According to Sony, it will start testing out the expansion of the PS5’s relatively limited storage space with aftermarket M.2 SSDs soon. At the same time, Seagate has also come out and confirmed that one of its latest storage devices will be compatible with Sony’s current-gen console. The only problem? The Seagate Firecuda 530 isn’t exactly cheap.
What is the first PS5 SSD like?
Ever since Sony first announced the PlayStation 5 and even more so when the company launched the device, audiences have raised concerns about its limited storage. Sony lists the built-in storage capacity of the PS5 at 825GB. In reality, users can only access around 667.2GB. This is virtually nothing if you plan on installing many games today, such as the ones that made it to our list of the largest video games available. Sony’s answer to this dilemma is an extra M.2 SSD slot. However, it hasn’t exactly revealed when the PS5 will support the extra storage space. If it’s any consolation though, we finally have news about one particular drive that the PS5 will support. According to Seagate (via Finder), its newest storage drive, the FireCuda 530 SSD, has successfully met all the requirements needed for consumers to use it on the PS5. This means that, even with its heatsink, the FireCuda 530 SSD will fit inside the PS5’s relatively narrow M.2 SSD slot, allowing users to boost their console’s storage space by up to 4TB. Seagate also made sure to assuage concerns about the durability and possible slower performance of games installed on the aftermarket SSD. With read speeds of up to 7,300MB/s, the FireCuda 530 SSD is even faster than Sony’s proprietary built-in SSD for the PS5 (5,500 MB/s). Seagate is also claiming that users can write and delete up to 70% of the drive’s capacity every day for the next half-decade without experiencing any performance issues.
When is the FireCuda 530 SSD release date?
We’ve got some good news and some bad news for those who are excited about the FireCuda 530. The good news is that the wait isn’t long. The bad news is that it’s expensive. Seagate intends to launch the FireCuda 530 in August, which means that it’s only a few weeks before you can get your hands on something that will solve all your PS5’s storage space problems. However, with the smallest configuration (512GB) costing you $169.99 and the 4TB version costing a whopping $1,049.99, you’re going to want to save up for a while so you don’t keep on running out of storage! Also, fair warning, just because the FireCuda 530 will become available in August, this doesn’t mean that PS5 owners can start expanding their storage then. So far, SSD support is a limited feature available only to the members of the testing program. It remains unknown when Sony plans on rolling out the update for the general public, so you might want to hold off on your FireCuda 530 SSD purchase until Sony can sort things out, especially given the price tag!
