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[Panajev2001a]

Sounds like PS5 will use the 'standard' zen2 lanes, 16 for graphics, 4 for internal storage, 4 for expansion i/o (this is where you slot in your off the shelf nvme).

I wonder if the 4 used for expansion i/o and nvme, will it result in congestion? Because i believe the network and audio will run through these lanes too.

Series X will probably just need 16 for graphics + 2 for internal + 2 for i/o and + for expansion ssd. Probably cheaper to build for these section of the apu and no congestion! Smart design again?

Not sure where you get any standard bit in a semi custom silicon design vs an off the shelves PC chipset designed for non APU devices. Also, there is another 4x channel for the “southbridge” there were additional Audio and other chips may be connected. Not sure where Tempest is sitting in the diagram.

Considering the amount of custom HW thrown at the problem and how the super fast SSD was priority since day one, the congestion angle looks a bit like more random “concern” thrown at it.

 

[longdi]

Not sure where you get any standard bit in a semi custom silicon design vs an off the shelves PC chipset designed for non APU devices. Also, there is another 4x channel for the “southbridge” there were additional Audio and other chips may be connected. Not sure where Tempest is sitting in the diagram.

Considering the amount of custom HW thrown at the problem and how the super fast SSD was priority since day one, the congestion angle looks a bit like more random “concern” thrown at it.

I am skeptical how much customisation will Sony pay to change Amd zen2 apu pcie layouts
consumer zen2 have 24 pcie4 lanes in total. I doubt Mark will use threadripper base.

So what we have is split into 16 graphics, 4 direct nvme, and 4 to 'southbridge x570'.

It is the last 4 that motherboard makers config their layout/selling features. But it is only 4, nothing more or less. These 4 lanes have to include the network and audio bandwidth.

This is the layout for the new Amd zen2 laptops. 24 lanes too.

The Renoir silicon is ~150 square millimeters. (AMD’s official number is 156 mm2, although some other measurements seem to suggest it is nearer 149 mm2.) In that design is eight Zen 2 cores, up to eight enhanced Vega compute units, 24 lanes of PCIe 3.0, and two DDR4-3200 memory channels. This is all built on TSMC’s 7nm manufacturing process (N7)

 

[Panajev2001a]

I am skeptical how much customisation will Sony pay to change Amd zen2 apu pcie layouts
consumer zen2 have 24 pcie4 lanes in total. I doubt Mark will use threadripper base.

So what we have is split into 16 graphics, 4 direct nvme, and 4 to 'southbridge x570'.

It is the last 4 that motherboard makers config their layout/selling features. But it is only 4, nothing more or less. These 4 lanes have to include the network and audio bandwidth.

This is the layout for the new Amd zen2 laptops. 24 lanes too.

We shall see, at this point is concern game. Tempest is the wildcard as ai am not sure where it sits since you can use it for general compute too and in audio mode can consume quite a bit of bandwidth from RAM as it can DMA to and from main RAM directly.

I do not think contention is an issue for network and secondary audio data either with 4 high clocked PCIE 4.0 lanes.

 

[Panajev2001a]

What? where did you read that? According to Cerny:

PS5 won’t require a proprietary solution for storage upgrades

Internal storage will still need to be certified as compatible by Sony

www.polygon.com

and where did Sony say that you can insert it in and out easily?! Did sony mention it anywhere? Would be awesome! But I couldn't find anything?! Can you point me to that please?

For PS4 you actually had to use a Phillips screwdriver:

PlayStation® Official Site: Consoles, Games, Accessories & More

Explore the new generation PlayStation 4 and PS5 consoles - experience immersive gaming with thousands of hit games in every genre to rewrite the rules for what a PlayStation console can do.

support.playstation.com

They have not stated it, but since we are in speculation mode ahoy... why not . I know about PS4, PS4 Pro, and PS3, changed my drive on each. Easy peasy .

