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Why both manufactuers sporting soldered SSD on the board?

reksveks

Member
1) is the xbox ssd soldered on?
2) what if it isnt an someone just replaces it with a faster ssd?
3) who are we paying to test that out?
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
1) is the xbox ssd soldered on?
2) what if it isnt an someone just replaces it with a faster ssd?
3) who are we paying to test that out?
1) this one is a mistery, but better expect worse outcome
2) interesting theory, however I would suggest that there is going to be some custom-fu happening and compatibility a la PC is most definitely not happening
3) Probably some random from hacking forum, payed by BTC or rather Monero
 

Kssio_Aug

Member
That's most certainly the biggest issue with consoles this generation for me. For those living in first world countries it might not be such a big of deal because it won't be that expensive to replace. But in other countries buying a new console is very, very expensive. I just hope they won't fail easily in the next ten years or so.
 

Zathalus

Member
Both consoles will mostly be reading from the SSD over its lifetime, so you can expect them to last 10 years minimum. By that time the next generation would have rolled around and with both manufacturers seemingly locked into X86 and digital purchases you can bet that BC is not going away anytime soon.
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
That's most certainly the biggest issue with consoles this generation for me. For those living in first world countries it might not be such a big of deal because it won't be that expensive to replace. But in other countries buying a new console is very, very expensive. I just hope they won't fail easily in the next ten years or so.
I know, but I also hate when HW just fails because one of it's component, which could possibly be replacable.

Both consoles will mostly be reading from the SSD over its lifetime, so you can expect them to last 10 years minimum. By that time the next generation would have rolled around and with both manufacturers seemingly locked into X86 and digital purchases you can bet that BC is not going away anytime soon.
I do agree, however I think that few bucks more would be warranted for HW to stay operational.
 

FrankWza

Member
They’re both proprietary drives used to give the hardware a boost. In Sony’s case, if you were to replace it with a lesser drive it would be detrimental to the systems performance since there isn’t a drive on the market now that’s as powerful and when it becomes available it will not be a cost effective alternative
 

DrAspirino

Banned
Surface doesn't use a NMVe SSD.

They actually do and that is the size of the drive they use: an M.2 2230. I think those will be the same that the Xbox "expansion carts" will use as well.
 
First I heard of this. Ridiculous decision that benefits them but not consumers.
If your PS3 or PS4 HDD kicks the bucket you can put a new HDD in and have up and running again in under 20 mins. Now if it dies your console is dead forever unless you pay a no doubt exorbitantly high repair fee and wait weeks for a fix. These SSD's very much have a finite life that can be used up quickly if you download and replace the data frequently.
I assume you can use the ssd expansion, no need to replace everything.
 

FrankWza

Member
First I heard of this. Ridiculous decision that benefits them but not consumers.
If your PS3 or PS4 HDD kicks the bucket you can put a new HDD in and have up and running again in under 20 mins. Now if it dies your console is dead forever unless you pay a no doubt exorbitantly high repair fee and wait weeks for a fix. These SSD's very much have a finite life that can be used up quickly if you download and replace the data frequently.

By the time this drive in the PS5 dies, technology would have caught up and surpassed this future tech SSD that the PS5 has soldered in and you’ll be able to use the expansion bay. I wouldn’t worry too much
 

Kumomeme

Member
Yeah well, but Mac recovery is just a tool which sits in UEFI bios, it does not help with anything, if you have faulty chips. Technically you can install system on external drive tho.


Pardon my lack of English prowess, however I don't know what you mean by "overhead" in this situation.
probably like soldered memory. other than saving space and cost, theoritically it could reduce power consumption and improving performance though it probably not much different between socket version. that ram. i dont know about ssd. anyone wiser better to chime in.

edit: also the ssd is custom with 12 channel with the custom controller. i dont know if this design decision is related or not.
 
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M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
By the time this drive in the PS5 dies, technology would have caught up and surpassed this future tech SSD that the PS5 has soldered in and you’ll be able to use the expansion bay. I wouldn’t worry too much
There is still might be issue, that system won't start if the drive is going to be faulthy, tho.
 

PhoenixTank

Member
Have we got proper pics? It'd make sense if they were soldered on a daughter board for easier repairs (see Switch's NAND, IIRC) but I don't get that impression from this thread.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
This makes as much sense as wondering why video cards have their VRAM chips soldered on, not socketed.
 

TheContact

Member
It's cheaper to solder chips to the mobo rather than create a socket for them, also frees up a bit more space. I can't say I agree with the decision because if that SSD ever fails the thing might become a brick unless you can somehow change the boot order and use the expansion slot as the primary drive.
 

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
What?

