In selecting the drives featured above, the main requirement -- other than proving their overall mettle as solid gaming SSDs in our benchmarking -- was that they meet Sony's official criteria for use with a PS5. Most but not all of our choices are marketed by their manufacturers as PS5-friendly.
On the other hand, a number of M.2 solid-state drives -- some touted as PS5-compatible -- fall short in one requirement: Their rated data transfer speed or throughput is short of the recommended 5,500MBps. This is the only spec for which Sony allows some wiggle room. However, we're still not recommending any below the 5,500Mbps speed threshold, since many of these drives also lack a dynamic random access memory cache (DRAM), instead using a bit of your computer's system memory as a cache. The PlayStation 5 does not support this kind of scheme, a fact that can potentially reduce drive performance when the drive is under duress.
For obvious reasons, an SSD's physical height is a critical factor in determining its PS5 compatibility. "Height," in this case, is its thickness. Sony recommends that any SSD for the PS5 have a heat dissipation device -- a heatsink or heat spreader -- which will add to its bulk. But it can only be so big and still fit.
The secondary drive must fit in the PlayStation's M.2 bay, which allows a total thickness of 11.5mm (up to 8mm from above the board and up to 2.5mm from below it). This eliminates most drives with nonremovable, finned heatsinks, but some manufacturers are developing compact heatsinks and thin heat spreaders for use in confined spaces.
As for drive length, the PS5 supports drives from 30mm to 110mm long. In practical fact, all our picks (and indeed most consumer M.2 SSDs) are the Type-2280, or 80mm, length.
Installing a second SSD in your PlayStation 5 (see our how-to guide) is not difficult. The only tools you'll need are a small (#1) Philips screwdriver and perhaps a pair of tweezers for screw handling.
Your first step is to run a system update. Then, you turn off the console's power, add a heatsink or spreader to the SSD if one isn't already in place, and remove the PS5's side panel. (That can be done without tools but may require a little muscle and care.)
Next, remove the expansion slot cover and the M.2 screw, seat the new SSD in the expansion slot, insert the spacer as indicated, and screw the drive into place. Then you close the PS5 back up, format the new drive, and you're good to go.
Whether you managed to nab your PS5 for close to its $499.99 list price or paid a significant premium during the pandemic, plenty of fast, affordable M.2 PCI Express 4.0 solid-state drives can fit in its secondary slot. And if you haven't bought a PS5 quite yet, there'll be all the more compatible SSDs to choose from when you finally get your console.
Our key measure, all else being equal on the spec front, is to look at the cost per gigabyte for any drive you are looking at, using the current sale price. SSD prices tend to rise and fall, and it's often possible to score more capacity than you might think if you shop around. If you look at the cost per gigabyte, a little math can make it easy to compare the relative value of two drives of different capacities.
The PlayStation 5's built-in SSD has a capacity of 825GB, of which 667GB is free out of the box. Generally, you should be able to fit nine or 10 AAA games on the drive -- today's titles, on average, take 50GB to 60GB of storage, although some are considerably larger. For example, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War takes the franchise's trend toward ballooning file sizes to a new high by filling nearly 220GB, so your available space may be gone sooner than you'd think. Fortunately, the PS5 supports secondary drives with capacities ranging from 250GB to a whopping 4TB.
Here, we've broken out the specs on our favorite tested PlayStation 5-compatible solid-state drives outlined above. Since your console has that open M.2 slot, you might as well put it to good use. While SSD prices are moderate at the moment, it's wise to future-proof your PS5 by getting the highest-capacity drive you can afford and loading it with your favorite games. Happy fragging!