Is 1TB SSD Enough for PS5?

The PS5 not only boasts impressive graphics and performance but has also introduced several innovations one of the most prominent of which is the SSD as the choice of storage.

While SSD does have tremendous benefits (in terms of load times, installation time required etc.), is the amount built into the PS5 enough for the current generation of games?

PS5 offers 825 GB of built-in SSD storage (a rather peculiar number), of which only 667 GBs is actually usable for installing games.

However, an avid gamer would know that as games become more advanced and graphics-intensive, the need for storage space increases.

After all, you wouldn’t want to spend a whole lot of your time juggling between installing and deleting games than actually playing! Fortunately, PS5 provides you with an extra M.2 slot for adding up to 4 TB of SSD. 

But since the majority default at 1 TB extra space, the question: “is 1TB SSD enough for PS5?” is perhaps the one commonly asked.

The answer to that question is often a yes for the vast majority of the players, but to truly get to the bottom of it we will need to look at the file sizes of the games available on PS5.

Sizes of Games on PS5

The following table highlights some of the most popular games on PS5 and how much space they require once installed:

From the table above, we can deduce that except for some outliers, the average size of a PS5 game is between 80-90 GBs (85 GB perhaps would be the right estimate).

This is a significant jump from PS4. In fact, for the vast majority of the games that are released for both PS4 and PS5, you will observe that the PS4 version will have a far lower disk space requirement as compared to the PS5 variant.

Take, for instance, GTA 5. The PS4 Pro version requires 76 GB of space. The PS5 version requires about 90 GB of free space. Similarly, AC Valhalla requires around 50 GB of PS4 Pro, but on PS5 it requires about 71 GB of free space.

How Many Games Can You Install?

Now that we have established that an average game for PS5 is around 85 GB, we can calculate how many games you’d be able to install at a time.

Average Number of Games on Vanilla 667 GB Built-in SSD

PS5 offers 825 GB of built-in SSD of which only 667 GB is usable. If we divide this by 85 GB, we get 7.84. Meaning you’d be able to install between 7-8 games on the built-in SSD.

Adding an Additional 1 TB of SSD

If you add an additional 1 TB of SSD into the extra M.2 slot provided, you can get a total of about 1,600 GB of total space.

Do note that 1 TB SSD does not give you a full 1000 GB of storage. It actually gives about 930 GB of storage space.

So on a 1600 GB of free storage space, you’d be able to install anywhere between 18-19 games assuming we take 85 GB as the average space required.

Is 1TB SSD Enough for PS5?

So the answer to that question depends entirely upon your use case and how many games you wish to have downloaded/installed at the same time.

For many, even the built-in SSD can suffice. However, if you are someone who cannot go through the hassle of deleting and installing every time you want to play a certain game, then 1 TB SSD should be MORE than sufficient.

Plus, a 1 TB SSD is future proof too given that the file sizes for games are ever-increasing.

In addition to that, if you are someone who records video footage and saves them on the consoles then a 1 TB SSD can be quite helpful, albeit it is recommended that for video footages you invest in a cheaper external HDD instead.

It should be noted, though, that not all SSDs work on PS5. You have to get specific types of SSDs which I explain in this article: Which SSD is Compatible with PS5?