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Get your SSDs ready, PS4 Pro supports SATA3

I'm in for Samsung 850 EVO 1TB if testing can show 80% or higher load time boost on average. I know there will be variation based on title, but I need pretty big performance gains for the asking price of the EVOs. Otherwise, gonna wait until 2TB Firecudas are back in stock.
 

dallow_bg

nods at old men
Welp, first "update" from Digital Foundry:

Update 1:
Leadbetter says not to get your hopes up regarding SATA III due to the "copying bandwidth" being really low. If SATA II is getting hobbled like that (20 mb/sec), then he would expect SATA III to be hobbled as well.

Full details after embargo I'm guessing.
 
I'm in for Samsung 850 EVO 1TB if testing can show 80% or higher load time boost on average. I know there will be variation based on title, but I need pretty big performance gains for the asking price of the EVOs. Otherwise, gonna wait until 2TB Firecudas are back in stock.

I would expect to see basically the same difference found with PS4 OG, really. What SSD/SSHD is helping with is primarily latency, not bandwidth.
 

hookurs

Member
Would Cerny declare SATA III for all knowing full well the implications of such a promise... only to gimp us all in the end?

Seems awfully counter-intuitive?
 
Would Cerny declare SATA III for all knowing full well the implications of such a promise... only to gimp us all in the end?

Seems awfully counter-intuitive?

SATA III is a great item for marketing to use to sell the console to people who don't understand that SATA II vs SATA III isn't why load times are shit.
 

Number45

Member
Welp, first "update" from Digital Foundry:



Full details after embargo I'm guessing.
I think this came from their unboxing video - it sounded like an assumption that they won't have changed anything significant in there, but that's exactly what PS4 Pro is right? A significant performance upgrade on the original PS4.

Still, tempering expectation is never a bad thing.
 

sasliquid

Member
So I replaced my PS4 HD with a 1 tb sshd, how do we expect the pro hd to compare

And is there any hope of finding a reasonably price SSD or SSHD 2tb+ compatible with the ps4?
 

dallow_bg

nods at old men
I think this came from their unboxing video - it sounded like an assumption that they won't have changed anything significant in there, but that's exactly what PS4 Pro is right? A significant performance upgrade on the original PS4.

Still, tempering expectation is never a bad thing.

Yeah, we don't really know yet.
Details can't come soon enough.
 

AndyD

aka andydumi
So I replaced my PS4 HD with a 1 tb sshd, how do we expect the pro hd to compare

And is there any hope of finding a reasonably price SSD or SSHD 2tb+ compatible with the ps4?
A 2tb SSHD if available today, round 100 bucks. SSD is a while another story.
 

Bebpo

Banned
Probably asked a bunch already, but it's not in the OP, what's a good quality HDD that's in-stock online and will work with Ps4 Pro?
 
Probably asked a bunch already, but it's not in the OP, what's a good quality HDD that's in-stock online and will work with Ps4 Pro?

Well depends on your needs/price range. I'm only listing 2TB options because the Pro comes with a 1TB drive.

Best 2TB (HDD):
The Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB was very popular last xmas because it was cheap (sub $100), easy to crack open (tons of youtube videos) and then goes easily into the PS4. If you can find a standalone drive equivalent maybe that saves you a half hour but it's basically the same thing as this.

Best 2TB (SSHD):
The Seagate Firecuda 2TB is the only 2TB SSHD on the market. Luckily not very expensive either, around $100 USD / $150 CDN I think?

Best SSD:
Whichever you can afford, really. Samsung 850 EVO is highly regarded but almost any SSD will see the best speeds. It's just that they are all very expensive compared to HDD/SSHD options. SSD is the only option for 3TB+ unless you plan to homebrew an ESATA setup.
 

Bebpo

Banned
Well depends on your needs/price range. I'm only listing 2TB options because the Pro comes with a 1TB drive.

Best 2TB (HDD):
The Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB was very popular last xmas because it was cheap (sub $100), easy to crack open (tons of youtube videos) and then goes easily into the PS4. If you can find a standalone drive equivalent maybe that saves you a half hour but it's basically the same thing as this.

Best 2TB (SSHD):
The Seagate Firecuda 2TB is the only 2TB SSHD on the market. Luckily not very expensive either, around $100 USD / $150 CDN I think?

Best SSD:
Whichever you can afford, really. Samsung 850 EVO is highly regarded but almost any SSD will see the best speeds. It's just that they are all very expensive compared to HDD/SSHD options. SSD is the only option for 3TB+ unless you plan to homebrew an ESATA setup.

So putting an SSD into the PS4 isn't going to be plug & play? I'd rather avoid having to crack anything open. I'm generally fine with PS4 load times tbh, but if it's just plug & play pop in easy to switch in a faster SSD I'm ok spending some money for better load times.
 

Kyoufu

Member
So putting an SSD into the PS4 isn't going to be plug & play? I'd rather avoid having to crack anything open. I'm generally fine with PS4 load times tbh, but if it's just plug & play pop in easy to switch in a faster SSD I'm ok spending some money for better load times.

