Sony’s PlayStation 5 is not even a year old, and its 667 GB storage capabilities have caused quite a few headaches for gamers. Interestingly enough, this has had no adverse impact on sales.
While Sony has remedied these problems a bit by allowing players to add M.2 SSD expansion cards to their PS5s, these internal storage upgrades have given rise to another issue – contending with costly SSDs.
In the eight months that Sony took to bring storage upgrades to PS5, it was pretty easy to zero in on an SSD that would be a good fit for the console and make a purchase.
However, the issue was finding an SSD that was easy on the wallets – any halfway decent 1TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 drive would set you back by at least $250. That’s half the price of the standard PS5 and more than half of the console’s Digital Edition.
This is where Gigabyte comes in. The company recently announced a new SSD under its Aorus gaming label that undercuts competitors like Seagate and Western Digital in pricing by a decent margin.
The Gigabyte Aorus Gen 4 is fully compatible with PS5 right out of the box and clocks in read and write speeds of 5500 MB/s and 7000 MB/s, respectively. The drive also comes with dual-sided aluminum heatsinks attached.
The 1 TB Aorus Gen 4 retails for $199, while the 2 TB version costs $399. This is a great deal if you compare it to WD’s SN850 SSD, whose 500 GB model comes in at $139.99 and 1 TB model costs $249.99.
The Aorus is even a notch better than Seagate’s FireCuda 340377, which trades at $169.99 for 500GB, $274.99 for 1TB, $569.99 for 2TB and $1,049.99 for 4TB.
While it’s evident that Gigabyte’s new launch is slower than its competitors in read and write speeds, it’s important to note that the 5500 MB/s speed is the very same max speed that PS5’s default storage can achieve.
So, if you choose not to go for a Seagate or WD drive, you won’t be making any sacrifices in the performance department.
With an impressive line-up of exclusives slated to release over the next few years, it seems the demand for Sony consoles will go no other way but up.
But with a shortage of affordable drives in the market, the question remains: How much will gamers have to spend on storage drives just to keep all their games saved up?
About Gigabyte Technology
Gigabyte Technology is a Taiwanese manufacturer and distributor of computer hardware.
Gigabyte’s principal business is motherboards. It shipped 4.8 million motherboards in the first quarter of 2015, which allowed it to become the leading motherboard vendor in the world. Gigabyte also manufactures custom graphics cards and laptop computers (including thin and light laptops under its “Aero” sub-brand). In 2010, Gigabyte was ranked 17th in “Taiwan’s Top 20 Global Brands” by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council.
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