Although Sony's PlayStation 5 game console fully supports off-the-shelf PCIe 4.0 solid-state drives, Sony initially limited the maximum capacity to 4 TB. Recently the company removed that cap as part of the PS5 8.00 firmware update, and now the system can support drives with up to 8 TB. Sabrent, in turn, is among the first SSD makers to offer an 8 TB drive specifically marketed for the PS5.

"PC and PS5 enthusiasts have long anticipated the expansion of internal storage capacity, and now, this dream has become a reality with the introduction of the Sabrent 8TB Rocket 4 Plus SSD," a statement by Sabrent reads.

Sabrent's Rocket 4 Plus 8 TB is based on a Phison platform and is actually a bit faster than the rest of the drives in the series. The manufacturer says that the SSD offers an up to 7,100 MB/s sequential read and up to 6,000 MB/s sequential write speeds. In order to keep the drive properly cooled under high loads, the drive comes equipped with a PS5-compatible aluminum heatsink that also doubles as a replacement for the drive bay's metal cover plate.

Sabrent's 8 TB Rocket 4 Plus drive (SB-RKT4P-PSHS-8TB) can now be purchased from Amazon for $1,009.99, which is twice the price of Sony's PlayStation 5 console, and a $10 premium over a bare 8TB Rocket 4 Plus.

This is of course a huge investment, but PS5's 825 GB of capacity available to end users is a fraction of what modern SSDs can provide 3 years later – and whose small capacity is quickly being consumed by modern, high-end games. For example, Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War takes up over 300 GB and Gran Turismo 7 nears 200 GB.

Now that Sony's PlayStation 5 supports 8 TB SSDs, the console gets a yet another advantage over Microsoft's Xbox Series X|S consoles, which only support proprietary drives with an up to 2 TB capacity. Since these drives are essentially M.2-2230 SSDs encapsulated into a plastic case, it remains to be seen when an 8 TB drive will come to the latest generation of Xbox consoles.

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  • Eliadbu - Friday, September 22, 2023 - link

    You can get silicon power XS70 4TB for 215$
    Right now, why the price per GB on these 8TB models is more than double?
    Reply
  • LtGoonRush - Friday, September 22, 2023 - link

    Yeah this is really frustrating. Like I get a desire to extract profit, but come on that premium is insane. I think if the NAND manufacturers encouraged OEMs to be more reasonable with drive pricing we'd see a lot more volume moving. Reply
  • Kamen Rider Blade - Friday, September 22, 2023 - link

    1x Standard M.2-2280 SSD's has 8x NAND Flash Packages split onto both sides for Maximum Capacity.

    I think the price has to do with Yields on stacking NAND Flash to 1 TiB per Package.

    The higher you stack, the lower your yields will be compared to cheaper NAND Flash packages with lower stacks.

    If you stick with the 128 GiB / 256 GiB NAND Flash Packages, those are dirt cheap and common.
    Ergo the 1 TiB / 2 TiB cheapo M.2 SSD's that we see.

    But the higher you go in stacks, the denser it is, the more likely you'll have bad yields which hurt the cost per Die Stack.

    Also, demand for High Density NAND Flash Package by Enterprise might be part of the factor in high costs for High Density.
    Reply
  • Golgatha777 - Saturday, September 23, 2023 - link

    Try 4-5x the price. I bought a 4TB (Inland Performance Plus) for $226 after taxes at my local Micro Center, which uses the same components as this drive. I repurposed the 2TB it replaced in my PS5 into an external NVME enclosure for my PS4 library. So, I won't be needing an 8TB for the foreseeable future. Reply
  • meacupla - Saturday, September 23, 2023 - link

    When this drive first came out, it was $1500.
    I think it's simply expensive because the pricing model copies HDDs. The highest capacity drives command a premium, and for NVMe m.2, 8TB is the largest capacity.
    Reply
  • bill.rookard - Saturday, September 23, 2023 - link

    Yes, the highest capacity drives should command a premium, but when I can get brand new 2TB drives for $60ish, multiply that by four and we should see some 8TB drives somewhere in the $200-300 range. $1000+ is one heck of a premium.

    If I could get some 8TB drives in that $200-300 range I'd start converting my NAS into all-SSD right now.
    Reply
  • meacupla - Saturday, September 23, 2023 - link

    Those $60 2TB drives lack DRAM, and won't work optimally in a PS5.
    They are also not particularly fast
    Reply
  • SanX - Thursday, September 28, 2023 - link

    Cost differences of DRAM cache vs SLC catche are few dollars Reply
  • meacupla - Saturday, September 30, 2023 - link

    You are aware that those $60 2TB drives can't even do 2000MB/s sequential R/W, right? Reply
  • SanX - Saturday, October 7, 2023 - link

    Were you just fell from the moon ? Reply

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