Best SSDs for PS5 of 2026

The heatsink is already screwed to the drive when you lift it out of the box, and that one detail is why the P310 is what we point a first-timer toward. No thermal pad to line up, no plate to seat over the chips, no wondering whether the tape stays on. Panel off, one screw out of the expansion bay, drive in, panel back on, and the console formats it on the next boot.

The numbers are where they need to be — 7,100 MB/s sequential read and 6,000 MB/s write, comfortably past the console's threshold — but what we appreciated more was how little there was to think about. It was recognized on the first boot, held its temperature through long sessions, and loaded games no slower than the console's own storage. Of everything here, this is the drive with the least arguing around it.

One terabyte is the catch. The console's own drive hands you well under a terabyte once system files are counted, so this roughly doubles your usable space rather than tripling it — fine for a few big single-player games and a live-service habit, tight if you keep three or four current releases installed at once. If that is your pattern, pay for one of the 2 TB drives instead.

7,450 MB/s is the highest read speed claimed by anything here, and your PS5 cannot use it. Sony's bar is 5,500 MB/s; past that, the console decides how fast a level loads, not the drive. So in a console, the headline advantage is headroom you pay for and never spend.

Everywhere else it earns its keep. The integrated heatsink is slim enough to clear the PS5's bay without fouling the cover, and heat is one of this drive's strengths — it holds its temperature under sustained load instead of throttling back. Its 6,900 MB/s write is the quickest in this group, which you feel copying a library across rather than playing. Put the same drive in a PC and the 7,450 MB/s stops being wasted: it is one of the few picks here that is a top-tier part in both machines.

As a console-only purchase the case thins out. It is the priciest 2 TB drive here, and the one where a no-quibble return window matters most. Buy it when the drive will pull double duty; if it will not, the money goes further elsewhere in this list.

Four terabytes is where a PS5 library stops being a spreadsheet. It is room for dozens of full-size installs rather than a handful, so you stop deciding what to delete before you download the next thing. If two people share the console and neither wants to surrender their games, this is the drive that ends the negotiation.

Divide the price by the capacity and this is the cheapest storage in the group, though the budget 2 TB drives run it close. What you are really buying is the room itself: no other pick gives you this much in a single slot. If the alternative is a 2 TB drive plus a shelf of deleted games, this is the cheaper way to end up with everything installed.

The design trade is a familiar one. There is no separate DRAM cache; the NM790 borrows a slice of the host's memory instead, and the claimed payoff is around 40% less power draw than cache-equipped Gen 4 drives. In a console we could not tell the difference — installs, copies and loads all behaved like the drives with cache. What you do have to weigh is the outlay, the largest single purchase on this page, which only pays off if 4 TB is space you will fill.

Two terabytes for a good deal less than our top pick is the entire pitch, and the S880ER mostly delivers on it: the same 2 TB of room, a claimed 7,100 MB/s read that clears the console's requirement, and a heatsink in the box. Five years of manufacturer cover backs it up.

Installation is the standard routine — panel off, one screw, drive in — and the console picked it up as expansion storage without complaint. Games ran from it the way they run from the console's own drive. Do check the heatsink sits square over the chips before you screw everything down; it is a separate assembly, and a plate sitting proud at one end is the sort of thing that makes a drive look faulty when it is not.

Where it gives ground is write speed. At 5,300 MB/s it is the slowest of the group, so copying a full library across from the internal drive takes longer than it would on the premium picks — a one-time cost, not something you feel in play. For a second console or a bedroom setup, that is a trade worth making.

One terabyte is the smallest expansion on this page, and for the right console it is plenty. Keep a dozen games installed, play two or three at a time, or put this in a second PS5 in a spare room, and the X7400 does the job for the least money in the group. That is the case for it.

The claim is 7,350 MB/s read, the highest of the 1 TB drives here and well past what the console asks for. It turns up with a heatsink and a small screwdriver kit, which matters more than it sounds: the bay screw is small, easy to lose, and the right driver is not always in the house. It was recognized immediately and behaved like the rest of the group — installs, loads, nothing worth flagging.

The heatsink is a plain plate rather than a machined block. We had no temperature trouble with it, and at this capacity there is less sustained writing to heat it up in the first place, but it is the part of the package that feels built to a price. The limit that actually matters is capacity: current releases are big, you will fill a terabyte faster than you expect, and the size is what you outgrow rather than the speed.

On a PS5 Slim, check before you commit. Some Slim consoles do not see the HB7450 at all, which is a compatibility question the officially licensed drives here do not carry. On an original PS5 it is a different story.

The draw is speed for the money. Read and write are claimed at 7,450 MB/s and 6,500 MB/s, which puts it alongside the fastest drive here on paper, and it is priced as a mid-range 2 TB rather than a premium one. Under the label sits a Maxio MAP1602 controller with 3D NAND, and the box includes the heatsink, screws and a screwdriver.

That heatsink is not attached when the drive arrives. You fit it yourself over the 1 mm graphene layer bonded to the chips, and seating it squarely takes a few minutes and a steady hand. Done properly it does the job; left loose or left off, you have a fast Gen 4 drive with no way to shed heat inside a sealed bay. Heat is the other thing to watch, since some consoles run hot with it installed.

Where it lands for us: the speed is real and the price is right, but you are doing assembly work the Crucial and the WD_BLACK do for you, and taking on a compatibility question the licensed drive does not have. Two small frictions that add up to a drive for tinkerers rather than for everyone.