 

[pasterpl]

Mark my words, in 3-6 months after xsex release there will be some 3rd party adapters for this storage expansion

 

[LostDonkey]

I'm wondering if I can whack a game on one of these cards, take it to a friend's and sign into my account and just play straight away??

You won't be able to do that with the PS5 storage solution will you?

 

[longdi]

We shall see, at this point is concern game. Tempest is the wildcard as ai am not sure where it sits since you can use it for general compute too and in audio mode can consume quite a bit of bandwidth from RAM as it can DMA to and from main RAM directly.

I do not think contention is an issue for network and secondary audio data either with 4 high clocked PCIE 4.0 lanes.

My guess is tempest is 'one' of the 4 spoilt cu, so it sits on same the 16 graphics lanes.

But you can't escape network from contention with the add-on nvme is my guess. I wonder how optimal if PS5 built in nvme eats up all its dedicated 4 lanes bandwidth.

It is an interesting bit perhaps DF can dig up on.

 

[Deleted member 775630]

Mark my words, in 3-6 months after xsex release there will be some 3rd party adapters for this storage expansion

Did Microsoft ever say you could only use their own built together with Seagate, or can any harddrive developer create one as long as it follows the right specifics?

 

[Bernkastel]

Agreed. I love it when companies take ownership and design their own proprietary storage devices.

In this case its Seagate manufacturing it. You are using a proprietary game console but dont want a proprietary convenience that is not possible with open formats.

Did Microsoft ever say you could only use their own built together with Seagate, or can any harddrive developer create one as long as it follows the right specifics?

Here’s how Xbox Series X removable storage will work

You might need a new expansion card for Xbox Series X optimized games.

www.theverge.com

Seagate will be the exclusive launch partner for these expansion cards, too. “At launch, the Seagate Storage Expansion Card for Xbox Series X will be the only Expansion Card available,” reveals a Microsoft spokesperson to The Verge. “We look forward to sharing more details in the future.” It’s not clear whether Microsoft will have its own branded expansion cards or just how many other third-party drive makers will be able to create expansion cards. More providers will increase competition and drive prices down for consumers, so it would be surprising if Seagate is the only manufacturer after launch.

 

[Tamy]

In this case its Seagate manufacturing it. You are using a proprietary game console but dont want a proprietary convenience that is not possible with open formats.

Here’s how Xbox Series X removable storage will work

You might need a new expansion card for Xbox Series X optimized games.

www.theverge.com

I think this makes it pretty clear that this is only for the launch of the console, I guess later on more options will be available, otherwise they would not emphasize the "at launch" and "exclusive LAUNCH partner"...

So, at least there will be something ready at launch.

too bad that we have to wait on PS5, there won't be something ready at launch, according to Cerny:

We should be able to start letting you know which drives will physically fit and which drive samples have benchmark appropriately high in our testing it would be great if that happened by launch but it's likely to be a bit past it so please hold off on getting that M to drive until you hear from us ok back.

 

[Panajev2001a]

My guess is tempest is 'one' of the 4 spoilt cu, so it sits on same the 16 graphics lanes.

But you can't escape network from contention with the add-on nvme is my guess. I wonder how optimal if PS5 built in nvme eats up all its dedicated 4 lanes bandwidth.

It is an interesting bit perhaps DF can dig up on.

No, Tempest is not one of the disabled CU’s. They started from a CU, but it sits outside the GPU section of the SoC and has been heavily customised: the caches have been replaced by Local Storage and DMA operations (custom DMAC) are used to load data in and out, just like in a CELL SPU.

 

[Panajev2001a]

In this case its Seagate manufacturing it. You are using a proprietary game console but dont want a proprietary convenience that is not possible with open formats.

Does not matter that MS is not manufacturing it itself, that is not the point. The device is custom made and assembled just for XSX based on an order from MS and their specs and it only works on XSX.

