PlayStation 5 Storage Options Expand

(Image credit: Sony Interactive Entertainment)

Finally, some relief is coming for those lucky enough to own a PlayStation 5 and stressing about what PS5 games to download. Sony has announced expanded options for storage on the PlayStation 5 in this PS5 Update blog post. This is not the internal SSD upgrade yet, but it will give more flexibility and usage out of external storage. The Load Screen covers the benefits and issues with this new option.

The PlayStation 5 is limited to 667 GB storage available for PS5 games after losing space for the operating system as listed in this Business Insider article on PS5 storage. This made gamers avoid upgrading titles to the PS5 versions. Now Sony has made it easier to move PS5 titles to external USB storage drives through their menu system. However, any PS5 title will not play from the external drives but PS4 games will from the same device.

Despite only functioning as a data backup, the time saved for those who move games to and from external storage is significant over those who choose to download them again instead. For some, having to redownload any title meant never playing again so this option is literally a game saver for them. Any player having to download full games over Wi-Fi can understand this sentiment. Most USB storage devices, especially drives that work for the PS4 would function well for this feature.

While plenty of USB drives will function for USB backup of PS5 games, they are not all built the same. The PlayStation 5 supports some of the fastest speeds available compared to USB 3.0 or the far slower USB 2.0. According to this PlayStation FAQ blog post, the PS5 supports up to 10Gbps in several of its ports. Not every external storage device can handle the full speed and those units that worked for PS4 are likely to achieve less than half that speed since they are USB 3.0. Only top-end external SSD and some flash drives can achieve the fastest speed. Also, the USB port in the front is not a Super-Speed 10Gbps port, but all the other ones are including the front USB-C port. So, if the gamer does get one of the better USB 3.1 or 3.2 (Super-Speed) storage devices beware.

What would that mean for a title as big as Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War? In this Call of Duty blog post, the initial size of the game on PlayStation 5 was 133 GB which has since grown with several new seasons of content added to it. If the size did not grow, it would take a gamer less than 3.5 minutes to back it and remove it from one of the fast Super-Speed USB external devices. If the player instead uses a standard USB 3.0 device, it will take almost 7.5 minutes for the same transfer which is still not bad. If USB 2.0 is supported for this function and is used, the time becomes just under 1 hour and 15 minutes. All USB speeds are based on the Sony Support article on USB data transfer rates.

Now if the game is downloaded again over 5 GHz Wi-Fi with optimal conditions, it becomes as low as 18 minutes, which is still better than USB 2.0. Good luck spending at least 2 hours redownloading with optimal conditions if 2.4 GHz is the only option available. The router speeds used in this article come from this Century Link help post on Wi-Fi speeds and apply only the top speeds listed, and not all routers are built the same.

Call of Duty: Black Ops is only one of the many games available for PlayStation 5 owners, but it is a title most gamers fear downloading for its extra bulk. Now, Sony has eased some of those data storage worries with the update that allows PS5 games to transfer to USB devices for storage. While this is not the perfect solution to fit the need of every PS5 user, it is a step in the right direction since it is respectful of data caps and costly overages that redownloading might incur.