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Seagate confirms first PS5 compatible SSD - Firecuda 530

Allandor

Member
I just hope, the full on asset streaming dream is not dead. Cerny was clear on needing 7gig to compete with internal.

On the other hand we do know that compression has advanced since inception….possibly bridging the delta.
I really don't think that asset streaming is dead, but 5 GB/s is much, much more (especially compressed) than GPUs can really handle as some stuff must always be inside of the memory because access times of the SSDs aren't that fast. Other things (like shadow maps etc) are made and hold in memory so even if the whole screen changes, not that much must be transfered. It is not like the whole RAM must be filled with assets etc.
E.g. it would really be interesting to see how R&C would work on a PC, than you could try to scale the SSD speed down and test where the break-even point lies. So far I would guess it is in a range of about 1GB/s.
 
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JackMcGunns

Member
But one supercar can be taken and driven on many tracks that support standard cars all over the world, whereas the other can only be used on 2.


Huh?

The external SSD you buy on Series X can play every Series X game in existence and the future. You're not making much sense, the real difference is that the PS5 drive is of better value because it's faster, however the word "VALUE" changes when both are executing the same results for their respective machines. Series X games running exactly like Series X games would on the internal drive, and PS5 games running exactly the same as they would on the internal drive, so it's just paper value since from the gamer's perspective, they're both achieving the exact same thing.

On a side note, speaking of speed and value, let's take the recently analyzed game: The Ascent. On Xbox One S and Xbox One X, it takes 2 minutes and 47 seconds to load (Holy crap) that's almost 3 minutes of your life, meanwhile on Series S and X, it takes just 27 seconds to load, that is a major major difference and the major part of the benefit of having an SSD, and as we've seen in loading comparisons, the PS5 and Series X are not that different when it comes to loading, both offer an incredible upgrade from last gen and THAT is what gamers are seeking when they add these external drives.
 

Darklor01

Might need to stop sniffing glue
Huh?

The external SSD you buy on Series X can play every Series X game in existence and the future. You're not making much sense, the real difference is that the PS5 drive is of better value because it's faster, however the word "VALUE" changes when both are executing the same results for their respective machines. Series X games running exactly like Series X games would on the internal drive, and PS5 games running exactly the same as they would on the internal drive, so it's just paper value since from the gamer's perspective, they're both achieving the exact same thing.

On a side note, speaking of speed and value, let's take the recently analyzed game: The Ascent. On Xbox One S and Xbox One X, it takes 2 minutes and 47 seconds to load (Holy crap) that's almost 3 minutes of your life, meanwhile on Series S and X, it takes just 27 seconds to load, that is a major major difference and the major part of the benefit of having an SSD, and as we've seen in loading comparisons, the PS5 and Series X are not that different when it comes to loading, both offer an incredible upgrade from last gen and THAT is what gamers are seeking when they add these external drives.
So, let's say we chop out the obvious technical differences and reasons that these drives cost what they do that we can make common sense guesses at.

If I wanted to buy a 1TB SSD which is a 2.4GBs expansion card. We'll look at just the 1TB (NVME) drives and compare the price with the current market cost of the XSS/XSX expansion card:
They're generally about $110-$150 U.S. for PCIE 4.0 M.2 2280 drives. The XBOX Series S/X expansion is $210 (outside of occasionally on sale with a code at Newegg for $189.99).

Tossing out the specs entirely, and keeping this a TB to TB discussion, the XSS/XSX expansion card seems to be overpriced without knowing why it's priced the way it is, or why it hasn't yet lowered in price at this point.
 

Tripolygon

Banned
The average gamer with roaches living in their PS4 is not going to be able to figure this out.
Sony consoles from the PS2 onwards have had removable storage that you can upgrade on your own. The PS5 is no more different or difficult. They provided same instructions for how to upgrade the storage on your own from PS2, PS3, PS4 and now PS5. If you cannot figure it out, follow the inevitable YouTube instructions.
 

ManaByte

Member
Sony consoles from the PS2 onwards have had removable storage that you can upgrade on your own. The PS5 is no more different or difficult. They provided same instructions for how to upgrade the storage on your own from PS2, PS3, PS4 and now PS5. If you cannot figure it out, follow the inevitable YouTube instructions.

The PS2 had a proprietary HDD that hardly anyone used and become obsolete with the slim release (which is why Square ported FFXI to the 360).

Both the PS3 and PS4 used standard 2" laptop HDDs. Very simple. The specifications for this are a lot more complex.
 

hroerekr

Member
Because the drives hitting 5.5 GB/s and up only came out around the same time as the console's launch?
Do be fair, they were already on the Market and running on people's PCs by the time the consoles launched.
The dimensions are set to stone since they finished the console's design.

What exactly did they have to do that depends on what was not available during these 9 months?
 

Tripolygon

Banned
The PS2 had a proprietary HDD that hardly anyone used and become obsolete with the slim release (which is why Square ported FFXI to the 360).

