The best external storage for your PS5

Get ready for Gran Turismo 7 by ensuring you have enough storage on your PS5.

Screenshot of Trial Mountain from Gran Turismo 7

by Ryan Gilmore |
Published on

If you've seen an early Porsche 911 next to a modern example you'll notice the vast size difference. Cars are getting bigger thanks to ever-increasing safety features and changing buyer demands (i.e. SUVs), something that's been happening with video games too.

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The storage required to install a new game has swollen in recent years. Take Gran Turismo 4 for example. The game was roughly 6.8 GB in size and came with over 700 cars and a boat-load of tracks to race on. GT Sport in comparison is 110 GB and 'only' has 324 cars to choose from. A lot of this can be explained with the greater detail and massively improved graphics of newer games. Anyone who played Gran Turismo 5 will remember the stark difference between the Standard and Premium cars.

And even with the latest crop of gaming consoles shipping with at least a terabyte of storage, once you've added a couple of AAA titles, not to mention the huge updates, you won't have much free space left. That's why we've found the best external storage devices that are compatible with the PS5.

The best external storage devices for the PS5

The best M.2 SSD for the PS5
WD_Black SN850
Price: £119.00
Alternative retailers
Newegg$63.99View offer
Walmart$99.99View offer

This M.2 Solid State Drive (SSD) is incredibly fast. It's so quick that it exceeds Sony's requirements (up to 7000MB/s) making it the ultimate SSD choice for the PS5. It features heatsink (to regulate temperature better) and Western Digital confirm that it works with the PS5. It's available in 500GB, 1TB and 2TB.

Important reminder: Sony isn't very open about confirming which memory modules are compatible with the PS5. If you’re going to dive in and make a purchase soon, be sure to 100% check the specifications on the official Sony PlayStation website.

External storage

If you're not interested in M.2 SSD storage, you can always invest in a more traditional external SSD or HDD. These are more fool proof and can be better for money but there is one small issue. As these devices utilise slow USB ports they're unable to store or play PS5 games.

You can still play PS4 games stored on one of these, as well as photos, movies and music but any PS5 game saved to one of these must be properly transferred to the PS5's internal storage if you want to play them.

The best external storage for a PS5
WD_Black P50 NVMe SSD
Price: £215.00
Alternative retailers
Newegg$99.99View offer
B&H Photo Video$129.99View offer
Walmart$662.25View offer
Macy's$819.62View offer

While not as quick as an M.2 SSD, this standard SSD option from Western Digital is still a powerful unit. This military-looking device has a 2000MB/s reading speed, more than capable of keeping up with the PS5. It connects to a PS5 via the SuperSpeed USB port and is available in either 500GB, 1TB, 2TB or 4TB.

The best large storage for the PS5
Seagate PlayStation Game Drive HDD

Rrp: £167.86

Price: £134.99
Alternative retailers
Walmart$15.00View offer
Newegg$166.99View offer

A whopping 4TB of storage is contained in this drive from Seagate. While it uses the older Hard Disk Drive (HDD) technology and isn't as quick as SSD options, it's a good value for money option, especially if you plan on buying lots of high-GB games. And if you haven't upgraded to a PS5 yet, this device is the perfect PS4 companion.

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