Sony's PlayStation5 (hereinafter referred to as PS5), with a large number of exclusive games, as well as the next generation of hardware configuration, once released, has been chased and recognized by many gamers, and to this day the product is still in short supply; especially in September last year, Sony officially opened the PS5 expansion function, allowing users to freely expand storage, PS5 console officially presented the next era console, strong and comprehensive product design.
01 PS5 Host Expansion Origin
In fact, before the PS5 host opened free expansion, many friends who purchased the digital version of the host are still very worried about the storage problem, after all, in this era of AAA masterpieces everywhere, the 825GB usable capacity built into PS5 is obviously not enough to meet the storage needs of players; so PS5 storage expansion has become a hot topic that many players are quite concerned about from the date of release.
PS5 host capacity expansion
So, how does the PS5 host achieve storage expansion? What kind of hard disk products can support storage expansion? What should players pay attention to when expanding? What are the differences in the PS5 gaming experience after the expansion? Today, we will take the newly listed Seagate Coldplay 530 Coolplay Coolsink Edition SSD as an example to record the practice, to provide you with a simple science on how to expand the PS5 console, and to verify whether there is a difference in the game experience after the expansion.
02 Seagate Coldplay 530 Heatsink Edition SSD for PS5
About The Seagate FireCuda530 Heatsink Version of the SSD, friends familiar with the SSD know that the Seagate Coldplay 530 series is the flagship product in the Seagate PCIe4.0 sequence, before which a bare strip version has been released, that is, the cooling vest version, the product Author has also conducted a comprehensive experience evaluation, whether it is from the paper performance, or the actual game loading, Seagate Coldplay 530 is called the flagship level.
Seagate Coldplay 530 Heatsink Edition SSD
The Seagate Coldplay 530 after adding the heatsink this time can be described as a tiger.
First look at the product part, Seagate Coldplay 530 heatsink version SSD its core accessories, and the original version, are the use of Seagate certified E18 main control chip, the chip fully supports PCIe4.0 transmission protocol, support S.M.A.R.T including a number of error correction mechanisms, can play the ultimate performance of PCIe4.0 at the same time, to ensure the stability and durability of product data transmission. Its theoretical maximum continuous read performance reached about 7300MB/s, and the maximum continuous write performance also reached about 7000MB/s, which is one of the strongest master chips in the PCIe4.0 era.
Flagship performance
In terms of particles, the use of magnesium light original 176 layer 3D TLC flash memory particles, compared with the previous generation of 3D NAND, in terms of read and write latency reduced by 35%, the corresponding ONFi flash interface bandwidth increased by 33%, but also further improved the performance of seagate Coldplay 530 heatsink version SSD performance.
03 Heat dissipation secrets of Seagate Coldplay 530 Heatsink Edition SSD
We know that after entering the PCIe4.0 era, the absolute performance is no longer the short board of SSD products, but the electronic heating with the improvement of the main control performance, the thermal interference of the stacking of flash particle layers, and the overheating effect caused by the problem. For heat accumulation, the general practice in the industry is to explore the materials science of the physical dimension, that is, to provide PCIe4.0 SSD with a metal vest patch with better heat dissipation effect, and to assist in heat dissipation to maintain the peak performance of SSDs.
Seagate linked EKWB to launch the heat dissipation armor
Seagate ColdPlay 530 radiator version SSD, also follows the mainstream practice of the industry, but in the radiator, and the industry's well-known manufacturer EKWB in-depth cooperation, jointly created a performance and appearance of the cooling armor products.
The heat dissipation armor adopts a minimalist style design, maintains the seagate Coldplay series's consistent main black series plus orange embellishment, and displays the seagate and EKWB logos on the front of the product, highlighting the linkage of the product;
EKWB logo display
In terms of material, the heat dissipation vest chose an anodized aluminum metal body, compared with other metals, aluminum metal has significant advantages in the comprehensive dimensions of thermal conductivity, product texture and weight, and is also the most mainstream heat dissipation material at present;
In order to further improve the heat dissipation effect, Seagate has also carried out fine textured micropores on the surface of the vest, which greatly improves the heat transfer, which can significantly reduce the operating temperature of the SSD and maintain the peak performance of the product.
Texture microporous processing
It is worth mentioning that in terms of size, in order to meet the compatibility needs of computers, notebooks, PS5 hosts and other equipment, the cooling vest has been reasonably designed, and after the author's actual measurements, it can be successfully loaded into mainstream equipment such as PS5 hosts and laptops, without worrying about the height of the radiator.
04 Preparation for PS5 expansion – performance testing, specification confirmation
After reading the product part, officially entering the PS5 expansion link, before the actual expansion, we need to conduct performance tests for the Seagate Coldplay 530 heatsink version SSD, on the one hand, to verify whether its performance can meet the PS5 official performance requirements for the expansion SSD, on the other hand, it is to compare the performance before and after the expansion.
Hardware requirements for PS5 official storage expansion
According to the PS5 official advice document, PS5 for expanded memory minimum performance limit is higher than 5500MB/s continuous write speed, size from 2230 to 22110 from 2230 to 22110 various mainstream M.2 size solid state can be matched, there is a need to note that the PS5 host does not support HMB mechanism, so part of the PCIe4.0 SSD using the DRAMless scheme may appear after mounting, there may be performance degradation, or even can not be identified and other risks.
M slot
In the testing section, we used CrystalDiskMark for continuous performance testing, simply verifying and documenting the hard drive performance of the Seagate Coldplay 530 Heatsink Edition SSD.
CrystalDiskMark testing
Judging from the test results, the absolute performance of the Seagate Coldplay 530 heatsink version SSD is enough to meet the PS5's official performance requirements for expanded memory, or even far beyond, and we can safely expand the storage capacity.