Both the PS3 and PS4 used standard 2" laptop HDDs. Very simple. The specifications for this are a lot more complex.
The PS2 used the standard 3.5" HDD. It was not proprietary.

On the surface yes it appears complicated as there are lots of information provided on specifics. But in reality it is really not that complicated.

If you were one to worry about storage space on PS3, PS4 (60GB and 500GB) and did it yourself without buying the higher tier console then I would take a wild guess and say you are able to do it on PS5 without much issue.

Buy compatible SSD and heatsink which there will be lists to choose from as various websites and YouTube content creators compile and use "referral" links. Apply heatsink plug in and screw down. You don't need to figure out what everything on the specifications means.
 
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JackMcGunns

Member
So, let's say we chop out the obvious technical differences and reasons that these drives cost what they do that we can make common sense guesses at.

If I wanted to buy a 1TB SSD which is a 2.4GBs expansion card. We'll look at just the 1TB (NVME) drives and compare the price with the current market cost of the XSS/XSX expansion card:
They're generally about $110-$150 U.S. for PCIE 4.0 M.2 2280 drives. The XBOX Series S/X expansion is $210 (outside of occasionally on sale with a code at Newegg for $189.99).

Tossing out the specs entirely, and keeping this a TB to TB discussion, the XSS/XSX expansion card seems to be overpriced without knowing why it's priced the way it is, or why it hasn't yet lowered in price at this point.


Oh absolutely! they're overpriced for sure. I'm not biting until they drop significantly. For now I bought a 5TB drive, install all my BC and not optimized Series X games, and those that are Series X optimized, I swap in and out using the "Move" option, I rather deal with that minor hassle then to pay these "professional" scalpers.
 

Mr Moose

Member
What’s the difference? Show me the receipts
The difference is 100% faster loading. It loads twice as fast.

You said "Half the speed? Hahahaha don’t make me laugh. If we were using this on pc then I’d agree with you, but we’re talking consoles here. Will battlefield load twice as fast on ps5 versus Xbox?? No. Therefore that point is mute."

Those two games do.
Oh sorry, technically only 94% faster on Doom Eternal.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Anyone who actually owns both machines can tell you that to date, there is very little loading time difference between the two machines that matters, so you can yell from the rooftops all you want how much faster the PS5 drive is and it won't change anything. Both are very fast.
I find it humorous that many are trying to run in here to defend the pricing after slamming the xbox expansion storage pricing. Good luck with that.
 

MastaKiiLA

Member
Do be fair, they were already on the Market and running on people's PCs by the time the consoles launched.
The dimensions are set to stone since they finished the console's design.

What exactly did they have to do that depends on what was not available during these 9 months?
From a software development standpoint, the external storage feature would rank low at launch. There aren't enough games to make that feature useful/necessary to more than a small fraction of consumers. It would no doubt have been a lower priority item than patches and bug fixes, most of which the end-user never finds out about, but are part of the regular system updates that have happened in that time.
 

iHaunter

Member
Yeah man since launch the Xbox 1tb card has been on sale regularly in the UK for around £170 (down from £220). It’s£179 right now on Amazon and Curry’s.

Xbox need to get some cheaper 500gb cards out for hopefully the £100 mark.
They are slower, they will be cheaper.
 

Md Ray

Member
Do be fair, they were already on the Market and running on people's PCs by the time the consoles launched.
The dimensions are set to stone since they finished the console's design.

What exactly did they have to do that depends on what was not available during these 9 months?
Testing which drives physically fit in the bay as some of these have heatsinks that vary in height... And then benchmarking them, compatibility testing with new games, as Cerny explained in his talk, to make sure the architecture of certain drives isn't "too foreign for the games to handle". It would have been easy if all NVMe SSDs architecturally were the same as Sony's internal SSD just with different speeds, but like Cerny said, comparing NVMe SSD to their drive is like comparing apples and oranges.

Because NVMe drives come with their own flash controllers, priority schemes, different priority levels, their own architecture, etc. Sony's drive for e.g. supports six priority levels compared to only two priority levels in M.2 drives. So they need time to properly test, make sure which drives work best, has closest perf to their own drive, and which doesn't before letting users go out and buy them. The dimensions alone isn't going to help.

We will very likely see a list of "Compatible M.2 SSDs" in a blog post or something by Sony as soon as this update comes out of beta for the final push.
 
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Hoddi

Member
VILLAGE for example 1 sec on PS5 and 8 sec on XSX. It could be due to how fast the drive is or maybe how is the decompression handled, but yeah difference does exists.
I'm fairly sure it's decompression speed rather than the disk. I don't have the full game but the PC demo only read about 500MB from disk on loading each of the two maps. It still took a few seconds to load compared with just 1 second on the PS5.
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
I'm fairly sure it's decompression speed rather than the disk. I don't have the full game but the PC demo only read about 500MB from disk on loading each of the two maps. It still took a few seconds to load compared with just 1 second on the PS5.
I think the same thing, but I can't verify that, so...
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned

PlayStation is apparently testing out compatibility. Users in the Beta program can start testing the feature.


