PS5 internal storage upgrades will become accessible in the middle of this year, according to a new report.
Bloomberg reports that "people briefed on the plan" have told the publication that Sony plans to open up previously inaccessible PS5 internal storage upgrades this Summer (so sometime between June and September).
Currently, PS5 players are unable to increase the amount of internal storage their PS5 has, meaning players have only 667.2GB of usable memory on which to store their PS5 games - which isn't much when you consider the average PS5 title takes up around 50GB of memory space.
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How PS5 internal storage will work
Unlocking access (which will happen via an over-the-air update) to the PS5's expandable storage port will allow PS5 owners to manually increase the amount of internal memory their PS5 has - meaning you can fit more games on the machine without having to worry about deleting others.
However, increasing internal storage won't come cheap. The PS5 is only compatible with Sony-certified NVMe SSDs, but the company hasn't confirmed which off-the-shelf NVMe SSDs will work with the console and many are expensive.
We know that the PS5's internal drive uses a PCIe Gen 4 M.2 NVMe SSD, capable of 5.5 GB/s bandwidth, so any expandable internal SSDs will need to be the equivalent (if not better) this performance.
When internal storage upgrades are enabled, players will be able to simply insert an internal NVMe SSD by taking off the PS5 side panel and inserting the SSD in the applicable slot. You can watch how it's done in Sony's PS5 teardown video.
While all PS5s have this slot, Sony explained that its functionality would only become accessible in a "future update". That means you can expect a PS5 firmware update when the function is allowed.
Until then, you can use an external HDD or SSD for your PS5, however, you won't be able to play your PS5 games directly from them nor can you store PS5 games on them, but you can store and play PS4 games from these external drives.
It's welcome news, then, that Sony may be allowing PS5 internals storage upgrades in just a few months - though you'll have to manage will limited storage space until then.
