Great news, PlayStation 5 owners! A new update for the next-gen console is now live, which finally adds support for external M.2 SSD. If you’ve been running out of storage space lately, you won’t have to deal with that anymore.
Once you’ve installed a compatible M.2 SSD to your PS5, you can use the extra storage to download, copy, and launch PS5 and PS4 games, along with media apps. It is also possible to run PS5 and PS4 games directly from the M.2 SSD itself, not to mention the ability to freely move games between the M.2 SSD and the PS5’s native storage.
That being said, it can be tricky to find for M.2 SSDs that will be compatible with the PS5. Not only do you need an M.2 SSD that can do 5,500MB/s or faster sequential read speed, it’s still not guaranteed that “all M.2 SSD devices meeting the described specifications will work with your console,” as Sony puts it.
Given the level of performance you need for the M.2 SSD, it needs to be adequately cooled too. According to PlayStation, you need to use a cooling structure of sorts with the SSD, such as a heatsink. Both single-sided or double-sided heatsinks will work too, as long as it meets the dimensions outlined in this support page.
Once you do have a compatible M.2 SSD, you can start installing it to your PS5. If you’re not quite sure how to do that, refer to the installation video above.