MSI Spatium M480 Play SSD Brings Blazing Fast Throughput To PC And PS5 Gamers
Solid state drives stopped being exclusive to PCs, servers, and workstations when the latest generation game consoles arrived, and if you own a PlayStation 5, it's pretty easy to expand the built-in storage with a fast SSD. Choosing the right one is key, though. To that in, MSI says in no uncertain terms that its Spatium M480 Play is compatible with the PS5.
Compatibility boils down to a few different factors, starting with the form factor and interface—to install an SSD in a PS5 console, it has to be an M.2 form factor drive with an NVMe interface. It also has to be between 250GB and 4TB in capacity and a PCie 4.0 model with a sequential read speed of 5,500MB/s or higher.
Other requirements include...
- Width: up to 25mm
- Length/Size: 2230 (30mm), 2242 (40mm), 2260 (60mm), 2280 (80mm), 22110 (110mm)
- Height/Thickness: up to 11.25mm (up to 8mm above the PCB, up to 2.45mm below the PCB)
The most common M.2 form factor in the consumer space is 2280, which is also the category the Spatium M480 Play falls into. It also meets the other requirements. It's offered in 500GB to 4TB capacities with sequential read and write speeds of up to 7,000MB/s and 6,800MB/s, respectively.
Performance varies by capacity. However, all of the drives pair Micron 176-layer 3D triple-level cell (TLC) NAND flash memory with a Phison E18 controller, supplemented with a DRAM cache buffer and SLC cache. These drives also tout a grooved dual-finish aluminum heatsink designed to fit within the confines of the PS5's storage bay.
Just be careful when wading through the Spatium M480 models, because there are several lines. There's the regular Spatium M480 without a heatink, the Spatium M480 HS with a beefier heatsink that makes it incompatible with the PS5, and the Spatinum M480 Play outlined above.
The Spatium M480 Play is backed by a 5-year warranty. MSI did not announce pricing or availability, but as a point of reference, the 1TB Spatinum M480 HS sells for $199.36 on Amazon.
