Let’s quickly say the situation in one word: soldering.

Notebookcheck.net noted that the PlayStation 5‘s 825 GB SSD has been soldered onto the silicon. Why does it matter? The site, based on the PS5’s teardown video (which was a subject a few days ago already), expressed its concerns.

„This approach presents an interesting scenario for the console. Whereas gamers could simply swap out the primary HDDs/SSDs on their PlayStation 3 or PlayStation 4 consoles should the drives ever fail, there are no such options on the PlayStation 5. All SSDs, be it soldered or removable, have endurance values measured in MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) or TBW (Terabytes Written). If assuming all other parts of the console will run without any issues in the interim, the internal 825 GB SSD will eventually fail and be irreplaceable. Whatever happens next to the rest of the console is anyone’s guess at the moment,” the site says.

However, there is something good to this: „The good news is that MTBF and TBW values are usually very high before failure is expected For most gamers, this would thankfully be a tough ceiling to reach,” they added. Keep in mind that if the PlayStation 5’s internal SSD – which includes the system’s OS files – breaks, the console might be no longer useable altogether, but there is a possible solution to this: „We can see a simple scenario where Sony can avoid rendering the console useless should the internal SSD inevitably fail. If users are allowed the option to install the OS on the aforementioned secondary M.2 PCIe 4.0 slot, then the rest of the system would be salvaged.”

The PlayStation 4 Standard Edition (500 USD/EUR) and the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition (400 USD/EUR) will launch on November 12 (America) or November 19 (Europe).

Source: PSU

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