There is no doubt that the biggest bottleneck of the PC is the hard drive, so much so that it is tiring and boring to talk about the effects of having an SSD as your main storage unit. However, this market has decided to press the accelerator without brakes and although the transfer speed of Gen 5 SSDs is impressive, at the same time, it can be concluded that very few drives will benefit from it.
Why will M.2 PCIe Gen 4 SSDs live longer?
The main reason why M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSDs will have a long lifespan is simple: it’s the way to expand the storage capacity of the PS5 console to be able to install games and applications on it. So there will be a demand for these units for a long time to come, at least as long as the console is on sale and since SONY consoles usually have a 7 year commercial life, then we are talking about a useful life until the 2027.
Although it is not the only reason but the fact that from the SSD which uses PCIe 5.0 they will mainly need a heatsink, it means to increase the height of laptops and many manufacturers will design their computers to place a completely bare unit. In any case, it must be remembered that when we talk about interface, we are referring to the transfer speed, and not to the storage capacity. Which will increase in the following years due to the release of 3D NAND chips with more layers and with new manufacturing processes that will allow them to have more storage capacity.
Games will be an important point of standardization
One of the realities is that there is currently no game that takes advantage of the capabilities of SSDs for its development, but since many games are cross-platform, they have been designed to take advantage of the speed of the unit of storage of SONY PS5. The reason? 99% of the games will be developed for this console, because it is the best-selling platform. Let’s not forget that the vast majority of games are conversions between the PC and said system. Well, it’s not going to be 100% like that.
The counter argument lies in the fact that the Xbox Series storage drive operates at a speed of 2.4 GB/s of bandwidth. Which is more like a DRAM-Less PCIe 3.0 SSD. The thing is, when it comes to game development, the vast majority of games are cross-platform, not just PS5 and PC, but Xbox Series as well. In other words, the reality is that many games will not take advantage of the high speeds of PCIe 4.0 SSDs, despite being the best-selling of this generation.
So if so, how come we said they will be the ones that will be standardized? From what we told you previously, they will be in great demand by users in order to increase the storage capacity of the PS5 and because they do not need to be mounted with a heat sink for its operation . Let’s not forget that the PCIe standard is backwards compatible, and a Gen 4 M.2 reader will work fine in the Gen 3 port.
Why are PCIe SSDs not well used in games?
Due to the fact that each of the data transfers from one PC memory to another during any application must be explicitly programmed. That’s why most programs and games don’t take full advantage of SSDs because they were designed for the limitations of hard drives, both in terms of access and transfer speed.
On the other hand, we have that in consoles, SONY has decided to give more power to its PS4 console and extend its life for a few more years. Exclusive titles like Horizon Forbidden West, God of War Ragnarok, Gran Turismo 7 and other system flagships are not designed to use it. Even the PS5 exclusive and about to launch on PC Returnal is going to use the HDD on PC.
That is to say, we are in the fact that one of the defining characteristics of the new generation of consoles is not even used. It’s as if classic PS2 games were all sold on CDs, not DVDs. Live to see, and in conclusion, it is this SONY policy that is holding back the adoption of PCIe SSDs as storage in games.