Taken from an article on Surface. "Another point to note here is that the Surface Laptop 3 and Surface Pro X are not equipped with a typical SSD. While the SSDs in these devices are indeed in the smaller M.2 style found in most modern laptops, they’re both using the newer M.2 2230 standard."

It does make me wonder if they aren't using Gen4 though, as most replacements are Gen3.

M2 supports sata 3, sata 6 and pci (NVME).

edit: it seems the hynix it's shipping with is indeed pci 3.
 
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Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Volatile vs non-volatile memory decays differently.

If/when either functions below spec, critical fail results. Which considering high-end GPU's are vastly more expensive than any console puts this dumb-ass argument into perspective.
 

PhoenixTank

Member


Here is it timestamped

Thank you.
Perhaps daughterboard would have been unworkable with the kind of bandwidth they are aiming for. Also (going by eye on a phone screen) doesn't look like those chips & the controller would fit in a m.2 form factor, thus not suitable for user replacement either.

Shame. The NAND on my WiiU developed an error out of nowhere (samsung controller lost track of the bad blocks apparently!), so I can empathise with the concerns put forward here.
 
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RoboFu

One of the green rats
you can off load saves and games to physical drives and cloud storage so the only down side is you were thinking you would keep the console for 40 years
 

jakinov

Member
Saves space, probably cheaper in long run, and users aren't expected to replace but extend. If you want to fix it yourself then you can try. But these companies aren't going to try and be helpful for that fringe case.
 
They probably have installed tiny time bombs that look like film capacitors soldered to mother board that will detonate the day your warranty expires.

So you have to buy new console.



lVbg4Is.jpg
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
They probably have installed tiny time bombs that look like film capacitors soldered to mother board that will detonate the day your warranty expires.

So you have to buy new console.



lVbg4Is.jpg
Again volatile memories decas difrrently to non-volatile ones. I am fairly sure that GPUs can survive decades of daily use, SSDs are probably not still there. We see.
 

Mokus

Member
It's a lot cheaper. Very likely both consoles would have been priced at 600 dollars/euros if the storage space would have come separately from the main board.
 

Allandor

Member
Actually the Xbox has a replaceable chip. Well it will be special for sure, but replaceable.
Just look at the images ms offers. The small SSD is in a slot on the Mainboard.
 

FrankWza

Member
There is still might be issue, that system won't start if the drive is going to be faulthy, tho.

I guess you won’t be purchasing any of the next gen systems. This is probably going to be standard in console architecture goin forward. I’m gonna say Msoft and Sony have a contingency plan to boot the console in case of hardware failure stemming from on board SSD
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
Both have SSDs that can be added so you can just use the secondary SSD if the onboard SSD fail , PS3 super slim also had a small 12GB onboard flash memory I don't remember anyone having a problem with it no longer working.
When was the last time you talked with someone about their PS3 storage issues?
 

Blond

Banned

They actually do and that is the size of the drive they use: an M.2 2230. I think those will be the same that the Xbox "expansion carts" will use as well.

Not quite

these are the actual drives they use in the Surface Laptop and Surface X


It’s an m2 but in an uncommon size and the shielding is actually a heat sink, I know because that’s what I did to my surface laptop instead of paying nearly 300 dollars extra for 512 I bought a 128gb and just just got a 512 for 60 bucks. Those little things run HOT and I’m curious if we can get some 3D printed casings with thermal pads to avoid the high prices of Microsoft for what is essentially an uncommon form factor but still purchasable M2.ssd
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
No really. If the series X can have an expandable slot which works exactly like the internal, they could have also made that removable.

You don't know that. They probably need the lanes of the internal directly on board to make up for a slight external latency to the controller.
 

Miles708

Member
I echo your concerns, i also had two ssds die on me in the last few years, while my mechinacal drives still work after 10-15 years
Both consoles will mostly be reading from the SSD over its lifetime, so you can expect them to last 10 years minimum. By that time the next generation would have rolled around and with both manufacturers seemingly locked into X86 and digital purchases you can bet that BC is not going away anytime soon.

I could be very wrong but SSDs on consoles get to read/write much more than they do on PC, or am I wrong?
They're the "secret sauce" behind constant data streaming, after all. Were talking about 100's of GD of data for every game, every day.
They'll be the first consoles to not reach the "retrogaming" status.

Waiting for the slim.
 
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soulbait

Member
Both have SSDs that can be added so you can just use the secondary SSD if the onboard SSD fail , PS3 super slim also had a small 12GB onboard flash memory I don't remember anyone having a problem with it no longer working.

I doubt you can make the secondary drive bootable.
 

