Play 2023’s biggest games with amazing offer that will triple your PS5 storage

WITH games now increasingly crossing the 100GB threshold, PS5’s internal SSD, while praised for its breakthrough speed, can be a bit limiting.

Offering just 825GB of storage, many look to other options to be able to store more games.

This is why Sony has left the door open for a very large number of partners to come up with their own solutions when it comes to storage.

PS5 gamers eager for more have varied options to increase the starting storage.

Crucial’s P5 Plus comes in as one of the most affordable and accessible external SSD units, while retaining the performance you’d expect from PS5, and the high standards for an SSD to be supported by the current-gen console.

Installing an external SSD on PS5 is not the most intuitive process to go through.

Disassembling the stand and cover can be quite a traumatic experience the first time you try it, and above all it has to be done from the right side if you want to install a new SSD unit – that is, where your Blu-ray player should be.

Here comes the first hurdle: P5 Plus’s package doesn’t feature instruction, but only comes with a flyer sending you to Crucial’s official website. 

Unfortunately, there you’ll only find a web page showing you how to do it on a PC, not on a PlayStation 5. 

Hence, we had to watch multiple tutorials on YouTube for us to be able to install the SSD. 

If you consider that the installation is quite complex, much more than Xbox Series X|S’s memory cards, users should’ve been guided a little better.

If nothing else, once the cover is lifted from the console, it’s only a matter of a couple screws.

The SSD slides in, and from there it’s only one final screw to keep it locked. 

The slot accommodates five SSD sizes, and the P5 Plus plugs into the third, proving how compact Crucial’s unit is despite being equipped with a heatsink and having some surprising weight.

When first turned on, PlayStation 5 prompts you to format the SSD as with any newly installed external drive, and this only takes a few seconds.

Then, a screen shows you the read speed on PS5 after a quick test: 5651 MB/s, in our case. 

Crucial claims it should be 6600 MB/s, so it actually falls well below the official estimates on console.

That’s still fine anyway, as the minimum requirement for the SSD unit to work with your PS5 is 5500 MB/s.

As for the performance, there’s really nothing major to report compared to PS5’s internal SSD, which is great given its complexity and affordable Crucial’s actually is. 

While download depends on your connectivity speeds, we moved several games from the internal SSD to the external one just so we could check how long it takes, with these results:

• Gran Turismo 7 – 113GB – 1 minute, 30 seconds
• Resident Evil 4 – 60GB – 50 seconds
• Slay the Spire – 1.10GB – 3 seconds
• Kena Bridge of Spirits – 20GB – 22 seconds

Other PS5 features, such as Activity Cards which allow you to jump right into a specific game mode from your dashboard, work exactly as one would expect from the console’s internal SSD.

One OS-related constraint is that you cannot choose which drive your PS5 should install new games on a case-by-case basis.

The only option available is going to the relevant menu and choosing whether to switch to the internal or external SSD, with a distinction being made between PS4 or PS5 titles.

On the other hand, on Xbox you’re asked each time, making sure you have the right flexibility.

As there’s no noticeable differences between both PS5’s internal SSD and P5 Plus, and price comparisons all play in P5 Plus’ favor:

• Samsung 990 Pro – £195.94 (on sale now at £189.17)
• Seagate Firecuda 520 NVMe – £181.20
• WD Black SN850X – £158.42 (on sale now at £139.98)
• Crucial P5 Plus – £152.39 (on sale now at £129.79)

In short, barring some limitations in installation and OS-based not depending on Crucial, Crucial’s P5 Plus is an excellent solution if you want to expand the PS5’s starting storage while respecting your pocket and the minimum system requirements. 

And, with a new Call of Duty just around the corner, it might be time to get prepared.

Written by Paolo Sirio on behalf of GLHF.