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Tested: PlayStation 4 Hard Drive vs. SSD vs. Hybrid Drive

G

Gowans

Member
Tested: PlayStation 4 Hard Drive vs. SSD vs. Hybrid Drive

The PlayStation 4's built-in storage drive is more important than ever, but the 500GB hard drive included with the next-gen console is slow to install and load games. Good thing it's easily replaceable. We test the benefits of replacing it with an SSD and a hybrid drive (SSHD) to see what difference a $100 upgrade can make.
Click to expand...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGjSJwlHK6M [9:06]

Boot
Default 25.67s
Hybrid 20.3s
SSD 19.5s

Knack Disc
Default 39.67s
Hybrid 33.67s
SSD 34s

Killzone Downloaded
Default 60s
Hybrid 42s
SSD 39s

Resogun Downloaded
2/3 of a second difference
 
Everdred

Everdred

Member
Monty Mole said:
Can I be cheeky please and ask for a summary of the results without me needing to watch the video?
Click to expand...
Basically get a Hybrid Drive. SSD doesn't have gain that is worth the cost.

EDIT: Important to note that things that are loaded frequently will load faster on the hybrid than stuff randomly accessed.
 
D

Damaniel

Banned
Interesting that the hybrid drive manages to bridge the gap between the stock drive and a full SSD so well.

One comparison that nobody's making is how 7200 RPM drives compare to hybrid drives. Most of us aren't going to buy 500+GB SSDs for $400 game consoles (or 250GB drives, for that matter), so a comparison between the two types of drives that mere mortals are most likely to buy would be nice.

(Also, backing 1TB of platter storage with 16 or even 32 GB of solid state memory would be great for PS4, especially if it were 7200 RPM. Get on it, Seagate!)
 
G

Gowans

Member
Times (added to op)

Boot
Default 25.67s
Hybrid 20.3s
SSD 19.5s

Knack Disc
Default 39.67s
Hybrid 33.67s
SSD 34s

Killzone Downloaded
Default 60s
Hybrid 42s
SSD 39s

Resogun Downloaded
2/3 of a second difference
 
M

MrHicks

Banned
on average 10 secs between ssd and normal?
why the heck are SSD's so expensive?

thats not nearly the performance you'd expect from such a massive price bump
 
D

Damaniel

Banned
MrHicks said:
on average 10 secs between ssd and normal?
why the heck are SSD's so expensive?

thats not nearly the performance you'd expect from such a massive price bump
Click to expand...

SSDs work best when the following two conditions are met:

- A computer with a SATA3 controller, to get the full 6Gb/s transfer rate
- An OS that's SSD aware, to handle sector alignment correctly and to deal with things like TRIM

This the reason why SSDs work better in Win7 and Win8 than they did on previous versions, and why the transfer rates on the newer drives are so high (500+MB/sec, which requires a SATA3 controler). In the case of the PS4, the OS (a BSD derivative, I believe) may not be as SSD aware as other, desktop OSes (or at least the PS4 version may not be). There's also some question as to whether the controller is actually SATA2 or SATA3.

These reasons, combined with the insane price, are why I'm not considering a SSD for my PS4. I'd like to see how 7200 RPM drives compare to the SSHDs though.
 
S

Slavik81

Member
MrHicks said:
on average 10 secs between ssd and normal?
why the heck are SSD's so expensive?

thats not nearly the performance you'd expect from such a massive price bump
Click to expand...

Imagine saving 10 seconds every few minutes. They actually save a lot of time, though in a console it is probably not as big of a deal as a desktop PC.
 
M

mechphree

Member
Not feeling that performance jump for the cost in price, I Was looking to see higher results . But when I do get my ps4 I will definitely change that he'd to a 1 or 2tb hard drive. That 500 gig is gonna fill up fast.
 
E

Eusis

Member
MrHicks said:
on average 10 secs between ssd and normal?
why the heck are SSD's so expensive?

thats not nearly the performance you'd expect from such a massive price bump
Click to expand...
SSDs are to computer storage what carts were to games: way faster, but much more expensive and smaller. Prices ARE rapidly dropping though, so there's that.

And you seriously think these were made with consoles in mind, or that consoles were made with them in mind? They are for computers first and foremost and OSes are being designed to take the most advantage of them, nevermind that you can always go with a reasonably sized SSD with an HDD to do the heavy lifting which is not exactly an option for consoles. They're faster than HDDs on consoles just by nature but not by enough to justify that extra cost unless you're really rich and have no qualms indulging yourself in this. SSHDs will likely do it for most of us until we reach the end of the generation, then MAYBE we'll be laughing at spending far more than a console on a 1 TB SSD.
 