They're all easy to install. Nothing different about any of them in terms of installation.
 

dallow_bg

nods at old men
yeah I've been holding off on buying the firecuda because the actual SSD portion of the 2TB version is small

I mean, they've always been small on hybrid drives.
But benchmarks for the older ones did show an advantage, and those were even smaller. I'm sure some old tests had speeds for the Seagate Momentus drives before they were rebranded as Firecuda. That's about what you should expect for the PS4 at least. Still waiting for Pro.
 

Metfanant

Member
Well depends on your needs/price range. I'm only listing 2TB options because the Pro comes with a 1TB drive.

Best 2TB (HDD):
The Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB was very popular last xmas because it was cheap (sub $100), easy to crack open (tons of youtube videos) and then goes easily into the PS4. If you can find a standalone drive equivalent maybe that saves you a half hour but it's basically the same thing as this.

Best 2TB (SSHD):
The Seagate Firecuda 2TB is the only 2TB SSHD on the market. Luckily not very expensive either, around $100 USD / $150 CDN I think?

Best SSD:
Whichever you can afford, really. Samsung 850 EVO is highly regarded but almost any SSD will see the best speeds. It's just that they are all very expensive compared to HDD/SSHD options. SSD is the only option for 3TB+ unless you plan to homebrew an ESATA setup.

Considering I've had a 1tb HGST 7200rpm drive in my launch day PS4 since pretty much day 1...and i have no problem with the load times as is...

With the 2tb firecuda seemingly backordered, or sold out everywhere in the US...you think it's worth waiting, or just grab a 2tb seagate barracuda for like $99 and be done with it?...will the SSHD really give that much of a benefit?
 

Theman2k

Member
I think I will wait for DF analysis before ordering a new drive.
Especially how Richard was hinting that the new SATA III interface isn't the game changer we have been looking for.
If the SSD will not bring huge difference that will be worth paying 3 times more then the SSHD, it's a firecuda for me.
 
I think I will wait for DF analysis before ordering a new drive.
Especially how Richard was hinting that the new SATA III interface isn't the game changer we have been looking for.
If the SSD will not bring huge difference that will be worth paying 3 times more then the SSHD, it's a firecuda for me.

Same. After that update I'm leaning towards the Firecuda.
 

RockmanBN

Member
I think I will wait for DF analysis before ordering a new drive.
Especially how Richard was hinting that the new SATA III interface isn't the game changer we have been looking for.
If the SSD will not bring huge difference that will be worth paying 3 times more then the SSHD, it's a firecuda for me.

Waiting for this as well. If I can't dramatically lower load times then I feel as if the premium for an SSD wouldn't be worth it.
 
So putting an SSD into the PS4 isn't going to be plug & play? I'd rather avoid having to crack anything open. I'm generally fine with PS4 load times tbh, but if it's just plug & play pop in easy to switch in a faster SSD I'm ok spending some money for better load times.

Nah, what I said was that there was a very popular HDD (not SSD) that you could buy in an external case and crack open to have a cheap internal drive. But as in the link, you could just buy a 2TB internal drive now too.

For an SSD, they are virtually all internal drives. It's stupidly easy to install and about the only difference on install you'll notice is that it weighs so little you'll almost think it's hollow. If you want an idea of what kind of load time improvement to expect, check this DF piece on the PS4 with an SSD. Expect that to be your baseline improvement, which will vary a lot depending on the game.

SSD is pretty nice if you can swing it, but it's really damn expensive. Think ~$120? USD for a SSHD Firecuda, but $800 for a 850 EVO SSD. At a glance the cheapest 1TB SSD on Newegg is still $300+ USD. SSHD is the middle ground because it uses a small (8GB) SSD as a cache for a bigger HDD.

Considering I've had a 1tb HGST 7200rpm drive in my launch day PS4 since pretty much day 1...and i have no problem with the load times as is...

With the 2tb firecuda seemingly backordered, or sold out everywhere in the US...you think it's worth waiting, or just grab a 2tb seagate barracuda for like $99 and be done with it?...will the SSHD really give that much of a benefit?

Again, look at the link. I think time adds up if you do a lot of habitual play, like constant Destiny runs or hanging in a certain Hitman Level all the time. You're not going to have some immediate "WOW!" difference, but watch the videos in that piece; the time is counting up. It's just nowhere near a 2x improvement.

I have no problem rolling with a regular 2TB HDD in my PS4, but there are always games where "damn, even 5 seconds less of this load would be great." So that's why I went with the Firecuda 2TB.


It's on back order. It says its 9.5mm which is the maximum allowable drive height on PS4 Pro, so in theory it should fit but you won't know for sure until you try. (My guess is yes, but I have only used a few drives of this size before.) This one is cheaper and does the same thing, as best I can tell.
 