It also not a convenience possible with an open format because MS refuses to allow your own off the shelves drive to replace or augment the internal drive. The internal drive could have sit on a caddy and allowed you to buy an off the shelves NVMe drive in addition to the new memory card...

but then few(er) people would have bought the card .

 

[Bernkastel]

Does not matter that MS is not manufacturing it itself, that is not the point. The device is custom made and assembled just for XSX based on an order from MS and their specs and it only works on XSX.

It also not a convenience possible with an open format because MS refuses to allow your own off the shelves drive to replace or augment the internal drive. The internal drive could have sit on a caddy and allowed you to buy an off the shelves NVMe drive in addition to the new memory card...

but then few(er) people would have bought the card .

Because the they want games to perform the same in external or internal storage. Xbox Velocity Architecture and their BCPack compression that can let games to load data at 6 GB/s wont work with external off the shelf drives.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Because the they want games to perform the same in external or internal storage. Xbox Velocity Architecture and their BCPack compression that can let games to load data at 6 GB/s wont work with external off the shelf drives.

You can quote the official PR and buzzwords as per script, but BCPack matter not one bit as far as the SSD speed requirements for an external drive are concerned (decompression happens after the data is read off the disk).

I was not even talking about USB 3 drives, but if you wanted to there are USB 3.2 drives capable of 2.4 GB/s (20 Gbps) transfer rates like MS requires for their memory card and internal drive (late 2019 drives): https://www.provideocoalition.com/g...ve-your-old-pc-transfer-speeds-up-to-20-gbps/
By the end of 2020, we are likely to go a notch above that too.

I was talking about making the internal drive user replaceable or augmentable by providing a drive bay or allowing users to remove the internal drive and replace it.
Design a drive caddy people can use and replace the system SSD with.
The biggest problem with that is it would be a potential revenue killer for the Memory Cards side of the business which they are likely using it to subsidise the rest of the console with (like Sony did with PS Vita and their memory cards... some people thought it was a bs excuse but are taking the same argument from MS without thinking about it twice).

 

[Deleted member 775630]

In this case its Seagate manufacturing it. You are using a proprietary game console but dont want a proprietary convenience that is not possible with open formats.

Here’s how Xbox Series X removable storage will work

You might need a new expansion card for Xbox Series X optimized games.

www.theverge.com

So we don't really know for sure yet. At launch only Seagate, in the future their might be others.

 

[Kagero]

Agreed. I love it when companies take ownership and design their own proprietary storage devices.

Haha! I know there’s a certain level of anti consumerism at play here but whatever. I’m a tech head. I think this shit looks cool.

 

[Okami Haundo]

I just want more Series X info in general, but I'm strangely excited to see how they price these cards. I'm glad that the Series X supports external drives for BC, but I know I'll just want everything loaded on the SSD for faster load times. I'm also assuming that we won't have the option for "quick resume" with games that aren't on the SSD.

 

[Bernkastel]

You can quote the official PR and buzzwords as per script, but BCPack matter not one bit as far as the SSD speed requirements for an external drive are concerned (decompression happens after the data is read off the disk).

I was not even talking about USB 3 drives, but if you wanted to there are USB 3.2 drives capable of 2.4 GB/s (20 Gbps) transfer rates like MS requires for their memory card and internal drive (late 2019 drives): https://www.provideocoalition.com/g...ve-your-old-pc-transfer-speeds-up-to-20-gbps/
By the end of 2020, we are likely to go a notch above that too.

I was talking about making the internal drive user replaceable or augmentable by providing a drive bay or allowing users to remove the internal drive and replace it.
Design a drive caddy people can use and replace the system SSD with.
The biggest problem with that is it would be a potential revenue killer for the Memory Cards side of the business which they are likely using it to subsidise the rest of the console with (like Sony did with PS Vita and their memory cards... some people thought it was a bs excuse but are taking the same argument from MS without thinking about it twice).

