Install an M.2 SSD in your PS5 with a heat sink upgrade
Home Entertainment
Speaker 1: PS five gamers, listen up. If you're feeling constrained by the storage limits of your PlayStation, five's internal SSD. You're not alone, but the opportunity to expand your internal storage has arrived. And today I'm gonna show you how to do it all.
Speaker 1: Since the PS five launched in 2020, Sony's been promising to allow players to expand the systems, turn storage, using an MDO two solid state drive. They just didn't say when. Well, it turns out that time is now. If you're a member of Sony's PlayStation five system software, beta [00:00:30] program, odds are you probably aren't in the beta program yet? I wasn't either. So I went and signed up on Sony's site. I'll put a link in the description so you can see if you're eligible and try to sign up yourself. They say they don't accept everyone who applies, but I received my confirmation about a week later. It doesn't hurt to try it. Also doesn't hurt to like this video and subscribe to our channel. So if you don't mind, you can do that now. Okay. So there are basically two steps to this process, update the system software to the most current version and install the SSD into the PS five. And I'm gonna do them in that order because that's [00:01:00] what Sony says to do to download the most recent version of the beta. I have to enter a voucher code that was emailed to me. So I'll do that right here
Speaker 1: And success. I'm actively enrolled in the beta program. Now I can go look for a system update under system system software in settings. Now I can select update system software, beta, and confirm with update. [00:01:30] Here's a list of all the features included in the beta, including the one we want right here. So I'll hit okay to confirm. And I agree and confirm. Now my PS five is restarting And now the system of data's installing
Speaker 1: And we get the automatic restart, [00:02:00] rebuilding the database and information that the beta is installed. All right, so far so good. I haven't broken anything yet, but I should note here that right now I am using the beta software, but once Sony actually releases the update to the public, the process will be the same as always. And you won't need that voucher code. And if you have auto updates turned on, you'll probably end up getting the new version without even thinking about it. Now let's shut it all down on and get on with part two.
Speaker 1: Okay? So I've moved over to the operating table so I can do some surgery on my [00:02:30] PS five. I'm gonna be installing the MP 600 pro a one terabyte SSD from Corsair, but you can't slap just any SSD you find into your PS. Five soon is issued a very long list of specs that the drives need to meet in order to be of the system. And of course, since this is a beta, those specs could change. I'm not gonna get into all the details here. Check the links in the description for our recommendations and an explanation of what you need to look for, including Ashley's video, where she breaks down all the requirements, but basically it needs to fit into the expansion slot. [00:03:00] It needs to have a heat sink and it needs to have Reed speeds fast enough to keep up with the PS five system. Once you have the drive in hand, which can be a challenge in and of itself actually installing it is pretty easy. First, I'm gonna turn it over. So it's sitting on the top of the system, take off the base And I'm gonna turn it around so that the screw hole on the bottom is facing me to get this cover off, lift up on this front corner and then slide it back towards you. You'll [00:03:30] probably hear that little snap, but that doesn't mean you've broken anything. And now I can take that off.
Speaker 1: And right here is the expansion bay. We'll open that up with a Phillip screwdriver,
Speaker 1: Lift off the cover. And now you can see inside there, that's where our drive's gonna go inside. Here is another little screw that holds down a spacer. I'll take that out because my drive is shorter than the length of the bay. And I I'm gonna need [00:04:00] that to screw it down. Now, since I bought this drive, I've learned that other people have tried it and it doesn't actually fit properly. The heat sink is too tall and there's no way for the cover to fit down properly. So I got this lower profile heat sink, which should do the trick, but first I need to remove the existing heat sink. I have to unclip this tray, which is holding everything together. These picks definitely help to loosen it up. [00:04:30] And when I pull this apart, there's a bunch of thermal paste all over the place. I don't care so much about the heat sink. Actually. I'm not sure if this is paste or the original pad, but it comes off pretty easy. So this is the actual solid state drive. Can you believe this is one terabyte? So here's the new heat sink. It came with this thermal pad, I'll peel this off. So then I'm gonna stick it down to the flat side of heat sink,
Speaker 1: [00:05:00] Lift off this film and then line this up and apply it to the drive itself. I wanna make sure it's lined up straight and then I'm not covering up the screw hole or the connector itself press that down firmly. The heat sink came with these silicone bands, but I'm gonna try and use this tray since it's [00:05:30] handy. Actually, maybe I'll go ahead and put these on here just in case. Okay. So that looks good. I'm going to gently slide it into the slot here and then screw it down using the spacer and the screw That looks great. And now our cover fits over it just fine. [00:06:00] So I'm gonna screw that down, put the case back on and the stand and that's all there is to it. Let's go see if it worked and everything's plugged back in. So I'm gonna turn the PS five on. And the first thing we see is a notification about formatting, the new drive. That's a good sign. The system recognizes the drive and [00:06:30] it would appear I haven't broken anything. So let's go ahead and format. And now we see the results of a read test and that's well over the 5,500 recommended by Sony.
Speaker 1: Let's go take a look over here in settings and storage. And now we have a new section for M two [00:07:00] SSD storage, and it shows that I have all of the one terabyte available for use. And I still have my USB extended storage, which brings my grand total to over three and a half terabytes. I'm gonna call that a success. Now that I have all this room, there are a couple things I can do with it. I can come down here to installation location, and for the PS five games and apps, I can choose the new SSD and I'll keep sending my PS4 games to the USB extended storage, [00:07:30] or I can copy games from the original drive to the new one, select a title in the game, library, press the options button and then select move of games and apps. Here's a list of everything that's movable to the new SST, storage, select anything else you want to transfer and hit move.
Speaker 1: And just to make sure everything's working, I'll move a game over like a plague tail. And that's just gonna take a few seconds for 33 gigs. And now if I open up the game, I know it's [00:08:00] playing back from the new SSD and everything's working just fine. All the little Ratts are Ching along, looking at the game library, you won't be able to see whether the PS five games are stored on the factory installed drive or the new SSD. They're all listed under console storage. And at this point it shouldn't really matter. PS, five games play the same, regardless of which internal drive they're on. But if you do end up having trouble, you can always come back here to see which games are stored, where, so hopefully now that you've seen how easy this is, you [00:08:30] can try it for yourself, but what are you gonna do with all that space? If you've been holding off on moving games from a PS 40 or PS five, I made a video that shows how to do just that. Plus we have video showing how to use an external USB drive for your PS4 games and how to tune your setup so that your PS five games look great on your TV. That should keep you busy for a while and gimme a chance to play some games myself. Thanks for watching. And we'll see you next time.