Caayn

Member
Has any info on the physical height limit of the drive been revealed by anyone yet?
SATA III is a great item for marketing to use to sell the console to people who don't understand that SATA II vs SATA III isn't why load times are shit.
But a larger number must mean that it's better and solves the problems.
 

rec0ded1

Member
I backed up then restored to my stock PS4 hard drive to prep for the Pro. I was using a Seagate laptop SSHD with 8gb nand. I noticed the firecuda is a newer revision of what I have and but still uses only 8gb. Now I'm wondering if getting the newer firecuda or an HD with more nand would be beneficial.
 
I backed up then restored to my stock PS4 hard drive to prep for the Pro. I was using a Seagate laptop SSHD with 8gb nand. I noticed the firecuda is a newer revision and still uses only 8gb. Now I'm wondering if getting the newer firecuda or an HD with more nand be beneficial.

There is no NAND on regular hard drives. Some may have more RAM cache (say, 128MB) but that's meant for short term predictive data access. HDD's are just too slow to use large caches. NAND changes the model because it's not a short term cache. It's a huge cache that's meant for longer term access, like loading gigabytes of data.

Long story short you could have 256MB of cache in an HDD and see no measurable difference from 64MB. But 8GB of NAND has an already measurable difference.
 
Nah, what I said was that there was a very popular HDD (not SSD) that you could buy in an external case and crack open to have a cheap internal drive. But as in the link, you could just buy a 2TB internal drive now too.

For an SSD, they are virtually all internal drives. It's stupidly easy to install and about the only difference on install you'll notice is that it weighs so little you'll almost think it's hollow. If you want an idea of what kind of load time improvement to expect, check this DF piece on the PS4 with an SSD. Expect that to be your baseline improvement, which will vary a lot depending on the game.

SSD is pretty nice if you can swing it, but it's really damn expensive. Think ~$120? USD for a SSHD Firecuda, but $800 for a 850 EVO SSD. At a glance the cheapest 1TB SSD on Newegg is still $300+ USD. SSHD is the middle ground because it uses a small (8GB) SSD as a cache for a bigger HDD.



Again, look at the link. I think time adds up if you do a lot of habitual play, like constant Destiny runs or hanging in a certain Hitman Level all the time. You're not going to have some immediate "WOW!" difference, but watch the videos in that piece; the time is counting up. It's just nowhere near a 2x improvement.

I have no problem rolling with a regular 2TB HDD in my PS4, but there are always games where "damn, even 5 seconds less of this load would be great." So that's why I went with the Firecuda 2TB.



It's on back order. It says its 9.5mm which is the maximum allowable drive height on PS4 Pro, so in theory it should fit but you won't know for sure until you try. (My guess is yes, but I have only used a few drives of this size before.) This one is cheaper and does the same thing, as best I can tell.

I live in Dallas so its available for pickup...
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Faster than what? With vanilla ps4 and the same ssd?

This is Pro with stock drive, compared to an OG PS4.

No SSDs involved here.

Which is good, if tangible gains can be seen with just the stock, that's great.
 

III-V

Member
I don't quite understand Ledbetter's logic that because the SATA II was hobbled in PS4, SATA III is likely hobbled in PS4 Pro.

Hobbled but still faster than full SATA II? Same speeds as before?

I just don't see how to follow this reasoning, but I think it is more fair to assume that it will not be any slower, for certain, and it is unlikely to be the same speed, so the most likely scenario is that it will offer faster loads.

I guess we will find out soon enough.
 

c0de

Member
This is Pro with stock drive, compared to an OG PS4.

No SSDs involved here.

Which is good, if tangible gains can be seen with just the stock, that's great.

Than this is more due to more processing power. With a stock drive, you won't see any benefit changing sata2 to sata3.
But we still have to consider Sony's stupid idea to connect sata to USB internally, this could be a reason for added latency.
 

NewDust

Member
I don't quite understand Ledbetter's logic that because the SATA II was hobbled in PS4, SATA III is likely hobbled in PS4 Pro.

Hobbled but still faster than full SATA II? Same speeds as before?

I just don't see how to follow this reasoning, but I think it is more fair to assume that it will not be any slower, for certain, and it is unlikely to be the same speed, so the most likely scenario is that it will offer faster loads.

I guess we will find out soon enough.

I guess he means any meaningful improvements. PS4's bottleneck wasn't SATA II, but a combination of hardware further down the pipeline and game engines themselves. Some people seem to think that just SATA III will give them PC like instant load times. If the loading just consists of textures, sound and similar assets I think load times will decrease significant in comparison to sshd or hdd, but will mostly be on par with regular PS4. And if any game engine "parts" need to get loaded your hamstrung by how fast the code gets executed and how the execution is staggered. There you should probably expect an decrease in load times, not because of SATA III, but simply because the upclocked CPU is able to execute the code faster.

Just to be clear I have exactly zero knowledge about programming or how the PS4Pro hardware works, but I imagine it would be something like this.
 
Has there been any indication the firmware for the PS4 Pro will be any different to the PS4?
The last thing I'd want, and I imagine most of us who are changing the HDD would want, is to be up shit creak with the wrong Firmware attempting to be installed.

I assume it will just be the same, but the Pro "unlocks" features in the firmware itself.
 
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