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Sony certifying 5.5Gb/s raw SSDs as additional PS5 storage is is worrying - heres how and why

Ok i finally enforced me to write this up. I did not wanted to because it stresses me out to a Level that iam exhausted. Exhausted by the realisation that internaly Sony is seeing PC as a very very big Source of Income and that they will do almost everything to make sure that Ports to PC will be possible easy and fast. Even cripple their own consolewich they spend Millions on to develop..

Ok lets dive in:

Cerny said in his Talk that PS5s internal SSD has 5.5Gb raw speed. And additional 4 priority Levels in comparision to normal Nand Drives. They come with 2. So PS5s SSD can use 6. Just a little later Cerny stated that in order to be on par with PS5s internal SSD the Third Party SSD would need to have some additional Speed to even out the missing 4 Priority Levels. Probably the Kraken Controllers job to synthesize 4 more prio lvls with the additional speed.

So much for that Talk and the Perspective he laid out.

so in Oktober last Year we heard that Western Digital would release the first PS5 certified Third Party SSD with their sn850 here the Article about that :

It was then also no suprise that the sn850 would bring a 7Gb raw Throughput on the table. Very much the overhead that we assumed would be neccessary to make up for missing 4 priority Lvls.

After that came nothing from Sony at all about the Third Party SSDs.. until NOW..

But what we miss here is what has happend within Sony in exactly that timespan inbetween the first report about WDs sn850 and this beta invitation with the infromation that a mere 5.5Gb would miraciously befast enough for PS5...
Off course it is about Sony engagement in PC gaming.
What was heard in that timespan?

Sony released more Exclusives and inofficial info about Uncharted4 and other Exclusives made it to the public. They bought Nixxes and everybody understands this as a move to help their PCPort strategy.

So they rated around summer last year the WD sn850 to be sufficiently fast enough to be on par with PS5s internal SSD.

Then came this big BIIG Intrest for PC Gaming to light.
And all of a sudden 5.5GB is enough to be "on par" with PS5s internal SSD?

The Thing is - 5.5GB will never be fast enough to be on par with the same SSD that has 4 Priority Levels more in its Sleeve.
The Problem here is sadly - while this is true - we never find out how much true it is.

Because:
We know that this SSD in the PS5 was planned to be used as a leverage for 9GB/s realtime datastreaming . First title who datastream in realtime many GB/s was Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart. Insomniac tweeded out that they make use of real time datastreaming and that everything you do not see on screen is not in memory. - hence every move of the camera will induce a realtime stream of Data comming of the SSD.

So Ratchet and Clank seemingly work fine with a 5.5GB Third Party SSD like some ealry adopters of the beta Programm and indeed Insomniac themselfs point out . But Ratchet and Clank is far from using PS5 potential with they claimed openly in the DF Interview with John Linneman. They said (paraphrasing here) :,, we found out that our engine needs to be updated to be able to handle so much data at once."

So their Game cannot be a Benchmark for Third Party SSD at all.
Or can it?

If Sony allowes 5.5GB SSDs then no Devs Third Party or Sony Studios alike could make a Game that would need a SSD that needs a raw speed of 7GB/s period
That Train has left.

9Gb/s (up to 22GBs) Throughput of PS5 that Train has left too. I cannot imagine that they did not incorporate the PS5s additional 4 Prio Levels in these Numbers.
So since no further overhead available to the Kraken Controller there is no additional 4 Prio Lvls available for PS5 Exclusives also. Even on the PS5s internal SSD!! This Ghost is out of the Bottle and cannot be put back into it. Since all available Third Party SSD do not have those 6 Prio lvls , Developers now need to all the Time assume that someone puts a 5.5GB raw SSD with 2 prio lvls in his PS5.

PS5 Downgraded - one year after Release . Absolutly amazing!!!



And why????

because their internal projections were as such that PC Gamers will only very slowly adopt 7GB nand Storage and it would be immensly difficult (or outright impossible) to port Games form Sony Studios wich leveraged the full PS5s I/O capabilitys in the development of their respective exclusive Title.