We have done some testing with Sony on the PlayStation 5 and today we can confirm that the FireCuda 530 with the heatsink has met all the PS5 requirements. With the PS5 design, the SSD card slot is very narrow, so there's not much room for the SSD to mount. However, with the FireCuda 530 – even with the heatsink on the top – the slim design allows for it to fit. Of course, the FireCuda 530 without the heatsink is slimmer, so both of them will fit into the PS5.”

– Country Manager for Seagate Technology, ANZ, Jeff Park
 

LostDonkey

Member
Been on the fence about getting a Series X expansion, makes to £179 for that seem pretty good deal now.

Eventually I willl upgrade my PS5 space but these prices. Fuck.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Guys there is no denying the speed of the ps5 ssd. When games utilise it properly we do see a difference between ps5 and Xbox. Yes it maybe practically instant vs 4-8 seconds on resident evil but it does exist and we can argue all day if we want to if 4 to 8 seconds really matters.
my main concern is will this affect how PlayStation games are designed because they need to now work on more drives and ultimately pc.

I’ll just hold out until other people beta test or maybe I can hold out until a slim 2tb comes out or something and just sell my current ps5. I am concerned with the drives potentially overheating or the ps5 getting louder to keep the drive cool.
 

Mr Moose

Member
So will the 980 fit and work? Samsung 980 PRO 1 TB PCIe 4.0 M.2 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08GS7748F/
You'd need a heatsink but yeah.

Been on the fence about getting a Series X expansion, makes to £179 for that seem pretty good deal now.

Eventually I willl upgrade my PS5 space but these prices. Fuck.
You don't need to get this shitty Seagate. There's cheaper options available (cheaper than £179 and more than twice the speed of 2.4GBs).
 
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Hezekiah

Banned
From the link... Australian dollars but still a big nope from me even when translated into usd or sek...

Code:
500GB                    $199 -->   ~149 us$ --> ~125 euro
500GB (with heatsink)    $239 -->   ~179 us$ --> ~149 euro
1TB                      $349 -->   ~259 us$ --> ~218 euro
1TB (with heatsink)      $399 -->   ~295 us$ --> ~249 euro
2TB                      $729 -->   ~540 us$ --> ~455 euro
2TB (with heatsink)      $819 -->   ~605 us$ --> ~510 euro
4TB                    $1,429 --> ~1,059 us$ --> ~892 euro
4TB (with heatsink)    $1,499 --> ~1,110 us$ --> ~935 euro

Edit: Updated with approx, us$ and euro prices.
My Samsung 980 Pro (no heatsink) cost me £220 back in December, about in line with that.
 

gamer82

Member
At these prices I’m good I’d rather just switch them between my external drive 3.0 drive and it seems quick enough moving the games.
 

Mr Moose

Member
Noice might pull the trigger if I get into the beta
Not sure if they do a version that already has a heatsink on it, but I think you can get one for around £10-ish that should work fine.
There's also this one that's a bit cheaper and just as fast (I think, someone posted a test earlier somewhere): https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08KFS6THF/
Cheaper on Scan https://www.scan.co.uk/products/1tb...nvme-ssd-3d-nand-7000mb-s-read-5300mb-s-write Or with heatsink (£40 more) https://www.scan.co.uk/products/1tb...nvme-ssd-3d-nand-7000mb-s-read-5300mb-s-write
 
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VILLAGE for example 1 sec on PS5 and 8 sec on XSX. It could be due to how fast the drive is or maybe how is the decompression handled, but yeah difference does exists.

And I don't believe it's been patched yet so I don't think it's due to a bug.

Now in terms of time it isn't a huge difference but it terms of days being loaded it could be a big difference. But then again we don't have any numbers to prove the amount of data being transferred.
 
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Is there a size variation or material difference between the heatsinks of different storage sizes?

Now it's up to Sony to push an update, any day now
They come in all shape and sizes.
From this:
c2QtMDEuanBn

To drives that are to be liquid cooled:
bjR4LnBuZw


and gamer drives:
RW9zM2FzdmIuanBn
 
And I don't believe it's been patched yet so I don't think it's due to a bug.

Now in terms of time it isn't a huge difference but it terms of days being loaded it could be a big difference. But then again we don't have any numbers to prove the amount of data being transferred.
But we may have a way to test load times with similarly specced drives (I know, it can also come down to the compression/decompression hardware)... the PS5 could probably even be tested with slower drives!
 
I received zero patches to this game, I wonder if Capcom is simply satisfied with the game as it is. For me it's certainly wasn't bug free experience...

Seems like it's the PC version that received some patches. The consoles didn't have anything yet from what I can find.
 
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