K

Kaako

Felium Defensor
Sony please work on getting the OS fully SSD aware so it can take good advantage of my PS4 SSD drive.
 
R

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
Loving the SSHD I have in my PS4. I mainly got it for the extra storage but the speed benefits are damn nice.
 
B

Bam Bam Baklava

Member
Another thing you could do on Xbox One in this case would be get a low storage SSD and put whatever free roam games you can on there because they would benefit the most.
 
V

Vizzeh

Banned
dafuq, there are 64GB SSD/NAND Hybrid drives... now THAT is the perfect answer (excluding SSD)...must go find, havent seen them available. (
 
E

Eusis

Member
MemoryHumanity said:
26 seconds to boot? Please tell me that's not a retail unit.
Click to expand...
Sounds about right. Just have to hope they can patch things up later on, or at least have it set up to be crazy fast when using a full SSD, though I need to look into the practicality of that. I do suspect the bottleneck is the Hard Drive and being designed with that in mind, but with an SSD I imagine it can be set up to boot way, way faster like our mobile devices.
 
jfoul

jfoul

Member
I'm going to hold out for a 2tb SSHD @ 9.55mm.

It's going to get interesting when the SSHD market becomes more competitive. NAND flash sizes should increase when Seagate and Toshiba respond to Western Digital entering the market with 8-24Gb versions.
 
O

Ocaso

Member
Eusis said:
Sounds about right. Just have to hope they can patch things up later on, or at least have it set up to be crazy fast when using a full SSD, though I need to look into the practicality of that. I do suspect the bottleneck is the Hard Drive and being designed with that in mind, but with an SSD I imagine it can be set up to boot way, way faster like our mobile devices.
Click to expand...

I imagine this will be a non-issue when the suspend feature is activated. I for one don't see myself turning off the console unless I'm leaving for a long trip or something of the sort.
 
I

immortal-joe

Member
I could have sworn someone once posted a link to a 1.5TB Hybrid drive. I would certainly prioritize size given how insanely large game sizes are.
 
V

Vizzeh

Banned
Found this so far, Seagate have a 32gb SSD/nand HYBRID

Due out but delayed: https://www.facebook.com/seagatesupport/posts/10201505260344765

Laptop Solid State Hybrid Drive ( SSHD )
1 TB
32 GB Nand flash
64 MB cache buffer

I think I will hold off on my SSD order and wait for this hybrid.

Seagate Support Sincerest apologies. We have heard your requests for more information on this drive, and did much research on its specifics. Unfortunately, after much research into the issue the ST1000LX003 model drive is an OEM model, and will not be released to the general public at this time. Again sincerest apologies as this is new information to the support team as well.
Click to expand...
 
E

Eusis

Member
Ocaso said:
I imagine this will be a non-issue when the suspend feature is activated. I for one don't see myself turning off the console unless I'm leaving for a long trip or something of the sort.
Click to expand...
I may also have been confusing stand-by and suspend. I just kinda figured you'd need to turn off a hard drive more than you'd need to turn off an SSD due to moving parts, but I'm probably just making bad assumptions.
 
M

Metalmurphy

Member
What's with all the polarizing results?

I've seen videos where Resogun loaded like 10 seconds faster.

Eusis said:
Sounds about right. Just have to hope they can patch things up later on, or at least have it set up to be crazy fast when using a full SSD, though I need to look into the practicality of that. I do suspect the bottleneck is the Hard Drive and being designed with that in mind, but with an SSD I imagine it can be set up to boot way, way faster like our mobile devices.
Click to expand...

They're patching suspend/resume. This load is from a cold boot, where 25 seconds isn't actually that bad
 
E

Eusis

Member
firehawk12 said:
I'm surprised that the SSHD times are pretty good.
Click to expand...
I'm not too surprised given how even over the PS3's SATA I not-optimized-for-SSD it's a huge improvement, I'm more surprised that a more forward thinking OS and SATAII still means a small gap relatively.
 
B

Bananajama

Banned
Personally think the best bet is to stick with the 500GB for a year or two and when 2TB drops to affordable levels fire that in.

Think 1TB is a bit of a stop gap right now
 
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