PS5 Bargain Bin SSD still works at Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

The good people of Digital Foundry are back with another wonderfully tech-rich video, this time looking at the SSD options available to PlayStation 5 owners now that console storage can be expanded. It turns out that even the hard-access-heavy Ratchet & Clank: Rift apart can be fully enjoyed with the lowest performing PS5 compatible SSD on the market.

Before Ratchet & ClankInsomniac Games summer launch was adamant that Rift apart could not be released on the previous generation of consoles due to its dimension hopping gameplay. Older consoles that relied on more traditional hard drive technology simply couldn’t keep up, said Creative Director Marcus Smith. (This claim conveniently doubled as a great advertisement for the power of the PlayStation 5.)

That’s not to say that Digital Foundry’s findings call those arguments into question. Rather, it’s a great indication that, as you would expect from a game released early in the PlayStation 5’s lifespan, even Sony developers like Insomniac have only scratched the surface of the game. material potential. I mean, the low end SSD used in the video (Western Digital SN750 SE) does not meet the recommended specifications of the console, but Ratchet & Clank still works almost perfectly.

As the video explains, Sony recommends that SSDs achieve a sequential read bandwidth of 5500 Gb / s, while the SN750 SE is only rated at 3500 Gb / s. Being a budget reader, it also relies on its host PC’s own RAM to speed up file operations, a feature the PlayStation is incompatible with. This makes the player an even worse choice for console use. Nonetheless, the game performed well.

Digital Foundry also put the SN750 SE to the test in two more PlayStation 5 tests. First, they checked the load in a Cyberpunk 2077 save, which at times saw the low-spec SSD barely trump the original high-speed SSD on the PS5, due to known issues between the notoriously broken CD Projekt game and the PS5’s internal SSD. Congratulations, I guess?

More tellingly, the SN750 SE failed dramatically when it came to copying files, taking nearly 10 times longer than its beefier cousin, the WD SN850 approved by Mark Cerny, to move the data from the internal SSD. Ouch.

Expand your PlayStation 5 storage maybe not as simple as on Xbox Series X, you can rest assured that in the game performance won’t be an issue no matter which SSD you choose. In rare cases, such as Cyberpunk 2077 and Control, it could even improve the loading times of some games. Just keep in mind that upgrades may well be needed as PS5 games start to demand faster and faster storage access.

For a more detailed breakdown of these results, be sure to watch the Digital Foundry video above as well as the accompanying article on at Eurogamer.