TECH NEWS – It is a fairly ridiculous situation when storage you can buy for a console costs more than the console itself – and lately, that is exactly where we are.
SanDisk has unveiled its new Optimus GX PRO 850P NVMe SSDs for PlayStation 5, offering capacities of up to 8 TB. These SSDs comply with the PCIe Gen 4.0 standard, with read speeds of up to 7200 MB/s, write speeds of 6600 MB/s, and random read and write IOPS of 1.2 million. Their endurance reaches up to 4800 TBW, and they use the standard 2280 form factor. The SSDs come with a heatsink that helps manage thermal load during storage-heavy tasks, such as loading games.
The technical specifications are fairly ordinary, since Gen5 SSDs already offer much higher speeds, and the first Gen6 SSDs could appear on the PC market as early as next year. But despite the “Console-Ready” and “Console-Optimized” labels, these SSDs should not cost this much. SanDisk offers the 1 TB version for $380, originally $475, the 2 TB version for $760, originally $950, the 4 TB version for $1500, originally $1875, and the 8 TB version for $2960, originally $3700. The redesigned PlayStation 5 currently sells for $600-650, while the PlayStation 5 Pro costs $950-1000. We are aware that there is a serious shortage of NAND flash memory, but even so, SanDisk’s SSDs are not so special that they justify double the price of SSDs already available at retail.
For example, the 1 TB WD_Black SN850X with a heatsink costs around $200, the 2 TB version around $500, the 4 TB version around $650, and the 8 TB version around $1250. If we are looking for an even cheaper solution, the 1 TB Patriot Viper VP4300 costs $169, offers a 7400 MB/s read speed, and is also compatible with PlayStation 5. The 2 TB version costs $290, while the 4 TB model is around $600. Most 8 TB SSDs still sell for $1000-1200, which is less than half the price SanDisk is asking for its SSD.
That is why it is worth choosing wisely.
Leave a Reply