With its latest firmware, Sony allows you to add your own M.2 SSD to the PlayStation 5 to supplement the console's internal storage. Once you install an NVMe SSD in your PS5, you can use the additional space for games and media files. But do you need to add a heatsink as Sony recommends? We'll answer this question in detail below, but in short, you may be able to do without it.
Given that the PS5's internal storage space is restricted to 825GB, with a notable amount already taken up by the operating system, you might reach the storage limits with only a few games installed. Adding a fast NVMe drive, preferably one of the best SSDs, solves this problem, and you won't have to worry about more space unless you want to have dozens of titles installed on your console.
You cannot install just any M.2 NVMe SSD in the PS5. There are some restrictions and, above all, you have to make sure that you are on the latest firmware or else the console won't boot! So first, update the firmware and then install the SSD.
The NVMe SSD that you will buy for your PS5 should be compatible with the PCIe 4.0 interface, and its capacity must be in the 250 GB - 4 TB range. The larger capacity drive you get, the better, but we believe that the sweet spot is 1TB. The most critical factor is the sequential read speed. Sony recommends the drive to have 5,500MB/s, or faster is speeds.
| Interface | PCI-Express Gen4x4 supported M.2 NVMe SSD (Key M) |
| Storage | 250 GB - 4 TB |
| Supported sizes | 2230, 2242, 2260, 2280, 22110 |
| Size including heat-dissipation mechanism | Width: up to 25 mm Length: 30/40/60/80/110 mm Thickness: up to 11.25 mm |
| Sequential read speed | 5,500MB/s or faster is recommended |
| Socket type | Socket 3 (Key M) |
Sony states that the NVMe drive that you will use in your PS5 requires effective heat dissipation, meaning that it has to have a heat sink attached to it. So you can either get a drive that already has a heat sink or save some money by buying a normal NVMe drive and a third-party heat sink and install it on your own.
But is it really necessary to use a heat sink? And given the restricted dimensions, especially in height, of the M.2 slot compartment in the PS5, should we install the cover, or can we do without it?
Sony puts a limitation on the height of the heat sink that the NVMe drive has and also instructs you to screw on the port cover, which goes over the slot. But is a heat sink really necessary and does the cover help or hurt? We had to find out.
We tested with two M.2 NVMe SSDs, a Western Digital Black SN850, and a Samsung 980 Pro, with 1TB capacity each. Both SSDs exceed Sony's read speed recommendations. We performed a complete set of tests on the SN850, but only ran a couple of benchmarks on the 980 Pro for speed comparison purposes.
Besides the SSD drives, we also got two heat sinks from ICY BOX. One had a 10mm height, which is taller than Sony recommends, while the other stood at 5mm, allowing the PS5's SSD cover to be installed over it.
The ambient temperature during our test sessions was kept close to 23 degrees Celsius.
To monitor operating temperatures, we installed three K-type thermocouples on the SN850 SSD: one on the flash memory, one on the controller, and one on the controller's DRAM. To test, we wanted to apply the highest possible stress to the drive, by moving vast amounts of data. We began by moving several games, 243.5GB of data, from the internal storage to the SN850 drive and vice versa.
The first operation forced the SN850 to perform prolonged write operations, while the second operation did the same for read procedures. We logged temperatures during the entire write and read operations and measured the time required for each process to finish to calculate the average transfer speeds. If increased operating temperatures caused the SSD controller to throttle, speeds would drop.
We tested the following scenarios:
- SN850 without a heat sink installed and with the SSD cover in place
- SN850 without a heat sink installed and without the SSD cover
- SN850 with a heat sink installed and with the SSD cover in place
- SN850 with a heat sink installed and without the SSD cover in place
Once you install an NVMe SSD in your PS5, you will be asked to format it, and once this is done, the operating system will run a benchmark to find the read speed of the drive.
Although both the SN850 and the 980 Pro have the same advertised read speeds, the former proved to be must faster in read operations.
Thermal Results (Max and AVG) - Write Operations
As expected, the worst scenario is without a heat sink installed on the NVMe SSD and with the cover in place. The max temperature exceeded 71 degrees Celsius in this scenario on the controller. Without a heat sink but with the lid off, the maximum temperature dropped significantly.
The best scenario, in general, is with a heat sink and without the SSD cover. In this scenario, the difference in max temperatures in the controller is close to 15 degrees; in DRAM, it reaches 18.4 degrees and, in Flash memory, it is 11.8 degrees.
Thermal Results (Max and AVG) - Read Operations
Read operations don't stress the SSD as much as writes. Hence the operating temperatures are lower. Moreover, once you install a game on the NVMe SSD, write operations will be minimal, and this is why Sony lists a requirement for read speeds and not for write ones. Similar to the write operations, the removal of the cover brings a notable drop in the operating temperatures of the NVMe drive.
Again the best scenario is with a heat sink and the cover removed, allowing a 9.6 degrees lower max temperature on the controller, 11.9 degrees less on DRAM, and 5.5 degrees lower max temperature on the flash memory.
Transfer Speed Results
Since we already drew our conclusions with the WD drive, there was no need to repeat all thermal tests with the Samsung drive, so we only evaluated the latter on write and read speeds with a 10mm heat sink attached and without the SSD cover, which couldn't close either way.
Data transfer speeds from the PS5's internal storage to the NVMe are notable slower than the WD drive, but the transfer speeds from the NVMe to the PS5's internal storage are around the same. Most likely, PS5's internal drive sets the limitations here. In any case, the WD Black SN850 is faster for PS5 use than the Samsung 980 Pro, although both have the same read and write speeds on paper.
Conclusion
If you don't want to spend on a heat sink and given that the NVMe drive will mostly have to handle read operations, removing the PS5's SSD cover will be enough, as long as you select a fast enough SSD. In our case, the max and average temperatures of the SN850's controller were close to 56 degrees Celsius, with an ambient of 23 degrees Celsius.
The controller in this drive will lose performance and throttle at temperatures close to 88 degrees Celsius, so there is enough headroom. We had about the same operating average temperatures on the controller by simply removing the cover, with the "heat sink installed and cover on" scenario.
The best you can do if you want the lowest possible SSD temperatures is to install a large heat sink without the cover.
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