With that of course is the dream over for immensly more detailed worlds wich would need 9GB/s of realtime Datastreaming. I could imagine also that they internaly tested this 5.5Gb/s to be equvivalent to Xbox capabilitys, further reducing PS5 specific Dev Effort..
Because to me a 5.5GB/s SSD with only 2 Prio Levels instead of PS5s internal 6 sounds quite like what the Xbox could dream to achieve with its mere 2.5Gb/s Storage.

I am sure that iam not to far off here in regards of all my assumptions and what sealed the deal here for me were actually the Twitters Actions of Insomniac Fitzgerald and Cerny himself.

First that Fitzgerald wrote this "5.5Gb oh yeah its fine its fine we tested it yada yada" Tin Can. He was pushed on that stage like a Clown on a Pub Stage by someone higher than him to go and write something the more technical PS5 Fans would swallow.

And when Cerny actually gave his recommendation for the "suprise" WD sn850,( remember ? It was rated last year under Sonys "old" Strategy , when PS5 capabilitys weren´t thrown under the bus for some more sells on PC) it was clear that he also is not happy with this decision. Clearly he is not. How could he?

Sony says 5.5GB raw is enough and the system architect recommends a 7Gb/s raw Storage?? Sounds like "civil disobidience" to me.
Hopefully this 5.5GB/s recommendation is pulled / denied/ dismissed so this this wall of text here has no validiy anymore.
I hope i am wrong. But i am not, iam afraid..
 
Last edited:
That's accounting for compression, which the expansion SSD will also benefit from.
of course it does. I know that. That was known from the getgo. But how much GB/s peak Throughput can be achieved if the third Party SSD has only 2 nand prio Levels. For sure not the 9Gb/s they claimed for the internal SSD wich of course uses also all internal compression technics and gimmiks but with 4 more Prio lvls.

That is the entire Problem - with 7GB/s there is for sure enough overhead in raw speed left for the kraken controller to abstract 4 more Prio levels out of it. With the acceptance of 5.5GB/s with 2 nand Priority Levels we loose not only the overhead needed - even worse - since it has only 2 Prio Lvls it ,means that every Dev , every Game now needs to developed around those capabilitys and not on the PS5 capabilitys how it was designed...


Absolutly Amazing..
 
Last edited:

Azurro

Banned
I'm pretty sure I read in their announcement that if games do not perform properly, to put them onto the internal storage.

It'll be fine, 5.5 Gbps is still incredibly fast.
 

kyliethicc

Member
x61znTI.jpg
 
Ok i finally enforced me to write this up. I did not wanted to because it stresses me out to a Level that iam exhausted.

Do you also wake up from sweaty nightmares as marketing buzzwords followed you in your sleep? Do you get anxiety attacks thinking about PC gamers enjoying your precious exclusives? Do you have sleepless nights thinking about how PC might hold back your plastic box? Do you suffer choleric attacks as you think about teraflops and bandwidth performance?

If so, you might be a console warrior.
Don't give up, call 448-we-dont-give-a-f*ck and get help.
 
Ok i finally enforced me to write this up. I did not wanted to because it stresses me out to a Level that iam exhausted. Exhausted by the realisation that internaly Sony is seeing PC as a very very big Source of Income and that they will do almost everything to make sure that Ports to PC will be possible easy and fast. Even cripple their own consolewich they spend Millions on to develop..

Ok lets dive in:

Cerny said in his Talk that PS5s internal SSD has 5.5Gb raw speed. And additional 4 priority Levels in comparision to normal Nand Drives. They come with 2. So PS5s SSD can use 6. Just a little later Cerny stated that in order to be on par with PS5s internal SSD the Third Party SSD would need to have some additional Speed to even out the missing 4 Priority Levels. Probably the Kraken Controllers job to synthesize 4 more prio lvls with the additional speed.

So much for that Talk and the Perspective he laid out.

so in Oktober last Year we heard that Western Digital would release the first PS5 certified Third Party SSD with their sn850 here the Article about that :

It was then also no suprise that the sn850 would bring a 7Gb raw Throughput on the table. Very much the overhead that we assumed would be neccessary to make up for missing 4 priority Lvls.

After that came nothing from Sony at all about the Third Party SSDs.. until NOW..