TheContact

Member
I doubt you can make the secondary drive bootable.

here's what cerny said about the m.2 slot:
We will be supporting certain M.2 SSDs. These are internal drives that you can get on the open market and install in a bay in the PlayStation 5. They connect through the custom I/O unit just like our SSD does, so they can take full advantage of the decompression, I/O coprocessors and all the other features.
So technically it should be possible, it's just a matter of whether Sony will allow you to change the boot order and let you install the OS onto the SSD
 

DaGwaphics

Member
Well how about Series S then? Seems like different deal. Obviously it could be something different, but unless someone proves that it can be replaced, I would count on the worse situation, that it cannot be. I would like to be proven from.


c87Hcfe.png




I don't think so and this was my whole premise of this thread. Maybe I should have stated it more accurately.

The SSD depicted in the XSS video is clearly a separate PCB in a socket. Even features a screw-down that isn't used (looks to be using a clip instead). This is probably for in-house reparability by design.
 

MadAnon

Member
Both have SSDs that can be added so you can just use the secondary SSD if the onboard SSD fail , PS3 super slim also had a small 12GB onboard flash memory I don't remember anyone having a problem with it no longer working.
How exactly would it work when the built in SSD bricks with OS on it? You have Sony OS boot discs lying around?
 

stevenapex

Neo Member
The SSD depicted in the XSS video is clearly a separate PCB in a socket. Even features a screw-down that isn't used (looks to be using a clip instead). This is probably for in-house reparability by design.
For the lazy. I would assume this is in the Series X too.

5HHzIPE.png
 

Barakov

Member
Hmmmm.....might wait on these systems. Or at the very least pick up a multi-year warranty on them. I think there's going to be some growing pains with these things.
 

onQ123

Member

GloveSlap

Member
Its not ideal, but expected. If you want to see some real BS take a look at some modern laptops, many have a small amount of RAM soldered on the board with no expansion slot.
 

Faithless83

Banned
I mean isn't it kind of dangerous to presume, that those chip last that long and when shit hit the fan, you are going to have basically throw out the whole console? I am typing from MacBook Pro 2019, so I probably should have kept silent, however at least in my house hold consoles eat up most of my internet traffic, thus they write a lot of data on their storage solution and I am kind of nervous about it. I never had any HDD failed on me, however I have few pretty high profile brand SSD failed on me in the past. So does the longetivity of those chips got way better or it is just a cost effective solution how to do this?
Use it smart. Everything since nintendo wii has flash memory.
It will allow to a shit load of writes and it won't fail like an HDD drive would. I'm a collector and XSX is my biggest concern so far due to proprietary memory cards.

Play PS4 games out of external usb (which will still be a lot faster than PS4 internal anyway) and don't go installing and uninstalling every game after a couple of days. It will still last you this gen for sure.

For the "heavy duty" installing/uninstalling games, use external NVME and you're golden.
 
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Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
I mean isn't it kind of dangerous to presume, that those chip last that long and when shit hit the fan, you are going to have basically throw out the whole console? I am typing from MacBook Pro 2019, so I probably should have kept silent, however at least in my house hold consoles eat up most of my internet traffic, thus they write a lot of data on their storage solution and I am kind of nervous about it. I never had any HDD failed on me, however I have few pretty high profile brand SSD failed on me in the past. So does the longetivity of those chips got way better or it is just a cost effective solution how to do this?
First I heard of this. Ridiculous decision that benefits them but not consumers.
If your PS3 or PS4 HDD kicks the bucket you can put a new HDD in and have up and running again in under 20 mins. Now if it dies your console is dead forever unless you pay a no doubt exorbitantly high repair fee and wait weeks for a fix. These SSD's very much have a finite life that can be used up quickly if you download and replace the data frequently.
The SSD reliability is greater than the HDD was or ever will be as long as HDD has mechanical moving parts. Chill out a bit.

See this post:



SSDs don't have any moving parts, so they're already a step above HDDs in terms of potential points of failure. They're not invincible, but they're a helluva lot more durable.



It's not a legitimate concern. Yes, there is a finite wear and tear based on write cycles. However, the average gamer will come nowhere near the limit over the lifetime of the console. The warrantied life span for a 1TB Samsung 970 EVO is 600 TB writes, and I assume the Series X and PS5 SSDs will be similar.


Assuming you actively use the console for 10 years, that's 164 GB of writes per day. Assuming the average next gen game is 50GB, that means you'd have to install and uninstall more than 3 games a day for 10 years before your SSD wears out.
 

lukilladog

Member
I don´t think wear is a problem with SSD´s but they have a history of sudden death issues, MS and Sony need to be careful.
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
I don´t think wear is a problem with SSD´s but they have a history of sudden death issues, MS and Sony need to be careful.
They actually have those issue. Well they have some buffer bit to spare, so that's why it's not so appearant, but when they starts to have bad sectors is normally really fast, that's why you get that "sudden death". Last drive with suicided itself was pretty hard used 950Pro, which was still under warranty. And I don't expect that you would get 5 years of warranty on the consoles.
 
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