The Best 1tb SSD for PS4 Console [All Models]

Solid-state drives (SSD) are very popular storage devices among savvies due to the high performance and reliability they offer. They’re up to 5x faster than the fastest mechanical hard drive (HDD) and last much longer. And since PS4 employs an HDD as its primary storage, changing that to an SSD can really make a remarkable difference.

The 1tb SSD is the favorite option for the vast majority of power users who seek the ultimate performance. Furthermore, what makes this storage capacity very popular is its reasonable price that goes below $150.

Therefore, if you want 1tb storage device that can boost the PS4 performance to the fullest, and can last up to 10 years without any kind of failure, all for the price less than $150, an SSD is surely the best choice.

PS4 1tb SSD Options

All SSDs laid out below are premium brands that proved highly-consistent performance and very solid reliability. With these 1TB SSDs you can have a smoother experience with VR and online games. They will load faster and more seamless like never before.

Samsung 860 EVO 1tb SSD

If there’s one company that tends to rule in the SSD market space, it’s Samsung. The Samsung EVO series has been the go to SSD for price versus performance aficionados for many years now and it looks like that won’t be changing anytime soon. The 850 Evo was a long-time favorite, which remains viable even today, but the 860 Evo line has largely displaced it.

Samsung 860 Evo delivers performance that iterates on its predecessor with improved read/write speeds and an array of form factors, while still maintaining its budget price. In fact, it’s not substantially quicker than the model it replaces, but the extended lifespan is certainly worth the modest investment.

Looking at this drive’s testing results, one thing becomes crystal clear—the 860 EVO is the second best performing SATA SSD on the market. The only better performing SATA SSD is Samsung’s own 860 Pro. The 860 EVO easily outperforms competing SATA SSDs including more expensive MLC powered competitors.

Best of all, the 860 Evo isn’t some overpriced luxury: the cost per gigabyte is perfectly reasonable for a 2.5in SSD of this calibre, at 32.8p for 250GB, 30.4p for 500GB, 29.6p for 1TB, 30.8p for 2TB and 31.3p for 4TB.

Eventually, the 860 Evo is the best 1tb SSD for PS4 in terms of performance without having to break open their piggy banks.

This drive comes in varied capacities ranging from 250gb to 4tb with a 5-year limited time warranty.

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Crucial MX500 1tb SSD

This drive from Crucial is one of the best options on the market, offering excellent performance for PS4 at a consistently reasonable price. Crucial’s MX500 is one of the few drives that really has no weak points, and with PS4 game install sizes getting larger, buying the largest SSD you can afford is becoming increasingly important.

In PS4 console gaming, Crucials MX500 SSDs are just as fast as the 860 Evo, and they now also have five years of warranty and are particularly competitively priced. So, whether the Samsung 860 Evo is a good purchase depends mainly on the only thing the manufacturer did not want to tell us before the launch: pricing.

The Crucial MX500 is one of the top performing PS4 compatible SSDs, and perhaps more important, it’s one of the more affordable. It ends up delivering an incredible value. It remains the first choice for the price-conscious buyers, but the 860 Evo’s offer overall just a bit better performance and score even better in terms of consistency. Whether you’re going to notice that in practice, remains a question, but Samsung undeniably offers a slightly better product for a little more money.

This drive comes in varied capacities ranging from 250gb to 2tb with a 5-year limited time warranty.

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SanDisk SSD PLUS 1TB

This is unarguably one of the cheapest SSDs in the market as of today. For less than $130 you can get that great drive and take your gaming experience with PS4 to the next level. In terms of performance, the difference is really unnoticeable among all SSD brands on the PS4 platform. Yes, Samsung Evo 860 works better in computer systems, but it’s just a very little better when considering the PS4 application environment.

The SSD Plus SATA III 2.5″ Internal SSD from SanDisk quickly delivers 1TB of storage capacity for your PS4 console. The SSD provides sequential reads of up to 535 MB/s and sequential writes of up to 450 MB/s to offer faster boot times and faster access to your data than a traditional spinning hard drive. It is compatible with PS4 standard and PS4 Pro as well.

This drive comes in varied capacities ranging from 120gb to 1tb and with a 3-year limited warranty.

SSD Benefits for PS4 Console

Here are the major benefits you can acquire after upgrading your PS4 HDD to 1tb SSD or any other capacity.

