do DRAM-less SSDs speed decrease matter on PS4 PRO?

[kofman13]

I am shopping for SSD for my PS4. the DRAM-less ones are legit half the price of ones with DRAM cache like samsung evo. (Microcenter Inland 480GB is $64 while Samsung 860 evo half the size 250GB is $74, equivalent size to $64 inland but an 860 evo would be $94. so the price difference is big.) And since i know ps4 bottle neck cant fully utilize SSD the way a PC can, do you think i would actually see negative speed difference if i went with cheaper DRAM-Less ssd with PS4 PRO instead of one with DRAM cache like samsung?

 

[porina]

If you're comparing it against the hard disk it doesn't matter which you get as it'll be a lot faster regardless. Given the size of games I'd just prioritise capacity over performance.

[Stefan Payne]

4 hours ago, kofman13 said:

I am shopping for SSD for my PS4.

get an external one.

As the HDD is connected via USB 3.0 anyway, it doesn't matter that much. You just need a good performance S-ATA to USB chip inside the external thing.

4 hours ago, kofman13 said:

the DRAM-less ones are legit half the price of ones with DRAM cache like samsung evo. (Microcenter Inland 480GB is $64 while Samsung 860 evo half the size 250GB is $74, equivalent size to $64 inland but an 860 evo would be $94. so the price difference is big.) And since i know ps4 bottle neck cant fully utilize SSD the way a PC can, do you think i would actually see negative speed difference if i went with cheaper DRAM-Less ssd with PS4 PRO instead of one with DRAM cache like samsung?

I'd not get the ones without DRAM as that isn't the only thing that differentiates the two.

 

AFAIR the ones without DRAM also have a bit higher tear than the ones with DRAM.

[Stefan Payne]

The Reason for my recommendation is the size of modern games. With a 500GB SSD you can put like 3-5 games on it. And that's it. So you need a HDD anyway. But an external HDD is easily damaged (due to Shock or other stuff).

 

So my recommendation would be to keep the internal HDD for most games and copy the ones you want to play (and have longer loading times like for example Assasin's Creed Odyssee or Final Fantasy XV) onto the Harddrive.

 

Because with most games the load times are so quick that even an SSD won't do much for it anyway.

 

So even if it os more expensive, you should look at external SSDs and for this even a 240GB is OK as you keep most games on the HDD anyway. 

I don't know about fast USB Sticks and how much sense those would make, so I can't comment on those.

[Pyrii]

Are there any hybrid HDDs in 2.5 format?

[porina]

1 minute ago, Pyrii said:

Are there any hybrid HDDs in 2.5 format?

Yes, but I personally can't recommend them. I've bought a couple of Seagates over the years, and I can't say the performance feels any better than a pure HD. A 7200 rpm HD feels faster than a low rpm SSHD, at least in my uses (game file storage). Only problem is last time I looked you can only get 7200rpm 2.5" drives up to 1TB, and if you go higher capacity the speed drops.

[Stefan Payne]

12 hours ago, Pyrii said:

Are there any hybrid HDDs in 2.5 format?

Yes, but they are useless for typical Console operation.

Because those Hybrid things are only caching what you do, they don't have a "Read Ahead" Policy.

So that means that you have to die over and over again and the Drive has to load the same shit over and over again.

Consoles don't seem to do that...

12 hours ago, porina said:

Yes, but I personally can't recommend them. I've bought a couple of Seagates over the years, and I can't say the performance feels any better than a pure HD. A 7200 rpm HD feels faster than a low rpm SSHD, at least in my uses (game file storage). Only problem is last time I looked you can only get 7200rpm 2.5" drives up to 1TB, and if you go higher capacity the speed drops.

Because your doing it wrong

j/k

 

Those things are only buffering Data that is used multiple times. That's why in Benchmarks you have "1st Load" and "2nd load", wich show you a pretty unrealistic scenario.

Or you could call them "Drives made to enhance Dark Souls Experience"...