But what we miss here is what has happend within Sony in exactly that timespan inbetween the first report about WDs sn850 and this beta invitation with the infromation that a mere 5.5Gb would miraciously befast enough for PS5...
Off course it is about Sony engagement in PC gaming.
What was heard in that timespan?

Sony released more Exclusives and inofficial info about Uncharted4 and other Exclusives made it to the public. They bought Nixxes and everybody understands this as a move to help their PCPort strategy.

So they rated around summer last year the WD sn850 to be sufficiently fast enough to be on par with PS5s internal SSD.

Then came this big BIIG Intrest for PC Gaming to light.
And all of a sudden 5.5GB is enough to be "on par" with PS5s internal SSD?

The Thing is - 5.5GB will never be fast enough to be on par with the same SSD that has 4 Priority Levels more in its Sleeve.
The Problem here is sadly - while this is true - we never find out how much true it is.

Because:
We know that this SSD in the PS5 was planned to be used as a leverage for 9GB/s realtime datastreaming . First title who datastream in realtime many GB/s was Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart. Insomniac tweeded out that they make use of real time datastreaming and that everything you do not see on screen is not in memory. - hence every move of the camera will induce a realtime stream of Data comming of the SSD.

So Ratchet and Clank seemingly work fine with a 5.5GB Third Party SSD like some ealry adopters of the beta Programm and indeed Insomniac themselfs point out . But Ratchet and Clank is far from using PS5 potential with they claimed openly in the DF Interview with John Linneman. They said (paraphrasing here) :,, we found out that our engine needs to be updated to be able to handle so much data at once."

So their Game cannot be a Benchmark for Third Party SSD at all.
Or can it?

If Sony allowes 5.5GB SSDs then no Devs Third Party or Sony Studios alike could make a Game that would need a SSD that needs a raw speed of 7GB/s period
That Train has left.

9Gb/s (up to 22GBs) Throughput of PS5 that Train has left too. I cannot imagine that they did not incorporate the PS5s additional 4 Prio Levels in these Numbers.
So since no further overhead available to the Kraken Controller there is no additional 4 Prio Lvls available for PS5 Exclusives also. Even on the PS5s internal SSD!! This Ghost is out of the Bottle and cannot be put back into it. Since all available Third Party SSD do not have those 6 Prio lvls , Developers now need to all the Time assume that someone puts a 5.5GB raw SSD with 2 prio lvls in his PS5.

PS5 Downgraded - one year after Release . Absolutly amazing!!!



And why????

because their internal projections were as such that PC Gamers will only very slowly adopt 7GB nand Storage and it would be immensly difficult (or outright impossible) to port Games form Sony Studios wich leveraged the full PS5s I/O capabilitys in the development of their respective exclusive Title.

With that of course is the dream over for immensly more detailed worlds wich would need 9GB/s of realtime Datastreaming. I could imagine also that they internaly tested this 5.5Gb/s to be equvivalent to Xbox capabilitys, further reducing PS5 specific Dev Effort..
Because to me a 5.5GB/s SSD with only 2 Prio Levels instead of PS5s internal 6 sounds quite like what the Xbox could dream to achieve with its mere 2.5Gb/s Storage.

I am sure that iam not to far off here in regards of all my assumptions and what sealed the deal here for me were actually the Twitters Actions of Insomniac Fitzgerald and Cerny himself.

First that Fitzgerald wrote this "5.5Gb oh yeah its fine its fine we tested it yada yada" Tin Can. He was pushed on that stage like a Clown on a Pub Stage by someone higher than him to go and write something the more technical PS5 Fans would swallow.

And when Cerny actually gave his recommendation for the "suprise" WD sn850,( remember ? It was rated last year under Sonys "old" Strategy , when PS5 capabilitys weren´t thrown under the bus for some more sells on PC) it was clear that he also is not happy with this decision. Clearly he is not. How could he?

Sony says 5.5GB raw is enough and the system architect recommends a 7Gb/s raw Storage?? Sounds like "civil disobidience" to me.
Hopefully this 5.5GB/s recommendation is pulled / denied/ dismissed so this this wall of text here has no validiy anymore.
I hope i am wrong. But i am not, iam afraid..


tl:dr?
 