You can quote the official PR and buzzwords as per script, but BCPack matter not one bit as far as the SSD speed requirements for an external drive are concerned (decompression happens after the data is read off the disk).

Then I will just call anything from Cerny regarding SSD a "PR speak". Things like Xbox Velocity architecture are built into the drive, even AMD mentioned that in a blog post. You cant just get the same thing with any other NVMe drive.

The biggest problem with that is it would be a potential revenue killer for the Memory Cards side of the business which they are likely using it to subsidise the rest of the console with (like Sony did with PS Vita and their memory cards... some people thought it was a bs excuse but are taking the same argument from MS without thinking about it twice).

You keep saying revenue for MS, as always anything you write will make one side look like an evil corporate and the other side like Tesla. You keep ignoring almost everything pointed out to you and only focus whats convenient for you agenda(thats what I call PR). First of the expansion card is manufactured by Seagate and there will be other manufacturers later. See this

Talon Media Remote for Xbox One puts Microsoft's remote to shame

Cord-cutters who want a great remote-control experience with the Xbox One should get the PDP Talon Media Remote for all their movie and TV needs.

www.windowscentral.com

This is an accessory for Xbox One using proprietary Xbox formats. Its cheaper and better than the official media remote. Its so good that Microsoft stopped manufacturing their own Xbox media remote and promoted this instead. There were proprietary Xbox One external drives (licensed and officially recommended by Microsoft) made by Seagate which were only around 20 USD more than equivalent(sometimes slightly worse) Seagate external drives. Seagate is the exclusive launch partner, but there may be more later. This is not the same business model as Xbox 360 and PS Vita, this is a business model that they experimented on in Xbox One. They also removed the Xbox 360 restrictions so that you can use any 2 TB hard drive on it in 2015, meaning they have different goals under Phil now

Xbox 360 System Update for Preview Program Members - Now Supporting 2TB Hard Drives - Xbox Wire

The next update for Xbox 360 Preview Program members will allow the use of 2TB hard drives to store Xbox 360 data.

majornelson.com

You cant get the convenience of expansion cards with m.2. slot. The drive inside the expansion card is the same one as the internal XSX drive, so it is mass produced in bulk not made in limited quantities. As the parts to manufacture XSX get cheaper including the internal drive with the generation, so will the expansion card.
Very few people replaced the internal SSD in PS4(there is no 'debatable' in this, how many people did this vs getting an external drive ? Most people went for external hard drives.) and now you have to get a way more expensive NVMe drive. Most people will prefer an expansion card(there is no 'debatable' in this). The market of Sony certified super fast(since you hate numbers) NVMe drives wont magically get cheaper and PC gamers wont suddenly start using them, there is always things like 128 GB RAM, best RTX cards, very expensive liquid cooling solutions(like liquid nitrogen coolig), 100 TB hard drives, 10 GB/s ethernet, but very few go for them. Anything below PS5 certified NVMe drives being more heavily adopted in PC workstations wont help the PS5 in anyway.
Anything other than that is a speculation on your part, including Microsoft overcharging expansion cards to more than double the manufacturing price to extort cutomers etc. Things like PS5 certified NVMe drive magically getting super cheap while XSX expansion card being made expensive to the point of extortion are pure console war speculations with same bias as OsirisBlack and Co's PS5 spec rumors. Usually, speculations are taken from people with some track record(like Jez on XSX specs), not NeoGaf console warriors. I can make up speculations on PS5, would mean shit in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Bojanglez]

I imagine to start with people will just get generic large capacity HDDs for both platforms and shuffle content to the internal SSD when they want to play.

I'm sure for various reasons (some stated in this thread and elsewhere) that both the super high speed PS5 compatible drives and the XSX external card will be a reasonable price to consumers within 18 months of launch.

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

I can imagine there being a 2/4 TB cards by 2022 and much lower prices.

Definitely 2 TB.

I have to imagine a 4TB SSD is gonna be pretty expensive for a lonnnng time.