 

Because that's the only realistic scenario I can think of where it would make sense.

 

You play a level, go two steps and die.

Load again.

You play, die, load again.

 

But who does that?

You might say that those are made for Database operations where you have a large amount of Data but only access a small portion of that most of the time.

[porina]

6 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

Because your doing it wrong

Part of the problem is the cache is very small. Maybe it is ok in its intended use case, someone who boots windows and maybe uses the odd light productivity app. In that case it might speed boot and app launches.

[Stefan Payne]

55 minutes ago, porina said:

Part of the problem is the cache is very small. Maybe it is ok in its intended use case, someone who boots windows and maybe uses the odd light productivity app. In that case it might speed boot and app launches.

That was a joke in the direction of the Apple iPhone Antenna scandal "you're holding it wrong"

 

But yeah, you have to reload the same shit over and over again and again. I'm not sure if its just a read cache or a read and write cache but I think its read only and it writes directly to disk (for data Safety Reasons)...

 

So yeah, its pretty useless for consoles. Especially without OS Support. With that the OS could tell the drive to cache specific parts that are important for the game when you start it.

 

But then again, that stuff has to come from the Disk anyway...

 

 

So in the end the best solution (IMO) is to put the stuff with the long load times onto an SSD and start it from there and keep most normal games on the HDD...

 

 

Most "Console Games" have pretty short load times anyway, its the "PC Games" (like AC:O, Battlefield) that benefit from the SSD....

[porina]

1 hour ago, Stefan Payne said:

Most "Console Games" have pretty short load times anyway, its the "PC Games" (like AC:O, Battlefield) that benefit from the SSD....

I found the opposite... the few console games I play feel like they take forever to load, and an SSD helps but not as much as I hope. I suspect because they expect to be loaded from a slow HD, the data is compressed and arranged to help with that, and the bottleneck is partially transferred to the CPU instead.

 

Back on the SSHD, I think they could cache writes to flash if they want to. Since it is a closed unit, it could manage what goes where without going into undefined state like you would with physically separate cache and storage.

[Pyrii]

So Sony throttles both downloads and disk accesses on PS3 and PS4, what is up with them bottlenecking their consoles in an area that frustrates people most, getting their content, and loading it.

[B16CXHatch]

I have a PS4 Pro with an SSD. If you are looking for improved load times, very few games actually really benefit from it. A few games, like Ni No Kuni II, will actually see a decent bump (10 seconds off loading a save so about half, Ni No Kuni II was actually already pretty quick with the load times), but most will only see a small bump. I did the upgrade primarily for reliability. I've just had better luck with SSDs over the years. The minor improvement in load times is just a bonus.

 

Now, if you still want to get an SSD, Crucial MX500. I put a 1TB MX500 in my PS4 Pro. Not quite as quick as the Samsungs, but a far better value. Especially for the application. Samsung's slight edge in performance is irrelevant in a PS4, therefore the extra money ain't worth it. Hell, I still have a hard time recommending them in a PC with the MX500 hanging around (BTW, I have six Samsung SSDs and love them, the MX500 is just legit a better value).

 

But yeah, my advice is always going to be, if you are looking for faster loads, don't waste your money. Not worth it. If you are like me and just prefer SSD due to reliability, Crucial MX500.

[Stefan Payne]

15 hours ago, Pyrii said:

So Sony throttles both downloads and disk accesses on PS3 and PS4, what is up with them bottlenecking their consoles in an area that frustrates people most, getting their content, and loading it.

Downloads are not bottlenecked in my region, I can archieve the ~10MiB/Sec Download that my connection allows on the PS4. THe PS3 is rather slow for whatever reason I don't really understand.

 

Disc Access is a design decision to go for a USB Implementation with their current setup. They use an ARM SOC for all the I/O Stuff and use USB 3.0 for the Haddisk for whatever reason...

 

As for the Harddisk, it doesn't seem slow. Its just that the benefits from installing an SSD are pretty small because of the Architecture...