The PS5 had its first big update this week, bringing a host of new features to the system - most notably adding the ability for the PS5 to store games on external drives. However, one feature that fans short on PS5 storage space want is still missing: the ability to add a NVMe drive to the M.2 port inside the PS5.
The PS5 update did add a lot of features in addition to the storage options, including cross-generation Share Play allowing friends on PS4 to play their friends' PS5 games remotely. Other additions include individual player microphone level options, organization folders for the PS5 menus, immediate pre-downloads for game updates, and HDR as well as 120Hz support improvements.
Yet gaming tech experts at Digital Foundry, known for their deep video game performance comparison videos, published a report on how the PS5 performs when using the different types of drives. The first finding this video shares is that the PS5’s internal M.2 slot, designated for ultrafast NVMe drives, still does not work. In fact, the PS5 will not fully turn on if there is an NVMe drive connected via the M.2 slot.
Sony remains cagey on when that internal M.2 slot will be usable, citing that it is still actively working on the issue. M.2 NVMe drives can still partially be used with the PS5 via a M.2-to-USB or USB-C connector, but only for copying files to and from the PS5 and playing PS4 games. PS5 games can still only be played off the main internal drive of the PS5.
For copying files, results are about as expected. The NVMe drive they tested is two minutes faster than the SATA SSD when copying Cyberpunk 2077, and 12 minutes faster than the HDD. As for loading PS4 games, the PS5 and external NVMe and SATA SSDs are faster than the PS4 and PS4 Pro’s stock HDD, but there is no difference between the PS5’s internal drive and external drives connected to it. This is odd given how much the PS5’s proprietary drive was touted before release, but Digital Foundry suspects there is a bandwith cap on the loading PS4 games, as it seems that PS4 titles aren’t utilizing the full power of the PS5.
It is unfortunate that there is still no way to expand the amount of playable storage for the PS5 similar to the Xbox Series X/S, but at least now PS5 owners can copy games to and from external drives fairly quickly. Hopefully Sony will enable use of the M.2 slot inside the PS5 soon.