s why I suspect the content is cached somewhere on the drives.

Edit:
Or both drives throttled, but I think it’s a cache thing. As the transfer worked out about the same as the PS5 internal write speed.
42GB in 1m16s is around 550MB/s.
It is nowhere 4442MB/s.

Séries PCI-e bus can’t reach that anyway.. you probably confused Mb as MB.
You are not getting over 2.4GB/s with the Series SSD.

You should have that copy at less than 10s with 4442MB/s.
 
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Connxtion

Member
Curious as to why they gave us the lower numbers if it's capable of more.
Probably because it isn’t always that fast, I think files are cached for faster access.

So it’s easier to say it’s slower and really we get faster speeds than say it’s faster and get slower speeds. As we know how the latter goes 😂
 

ethomaz

Banned
4442mbps sorry. And I used an online calculator based on file size and time taken.
I guessed it was the case.

It is around 550MB/s way below the peak specs.

But remember you are talking about copying that involve random writing… all SSDs works below the sequential read/writing in random operations.

Series SSD has up to 2.4GB/s sequential read and up to 1.9GB/s sequential write.

PS. I think it is nice to add that the game reads are already put in a sequential way… so it will most if not all time be near the full speed sequential read speed of the SSD.

Ohhh and I believe both consoles have a headroom for the OS… while the OS uses very small part of the bandwidth it is still being used.
 
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Probably because it isn’t always that fast, I think files are cached for faster access.

So it’s easier to say it’s slower and really we get faster speeds than say it’s faster and get slower speeds. As we know how the latter goes 😂

Curious as to why Sony gave us higher numbers. I'm guessing it's because it really is close to that most of the time.
 

Tripolygon

Banned
I guessed it was the case.

It is around 550MB/s way below the peak specs.

But remember you are talking about copying that involve random writing… all SSDs works below the sequential read/writing in random operations.

Series SSD has up to 2.4GB/s sequential read and up to 1.9GB/s sequential write.
Don't get me started on the guaranteed sustained performance Microsoft has attached to their SSD marketing. It is impossible to guarantee a sustained performance on storage, It depends on a lot of factors. As has been demonstrated by copying files from the internal to expansion port. You will average around ~500MB/s for XSX, and for PS5 around ~1.5GB/s.
 
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Why would the noise levels increase? Who argued this?
Xbox Fanboys.

The source for this nonsense is this shitty Bloomberg article:



Claiming that Sony needs to ramp the fanspeed up because the SSD in the expension bay generates so much heat and without a fancurveupdate the console will overheat.
 
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Xbox Fanboys.

The source for this nonsense is this shitty Bloomberg article:



Claiming that Sony needs to ramp the fanspeed up because the SSD in the expension bay generates so much heat and without a fancurvenupdate the console would would overheat.

Hmmm at least they got the beta right.

Adding support for additional drives will be enabled with a firmware update that also unlocks higher cooling-fan speeds to ensure the console doesn’t overheat, the people said, asking not to be named because the plans are not yet public.

But I haven't seen any proof of this yet.
 
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