BaneIsPain

Member
If you're worried about performance, then install that game to the internal. Delete it once you're done with it.
Let the rest at the external. Rinse & repeat
 

Kenpachii

Member
Ok i finally enforced me to write this up. I did not wanted to because it stresses me out to a Level that iam exhausted. Exhausted by the realisation that internaly Sony is seeing PC as a very very big Source of Income and that they will do almost everything to make sure that Ports to PC will be possible easy and fast. Even cripple their own consolewich they spend Millions on to develop..

Ok lets dive in:

Cerny said in his Talk that PS5s internal SSD has 5.5Gb raw speed. And additional 4 priority Levels in comparision to normal Nand Drives. They come with 2. So PS5s SSD can use 6. Just a little later Cerny stated that in order to be on par with PS5s internal SSD the Third Party SSD would need to have some additional Speed to even out the missing 4 Priority Levels. Probably the Kraken Controllers job to synthesize 4 more prio lvls with the additional speed.

So much for that Talk and the Perspective he laid out.

so in Oktober last Year we heard that Western Digital would release the first PS5 certified Third Party SSD with their sn850 here the Article about that :

It was then also no suprise that the sn850 would bring a 7Gb raw Throughput on the table. Very much the overhead that we assumed would be neccessary to make up for missing 4 priority Lvls.

After that came nothing from Sony at all about the Third Party SSDs.. until NOW..

But what we miss here is what has happend within Sony in exactly that timespan inbetween the first report about WDs sn850 and this beta invitation with the infromation that a mere 5.5Gb would miraciously befast enough for PS5...
Off course it is about Sony engagement in PC gaming.
What was heard in that timespan?

Sony released more Exclusives and inofficial info about Uncharted4 and other Exclusives made it to the public. They bought Nixxes and everybody understands this as a move to help their PCPort strategy.

So they rated around summer last year the WD sn850 to be sufficiently fast enough to be on par with PS5s internal SSD.

Then came this big BIIG Intrest for PC Gaming to light.
And all of a sudden 5.5GB is enough to be "on par" with PS5s internal SSD?

The Thing is - 5.5GB will never be fast enough to be on par with the same SSD that has 4 Priority Levels more in its Sleeve.
The Problem here is sadly - while this is true - we never find out how much true it is.

Because:
We know that this SSD in the PS5 was planned to be used as a leverage for 9GB/s realtime datastreaming . First title who datastream in realtime many GB/s was Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart. Insomniac tweeded out that they make use of real time datastreaming and that everything you do not see on screen is not in memory. - hence every move of the camera will induce a realtime stream of Data comming of the SSD.

So Ratchet and Clank seemingly work fine with a 5.5GB Third Party SSD like some ealry adopters of the beta Programm and indeed Insomniac themselfs point out . But Ratchet and Clank is far from using PS5 potential with they claimed openly in the DF Interview with John Linneman. They said (paraphrasing here) :,, we found out that our engine needs to be updated to be able to handle so much data at once."

So their Game cannot be a Benchmark for Third Party SSD at all.
Or can it?

If Sony allowes 5.5GB SSDs then no Devs Third Party or Sony Studios alike could make a Game that would need a SSD that needs a raw speed of 7GB/s period
That Train has left.

9Gb/s (up to 22GBs) Throughput of PS5 that Train has left too. I cannot imagine that they did not incorporate the PS5s additional 4 Prio Levels in these Numbers.
So since no further overhead available to the Kraken Controller there is no additional 4 Prio Lvls available for PS5 Exclusives also. Even on the PS5s internal SSD!! This Ghost is out of the Bottle and cannot be put back into it. Since all available Third Party SSD do not have those 6 Prio lvls , Developers now need to all the Time assume that someone puts a 5.5GB raw SSD with 2 prio lvls in his PS5.

PS5 Downgraded - one year after Release . Absolutly amazing!!!



And why????

because their internal projections were as such that PC Gamers will only very slowly adopt 7GB nand Storage and it would be immensly difficult (or outright impossible) to port Games form Sony Studios wich leveraged the full PS5s I/O capabilitys in the development of their respective exclusive Title.