• Getting rid of the PS4 stock hard drive for a much more powerful drive. Since PS4 uses an old and obsolete mechanical hard drive produced in 2011, intuitively it’s not the right drive to meet the modern storage requirements of high-end gaming. It’s not only the storage space that matters here, but also the capability of the storage device to handle data efficiently, where mechanical hard drives are not the ultimate choice to rely on.
• Very solid reliability and endurance. To verify that, just read the tons of users’ complaints of PS4 hard drive failure. In general, mechanical hard drives are no longer good enough for gaming purposes and heavy workload situations. That’s due to the fact that the mechanical hard drives fall behind with the increase of the data momentum imposed by modern, high-end data requirements.
• Too long lifespan (longevity). Can you believe that an SSD can last even more than 10 years in tough, heavy-workload conditions without failing? Imagine how long it can live in easier situations, like that inside a PS4 box. That means more guarantee for lifespan.
• Top-notch speed (up to 45% in PS4 Standard and 60% in PS4 Pro). Consequently, PS4 operating system will boot up faster, games will load in a shorter time, and you’ll get a better experience with online and VR gaming with an SSD. If you own PS4 Pro, you can enjoy an SSD more than PS4 Standard users do.
• The benefit of SSD is even greater with games that support the PS4 Pro’s high resolution “4K” mode. That’s because many of them require the use of larger textures and assets. This would put greater emphasis on the PS4’s storage capabilities.

Is 1tb SSD Enough for PS4?

Well, there’s no one decisive answer to this question. In fact, it solely depends on user’s needs. The overwhelming majority of PS4 users find 1tb capacity is pretty much enough. Whereas enthusiasts find it very limited and insufficient. Furthermore, you have to bear in mind a very important point here. You won’t really get a complete 1tb storage space out of the 1tb SSD. Why?

Calculating the Actual size

SSD manufacturers market drives in terms of decimal (base 10) capacity. In decimal notation, one megabyte (MB) is equal to 1,000,000 bytes, one gigabyte (GB) is equal to 1,000,000,000 bytes, and one terabyte (TB) is equal to 1,000,000,000,000 bytes.

PS4 system use the binary (base 2) numbering system. In the binary numbering system, one megabyte is equal to 1,048,576 bytes, one gigabyte is equal to 1,073,741,824 bytes, and one terabyte is equal to 1,099,511,627,776 bytes.

Consequently, with a simple calculation, you can deduce that you’ll actually get 931gb out of your 1tb SSD on PS4 instead of 1024gb.

Usable Space on PS4 1tb SSD

Ok, but that’s not the end of story. PS4 system has to dedicate a part of your SSD for its files and caching purposes. This will leave you with 862gb only as usable storage space.

Afterwards you need to cut off 15% of the total capacity of SSD to keep it running at its peak performance. That’s what SSD manufacturers’s advice. Accordingly this means almost 120gb of the total capacity will be untouched and you’ll only have approximately 740gb of usable storage space. But what does that mean eventually?

Is 740gb Space Enough?

Considering that the average AAA title game size is something between 50gb to 80gb, you’ll only be able to install 10 to 12 PS4 games on that 1tb SSD. A wide variety of users see that number of games meet their needs. whereas many others find it very small.

But what to do with this dilemma?

Go for a Larger SSD?

Yes, you can get a 2tb or even 4tb SSD for your PS4, but that’s for a real huge price. The 2tb SSD costs around $300 whereas the 4tb SSD costs around $600. That’s too much.

If you still want to enjoy the appealing advantages of SSDs on PS4, get 1tb capacity and compensate the shortage with an external HDD. Just keep your important applications and games on the internal SSD, whereas the rest are on the external storage.

Conclusion

The 1tb SSD capacity is suitable for most PS4 users, as long as an external storage is used. Although average users can still go for lower capacities and save money, enthusiasts find 1tb SSD very small still. But all agree that an SSD is something so appealing to obtain if they want a better PS4 gaming. The only thing that holds them off is price.

SSDs are still more expensive than regular hard drives. Albeit they became cheaper than before, they are still expensive. You can get 1tb HDD for less than $50, whereas the same capacity of SSD costs you around $130.

If you want my advice, I suggest that you better get Seagate Firecuda 2tb SSHD for your PS4. Afterwards, when PS5 is released, think about an SSD for it. That’s my advice to PS4 standard users. If you own PS4 Pro, my best advice is to buy an SSD, only if you can afford it. Otherwise, an SSHD is the second best option here.