**The Limitations of the PlayStation 5's Internal Storage**

After installing your new gaming console, you'd think that you've got plenty of space to play all your favorite games, but that's not exactly the case. The average modern game can range from 25 to 40 gigs in size, and some even exceed that mark with file sizes over 100 gigabytes. This means that if you're trying to store a large collection of games on your PS5's internal hard drive alone, it's likely to fill up quickly.

**The Solution: M.2 Drives**

However, Sony has cleverly included an extra drive slot inside the PlayStation 5, allowing users to expand their storage capacity. This means that you can pop open the cover of the system and insert a compatible M.2 drive, which can be used to store PS4 and PS5 games, as well as other types of content.

By installing an M.2 drive, users can greatly increase the internal storage capacity of their PS5, allowing them to store more games and other media without having to rely on external hard drives. This feature is especially useful for those who want to play a large collection of games or keep all their game saves in one place.

**Testing Different M.2 Drives**

To test the performance of different M.2 drives, my team and I decided to try out three popular models: the Seagate Firecuda 530, the Samsung 980 Pro, and the Corsair MP600 Pro LQX. We installed each drive in the internal M.2 slot and transferred data between it and the PS5's internal hard drive using two different games: Spider-Man Miles Morales and Final Fantasy VII Remake.

We timed the transfer process using a stopwatch to get accurate results, and we were pleased to find that all three drives performed very similarly. The Corsair MP600 Pro LQX was actually the fastest for Final Fantasy VII, but only by a handful of seconds. For Spider-Man Miles Morales, the Seagate Firecuda 530 was slightly faster than the Samsung 980 Pro.

**Conclusion**

Based on our testing, it's clear that any compatible M.2 drive will work well with the PS5, and you don't need to worry too much about getting one model versus another. The Corsair MP600 Pro LQX performed well in our tests, but all three drives were within a few seconds of each other. This makes it safe to say that if you find an M.2 drive that meets the PS5's compatibility requirements, you can feel confident that it will provide excellent performance.

**Additional Storage: A Must for Gamers**

Regardless of which console you have, whether it's a PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, or Nintendo Switch, adding additional storage is essential. With most games being downloaded rather than played off physical media, it's easy to run out of space on your device. The PS5, in particular, has limited internal storage capacity, making an M.2 drive a must-have for anyone serious about gaming.