With that of course is the dream over for immensly more detailed worlds wich would need 9GB/s of realtime Datastreaming. I could imagine also that they internaly tested this 5.5Gb/s to be equvivalent to Xbox capabilitys, further reducing PS5 specific Dev Effort..
Because to me a 5.5GB/s SSD with only 2 Prio Levels instead of PS5s internal 6 sounds quite like what the Xbox could dream to achieve with its mere 2.5Gb/s Storage.

I am sure that iam not to far off here in regards of all my assumptions and what sealed the deal here for me were actually the Twitters Actions of Insomniac Fitzgerald and Cerny himself.

First that Fitzgerald wrote this "5.5Gb oh yeah its fine its fine we tested it yada yada" Tin Can. He was pushed on that stage like a Clown on a Pub Stage by someone higher than him to go and write something the more technical PS5 Fans would swallow.

And when Cerny actually gave his recommendation for the "suprise" WD sn850,( remember ? It was rated last year under Sonys "old" Strategy , when PS5 capabilitys weren´t thrown under the bus for some more sells on PC) it was clear that he also is not happy with this decision. Clearly he is not. How could he?

Sony says 5.5GB raw is enough and the system architect recommends a 7Gb/s raw Storage?? Sounds like "civil disobidience" to me.
Hopefully this 5.5GB/s recommendation is pulled / denied/ dismissed so this this wall of text here has no validiy anymore.
I hope i am wrong. But i am not, iam afraid..

I will give you a tip.

If they can't backup there claims with demonstrations or proof, its PR Bullshit until they proof it.

Cerny isn't only the designer of the PS5, he's also a PR mouth piece as he works for the company itself. it's like believing what Jensen of NVIDIA says with his GPU presentations.

There claim that SSD's are faster then HDD's can be backed up easily by tons of demonstrations and examples. This is why with PC's for example, when something comes out, it gets benched and tested to the teeth to see what something does and how something effects. Nobody trusts anybody that works for the company that tries to sell a product because they are PR mouth pieces.

There is a lot of stuff that can effect performance considerable, but there is also a lot of shit that doesn't which are nothing but random numbers and they can be highlighted by specific people to get a point across even while its based on nothing but thin air.

This is why for example the EU5 demo came out. I stated. where are the numbers?
Can we see in this deep dive how much the SSD is used?
Can we see how much memory is used?
Can we see in real time how the ssd and memory swaps data around?

Nothing.

And when the demo came out on PC, people realized quick enough that SSD performance and memory usage was laughable low even while it pushes a lot more. "shocking face".

Why did sony do a spiderman demonstration of load times? or Microsoft? or why do we see games pushing 4k that couldn't in last generation consoles at 60fps? because its something they proof and then there claims became valid.

If cerny showcased us a demonstration and released that software on PC while at it, that showcases the difference between 2 and 6 channels and its a massive leap, PC will adopt it tommorow and SSD makers also. But the reality is, they don't or better they spend not even a second thinking about it as 14 gbps ssd's are on the menu next year already.

Then about R&C.

"We know that this SSD in the PS5 was planned to be used as a leverage for 9GB/s realtime datastreaming . First title who datastream in realtime many GB/s was Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart. Insomniac tweeded out that they make use of real time datastreaming and that everything you do not see on screen is not in memory. - hence every move of the camera will induce a realtime stream of Data comming of the SSD."

Datastreaming isn't something new mate, also real time data streaming also isn't saying much. They could stream sound from the SSD into there memory like they already did back on PC's in the 90's or play video's real time from the cdroms.

Everything u see on the screen and is in game where u can move around in sits in the memory, what u say isn't possible.

The streaming solution with SSD is only used to reduce the memory footprint and insomia also states the same thing.

In a lengthy interview with The Verge, Fitzgerald explained how Insomniac used Spider-Man‘s PS5 development to “file away ideas” for Rift Apart, adding that some of Spider-Man‘s “essential” development aspects “turned out to be cool” for the upcoming title. The density of its world is just one example.


