Western Digital’s New 8TB PS5 SSD Is Very Expensive (Understatement)

Western Digital’s popular SN850P NVMe SSD will soon be available in an 8TB model. Officially licensed by PlayStation, the SN850P has a preinstalled heatsink, so it’s ready to be plugged into the PS5’s M.2 slot out of the box. But there is one large snag here: The WD Black 8TB SN850P retails for a staggering $1,000. Though that price is aligned with 8TB models from other manufacturers, this means the small SSD you install in your PS5 costs twice as much as the console itself. But if you really want to maximize your storage space on PS5 (or PC), you can preorder the 8TB SN850P at Western Digital and PlayStation Direct. It’ll be available to purchase at major retailers later this month. As a small bonus, it comes with one month of PlayStation Plus Premium ($18 value).

The WD Black SN850P series now offers four storage capacity choices:

If you don’t care about the PlayStation logo on the drive, you can save $100 by grabbing the 8TB SN850X, which is the exact same SSD, just without the official PlayStation license. The SN850X is also available without a heatsink for $850. This is a similar situation to the new Pokemon-branded SanDisk microSD cards–SanDisk is a Western Digital subsidiary–that were also announced today. Instead of PS Plus Premium, you’ll get a WD_Black RGB T-shirt valued at $19. Sadly, it doesn’t have RGB lighting effects.

Amazon also has the 8TB SN850X with heatsink for $930 and without a heatsink for $880. Both are listed as temporarily out of stock, but you can still place an order and it should arrive next month. These prices could drop before your order ships, and Amazon will automatically adjust your total when you’re charged.

Like the SN850P, the SN850X has four storage-size options. We’ve listed the models with heatsinks below, though all four are also available without heatsinks.

The WD Black SN850P and SN850X are excellent NVMe SSDs for PS5 and PC. They offer 7,200MB/s read speeds, which is well over the minimum 5,500MB/s required for PS5. But 8TB is overkill for the vast majority of PS5 users–even if they don’t mind spending $900-$1,000 on an SSD.

For PC users, 8TB makes more sense considering you’re storing more than just games. After all, plenty of people have external hard drives exceeding 8TB. That said, these drives are usually hard drives with comparatively slow read and write speeds, because needing a lot of storage space and needing to access that amount of data quickly are two very different things. For example, the 8TB Western Digital Elements external hard drive is $170 at Amazon. You could buy five of these drives for the price of one 8TB SN850X.

With all that said, AAA game file sizes are only getting bigger as time goes on. At the moment, the 8TB SN850P can store approximately 45 copies of Call of Duty on PS5. Owners of this 8TB WD Black SSD may be laughing in a few years when they are able to store 10 whole AAA releases on their PS5 or PC.

More PS5-compatible NVMe SSDs

Below, you’ll find SSDs from other brands such as Samsung, Lexar, Crucial, and Silicon Power. All of these drives are compatible with PS5. Crucial also has an 8TB PS5-compatible SSD with a heatsink and 7,000MB/s speeds. Like the new models from Western Digital, it’s quite expensive–though you can click the coupon box on the listing to get it for $859. Crucial’s MP600 Pro is a great NVMe SSD for PS5 and PC–and one of the most popular picks on Amazon.

If you’re looking for a 1TB SSD for PS5, the cheapest offer on this list is the Lexar 1TB NM790 for $80. The 2TB model of this Lexar SSD–which offers up to 7,400MB/s sequential read speeds–is also the cheapest at $150. For a 4TB model, Silicon Power’s XS70 has the 4TB Lexar beat by $20, as the XS70 is only $250 for a 4TB with heatsink.