To find the best M.2 drives for your PS5, check our article on the subject, which includes information on compatibility, prices, and capacities available. We'll also be updating this list with new testing data as we continue to evaluate different M.2 drives for their performance and reliability.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: endoes it matter what kind of m.2 drives you add to your playstation 5 to have more room for games i tested a seagate a corsair and a samsung and here's what i found any game console you buy now it's basically not going to have enough storage for you to store all the games that you want even the playstation 5 you got a 800 something gigabyte internal hard drive and there's system files and stuff after that you've got a little bit less than 700 gigs of space but that's still not enough for modern video games your average game is somewhere between 25 and 40 gigs a lot of games are 80 gigs some are over a hundred gigabytes in terms of their file size that's how much space they're gonna eat up on your hard drive you know casual games indie games those can be a lot smaller but really we're talking about the mainstream games that eat up a ton of space you're not gonna have room for more than a handful on your playstation 5. now what sony did that was pretty clever here is they included an extra drive slot inside the playstation 5. you can pop open the cover of the system and inside there's an empty slot that takes something called an m.2 drive anyway you slot it in screw down the little screws reboot your playstation 5 recognizes it automatically you set a couple options about where you want new content saved to and you're set these m.2 drives can store ps4 and ps5 games and more importantly they can play ps4 and ps5 games before if you plugged in an external hard drive you could store everything but you could only play ps4 games off that external drive you had to transfer the games back to the internal storage to play ps5 games so this way we're able to greatly increase sometimes triple or more of the storage the internal storage capacity of our ps5 so does it matter which one you get my team and i decided to try that out by taking three different m.2 drives all specifically marketed as being really great for the playstation 5 and doing some data transfer tests using different games on them so we tried the seagate fire cuda 530 the samsung 980 pro and the corsair mp600 pro lpx these are all m.2 drives that have the heatsink built in you can get them in different capacities from one terabyte i think about four terabytes and we each installed one of these drives took a couple of games and did some transfer tests using a stopwatch to time the speed now what did we do we took a medium-sized game and we took a fairly large size game we took the game and we transferred it from the internal playstation 5 hard drive to the m.2 drive that was in the internal m.2 slot so one transfer going that way then we transfer the game back to the original internal hard drive we timed that we did that with spider-man miles morales and then we did that with final fantasy vii the remake the playstation 5 version of that i'm going to tell you they all scored just about the same literally within seconds of each other that leads me to conclude that you can pretty much get any compatible m.2 drive it's going to work fine i wouldn't worry too much about getting one model versus the other at least out of the three mainstream models that we tested going from the playstation 5 drive to the m.2 drive the corsair was the absolute fastest for final fantasy vii but again just by a handful of seconds a minute four versus a minute five and a minute eight uh for spiderman miles morales again everything was either 31 or 33 seconds i'd call that functionally a complete tie going back the other way once again the corsair with a tiny bit faster literally just by seconds going from that m.2 drive back to the internal playstation 5 drive on final fantasy vii and it looks like it was basically tied with the samsung on spiderman and again the seagate was like three seconds slower so functionally the same again so i think it's safe to say if you find any of these ps5 compatible m.2 drives especially if it's the handy versions with the heatsink built in you can feel safe knowing that you're going to get excellent performance no matter which brand you choose if you want to find out more about playstation 5 m.2 drives or anything else i've talked about you can find links in the description below i also feel safe saying that no matter what console you have whether it's a playstation 5 xbox series x or s nintendo switch you are going to want to eventually add additional storage to it because frankly given the size of games and the fact that almost all games are downloaded now rather than played off a disc or a card or anything physical like that you're gonna run out of space and none of these devices have enough internal storage built in you can check our playstation 5 list of the best m.2 drives for your ps5 to see which drives are in stock how much they cost what capacities are available and of course we'll also keep that article updated with all the testing data that we do on these drives and future drives that we testdoes it matter what kind of m.2 drives you add to your playstation 5 to have more room for games i tested a seagate a corsair and a samsung and here's what i found any game console you buy now it's basically not going to have enough storage for you to store all the games that you want even the playstation 5 you got a 800 something gigabyte internal hard drive and there's system files and stuff after that you've got a little bit less than 700 gigs of space but that's still not enough for modern video games your average game is somewhere between 25 and 40 gigs a lot of games are 80 gigs some are over a hundred gigabytes in terms of their file size that's how much space they're gonna eat up on your hard drive you know casual games indie games those can be a lot smaller but really we're talking about the mainstream games that eat up a ton of space you're not gonna have room for more than a handful on your playstation 5. now what sony did that was pretty clever here is they included an extra drive slot inside the playstation 5. you can pop open the cover of the system and inside there's an empty slot that takes something called an m.2 drive anyway you slot it in screw down the little screws reboot your playstation 5 recognizes it automatically you set a couple options about where you want new content saved to and you're set these m.2 drives can store ps4 and ps5 games and more importantly they can play ps4 and ps5 games before if you plugged in an external hard drive you could store everything but you could only play ps4 games off that external drive you had to transfer the games back to the internal storage to play ps5 games so this way we're able to greatly increase sometimes triple or more of the storage the internal storage capacity of our ps5 so does it matter which one you get my team and i decided to try that out by taking three different m.2 drives all specifically marketed as being really great for the playstation 5 and doing some data transfer tests using different games on them so we tried the seagate fire cuda 530 the samsung 980 pro and the corsair mp600 pro lpx these are all m.2 drives that have the heatsink built in you can get them in different capacities from one terabyte i think about four terabytes and we each installed one of these drives took a couple of games and did some transfer tests using a stopwatch to time the speed now what did we do we took a medium-sized game and we took a fairly large size game we took the game and we transferred it from the internal playstation 5 hard drive to the m.2 drive that was in the internal m.2 slot so one transfer going that way then we transfer the game back to the original internal hard drive we timed that we did that with spider-man miles morales and then we did that with final fantasy vii the remake the playstation 5 version of that i'm going to tell you they all scored just about the same literally within seconds of each other that leads me to conclude that you can pretty much get any compatible m.2 drive it's going to work fine i wouldn't worry too much about getting one model versus the other at least out of the three mainstream models that we tested going from the playstation 5 drive to the m.2 drive the corsair was the absolute fastest for final fantasy vii but again just by a handful of seconds a minute four versus a minute five and a minute eight uh for spiderman miles morales again everything was either 31 or 33 seconds i'd call that functionally a complete tie going back the other way once again the corsair with a tiny bit faster literally just by seconds going from that m.2 drive back to the internal playstation 5 drive on final fantasy vii and it looks like it was basically tied with the samsung on spiderman and again the seagate was like three seconds slower so functionally the same again so i think it's safe to say if you find any of these ps5 compatible m.2 drives especially if it's the handy versions with the heatsink built in you can feel safe knowing that you're going to get excellent performance no matter which brand you choose if you want to find out more about playstation 5 m.2 drives or anything else i've talked about you can find links in the description below i also feel safe saying that no matter what console you have whether it's a playstation 5 xbox series x or s nintendo switch you are going to want to eventually add additional storage to it because frankly given the size of games and the fact that almost all games are downloaded now rather than played off a disc or a card or anything physical like that you're gonna run out of space and none of these devices have enough internal storage built in you can check our playstation 5 list of the best m.2 drives for your ps5 to see which drives are in stock how much they cost what capacities are available and of course we'll also keep that article updated with all the testing data that we do on these drives and future drives that we test\n"