Spider-Man is an open-world title. We built all of this tech to stream that open world as you go through it. When you’re downtown, there’s not much Midtown in memory. You can see it from a distance, but then as you go farther north, we pull in those areas. No Ratchet game has ever been constructed that way. They’ve always been: here’s a level, load the level, now you’re in that level and you play it. But by switching over the Ratchet world to use that same streaming architecture, we can pack more and more density and content and quality in every corner of a Ratchet & Clank world, because we’re happy to ditch the west side of Nefarious City when you go to the east side, and that type of thing.
 
Last edited:

Corndog

Banned
of course it does. I know that. That was known from the getgo. But how much GB/s peak Throughput can be achieved if the third Party SSD has only 2 nand prio Levels. For sure not the 9Gb/s they claimed for the internal SSD wich of course uses also all internal compression technics and gimmiks but with 4 more Prio lvls.

That is the entire Problem - with 7GB/s there is for sure enough overhead in raw speed left for the kraken controller to abstract 4 more Prio levels out of it. With the acceptance of 5.5GB/s with 2 nand Priority Levels we loose not only the overhead needed - even worse - since it has only 2 Prio Lvls it ,means that every Dev , every Game now needs to developed around those capabilitys and not on the PS5 capabilitys how it was designed...


Absolutly Amazing..
Maybe they realized 5.5 is enough.
 

Rob_27

Member
You're too involved. Chill out. I bet you dream about this stuff. Me I haven't powered up the ps5 today. But did the Series X. I'm not going to worry about that.
 

Larxia

Member
The more worrying thing is why people need more storage. Games take like 10 minutes to download, if that.
I don't understand this reply, it's like you're assuming the download speed of everyone in the world. Not everyone has high speed internet.

I got fiber about a year ago, so I too now have high speed download, but before that, my max download speed was 1MB/s (8 Mbps internet speed), downloading a big game could take me days if I needed to use internet for other things and therefore pausing the download, and even without pause, the last time I downloaded GTA V on that internet speed it took about 24 hours.

So, saying "Games take like 10 minutes to download, if that" really doesn't make any sense at all, there's not like some universal internet speed for everyone, unlike what your post suggest.
And before you say it, no, not everyone can upgrade their internet just by paying more, depending on where you live, you might just be stuck with low speed options, which is actually really common here in France for example, more than half of the country still has internet speed like what I just described, which is the high standard for ADSL if you don't have any optic fiber option.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
You're exhausted over an optional storage expansion?
No. He's upset over the fact that the biggest tech advantage the PS5 has will potentially not be taken advantage of. The advantage Cerny spent literally 30 minutes shoving down our throat. The advantage that came at the cost of more graphical power. The advantage that came at the cost of fewer storage.

But you already knew what he meant and were being facetious, right?
 

MrSec84

Member
The more worrying thing is why people need more storage. Games take like 10 minutes to download, if that.
Not everyone has gigabit internet.
A 75GB file takes just over 10 minutes if you have 1gb/s, I personally get between 60 to 70mb/s, if I could dedicate 60mb/s it would take me nearly 3 hours to download that.
I tend to do other things while I'm downloading games and could maybe say half my speed can be dedicated to that game file, so it would be around 6 hours.

If I had gigabit internet than I could see your point, but not everyone does.
 
I don't understand this reply, it's like you're assuming the download speed of everyone in the world. Not everyone has high speed internet.

I got fiber about a year ago, so I too now have high speed download, but before that, my max download speed was 1MB/s (8 Mbps internet speed), downloading a big game could take me days if I needed to use internet for other things and therefore pausing the download, and even without pause, the last time I downloaded GTA V on that internet speed it took about 24 hours.

So, saying "Games take like 10 minutes to download, if that" really doesn't make any sense at all, there's not like some universal internet speed for everyone, unlike what your post suggest.
And before you say it, no, not everyone can upgrade their internet just by paying more, depending on where you live, you might just be stuck with low speed options, which is actually really common here in France for example, more than half of the country still has internet speed like what I used to have before a year ago.

It's just an entitled gamer joke.
 

Jigsaah

Gold Member
I get why you're concerned, I think. If you're worried about future potential on the console, can't they just make a faster SSD at WD?

I'm having a hard time understanding if this is more about not having proper SSD speed and therefore nerfing their potential or is this more about the fact that Sony is going all in on PC?

I don't see an issue with either of these things.
 
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