05 PS5 Expansion Practice Records and Notes
To enter the official expansion process, we need to prepare not many tools, only need a box of standard screwdrivers and Seagate Coldplay 530 Heatsink Edition SSD to complete the expansion.
First we need to lay the PS5 flat, the optical drive part on the top, the PS badge on the bottom, and at the same time face this side towards the individual, placed on a smooth tabletop.
The figure is from the PS5 official
Secondly, use your right hand to gently "pull" the left buckle, and then gently follow the internal buckle structure, and "push" to the right, and the front lid can be easily opened.
Finally, the protective cover is removed, and in the lower left corner of the product, you can see the expansion block of the additional design, which resembles the M.2 card slot of the computer motherboard.
Expansion slot protective cover
At this time, we took out the screwdriver set prepared in advance, aligned the M.2 expansion card slot, gently knobed, after opening the shell, the interior is an M.2 slot of different sizes; at this time, unscrew the fixed screw in the slot again, pay attention to the internal screw used to fix the screw, it is very easy to loosen and fall, the author in the expansion, the part has slipped many times.
Card slot internal structure
After unscrewing the last screw, you can load the 2280 standard size Seagate Coldplay 530 Coolplay Coolsink Edition SSD into it, as can be seen through the loading example, based on scientific design, the Size of the Seagate Coldplay 530 Coolplay Edition SSD is just stuck in the expansion slot, which can be firmly fixed in the slot, and after installing the PS5's own card slot protection cover, the Seagate Coldplay 530 Coolplay Edition SSD is the real expansion.
Perfect fit
The whole expansion practice is still relatively easy and easy, summed up is "one pull", "one push", "two screws" steps, but the difficulty in this is to distinguish the position of the shell snap, as well as M.2 screw tightening precautions, grasp these two points, PS5 storage expansion is basically no problem.
06PS5 Disk Management After Resizing
After resizing, after opening the PS5 host, the host will self-test and prompt for memory formatting.
If after installation, and did not appear the prompt, you need to overhaul from two dimensions, one is the PS5 system problem, the first batch of PS5 due to system version problems, does not support storage expansion, so there will be incompatibility is not recognized, the author of this machine is so, after about half an hour of system updates, after a restart there will be prompt formatting; the second is the problem of the SSD itself, that is, in terms of performance or specifications, does not meet the PS5 official memory requirements, The appropriate storage product needs to be replaced.
Memory formatting
Formatting
After clicking to confirm the format, PS5 will automatically format, and carry out a round of hard disk performance PS5 test, the test principle is not officially disclosed at present, according to the author's experience, based on the PS5 internal architecture problems, the test results are often lower than the theoretical performance of the major memory on the PC, but most of them can meet the needs of PS5 games, only as a reference value.
PS5 internal test performance
Judging from the test results, the Maximum Read Speed of the Seagate Coldplay 530 Heatsink Edition SSD reached 5615MB/s in the PS5 bandwidth test, which can meet the storage performance requirements of the PS5 product.
PS5 identifies expanded memory information
Re-enter the PS5, click on the settings, memory page, you can see that the Seagate Coldplay 530 heatsink version SSD has been identified by the PS5 product, including product information, remaining capacity and other information; at this step, basically announced the completion of the PS5 storage expansion work.
07 Seagate Coldplay 530 Heatsink Edition SSDs are measured in PS5 performance
To verify the performance of the Seagate Coldplay 530 Coolsink Edition SSD under the PS5 console, we will experience it from two dimensions: data copy and actual play.
Data copy, as the name suggests, is a copy of the game files stored in the PS5's internal memory directly onto the newly added Seagate Coldplay 530 Heatsink Edition SSD to verify its copy performance.
Data copy testing
Copy performance
In the copy test, it can be seen that The Seagate Coldplay 530 heatsink version SSD, writing about 122GB of game fragment data, took less than 90 seconds, less than a minute and a half to complete the transmission of more than 120GB of game fragment data, such efficiency for cross-platform PCIe4.0 SSD is still quite good, can effectively improve the host user to quickly transfer PS5 data, saving built-in space.
Copy complete
If the data copy test is simply a straight line to highlight the bandwidth performance of the Seagate Coldplay 530 Heatsink Edition SSD, then the real game trial session can highlight the real performance and application performance of the SSD from the experience dimension.
After completing the data copy test, we went straight back to the PS5 console desktop and clicked on the game to enter hands-on mode.
The opening part of the game
Game demo
Through the game trial, it can be found that whether it is in the loading part of the game opening or the cutscenes in the game, almost no stuttering appears, and it is very smooth to move forward, without any game loading problems or delayed feedback due to changes in the memory of the game body.
Smooth gameplay
After 10 minutes of trial play, in the large scene with richer screens and the scenes with a large number of data textures that pay more attention to detail, the overall game is still very stable, and there are no extreme problems such as screen tearing or material flower screens caused by data transmission.
Big scene
Detail maps
This also verifies that as the official PS5 certified memory, the Seagate Coldplay 530 Heatsink Edition SSD is a leader in performance and specifications, which can meet or even replace the PS5's built-in memory, providing a storage experience with greater capacity and stronger performance for the majority of console players.
08 Seagate Coldplay 530 Radiator Edition SSD "True Fragrance" for PS5
To sum up, if you have already started with PS5 consoles, I strongly recommend starting a Seagate Coldplay 530 Heatsink Edition SSD for storage expansion and creating your own console game library;
If you haven't started with the PS5 console yet, then I still recommend you to start this Seagate Coldplay 530 heatsink version SSD, whether it is the future PS5 expansion, or as the main storage disk of the computer, Seagate Coldplay 530 heatsink version SSD, is definitely one of the best PCIe4.0 SSDs you can buy.