 

[IntentionalPun]

I imagine to start with people will just get generic large capacity HDDs for both platforms and shuffle content to the internal SSD when they want to play.

I'm sure for various reasons (some stated in this thread and elsewhere) that both the super high speed PS5 compatible drives and the XSX external card will be a reasonable price to consumers within 18 months of launch.

On PC I just delete my games and re-download them.. but I have gigabit internet and Steam is a fucking beast from my house.

PSN not so much. XBL is inconsistent but I really don't buy anything on Xbox so not sure lol

Would be nice if they'd both up their bandwidth game next gen. Depending on how game sizes go will probably do the external thing like you said.

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

Agreed. I love it when companies take ownership and design their own proprietary storage devices.

You know that just had a regular hard drive inside you could swap yourself right?

 

[Bernkastel]

You know that just had a regular hard drive inside you could swap yourself right?

Legally you couldnt. I have used a Western Digital 500 GB myself, but it was illegal. But later they patched it so you can use any hard drive upto 2 TB.

 

[DeepEnigma]

*edit* I'm going through the video and PS5 definitely has a separate bay for the add-on drives. Eurogamer had no reason to use the word "replace" in their article multiple times. Just cause confusion.

Here's the explanation. Sorry about the formatting, it's the Youtube transcript and I'm too lazy to fix it.

This is more clear cut that there's a bay and you add storage in addition to the SSD.

The internal is probably not removable like MS, and you add via expanded? Or can you replace the internal as well on the PS5?

No, Tempest is not one of the disabled CU’s. They started from a CU, but it sits outside the GPU section of the SoC and has been heavily customised: the caches have been replaced by Local Storage and DMA operations (custom DMAC) are used to load data in and out, just like in a CELL SPU.

What if they using a customized version of the Cell for the controller?

Does Sony still have access to them with IBM, I would imagine so.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Legally you couldnt. I have used a Western Digital 500 GB myself, but it was illegal. But later they patched it so you can use any hard drive upto 2 TB.

I think you are using legally wrong. They just banned / disabled your console if you were caught.

 

[Bojanglez]

I think you are using legally wrong. They just banned / disabled your console if you were caught.

Illegal for people who treat Microsoft as their corporate overlords maybe. Like you say, probably just violated terms of use maybe.

 

[LostDonkey]

I was just thinking. Imagine if they sell these cards pre loaded with games on.

pop in. instant loading. no installs.

that would be sick.

 

[Birdo]

I was just thinking. Imagine if they sell these cards pre loaded with games on.

pop in. instant loading. no installs.

Those games would be Neo Geo levels of expensive

I'm in.

 

[LostDonkey]

Those games would be Neo Geo levels of expensive

I'm in.

they'd be more than a disk sure but maybe could be limited to the size of the game. So a 100gb game comes on a 100gb nvme so you're not paying for a 1tb card price wise.

any expansions are stored on the system memory.

 

[SportsFan581]

I just want more Series X info in general, but I'm strangely excited to see how they price these cards. I'm glad that the Series X supports external drives for BC, but I know I'll just want everything loaded on the SSD for faster load times. I'm also assuming that we won't have the option for "quick resume" with games that aren't on the SSD.

Doesn't seem like quick resume would be affected at all. That amounts to dumping the ram state (minus the frame buffer and memory mapped to the system/OS) to disk.

 

[Bernkastel]

I think you are using legally wrong. They just banned / disabled your console if you were caught.

There were tutorials online to use WD hard drive on Xbox 360. I have used one but never got banned. You get banned for jtag Xbox 360 not illegal hard drives.

 

[DeepEnigma]

There were tutorials online to use WD hard drive on Xbox 360. I have used one but never got banned. You get banned for jtag Xbox 360 not illegal hard drives.

Would they arrest you? Sounds risky!

 

[Bernkastel]

Would they arrest you? Sounds risky!

They will ban your console for jtag. But not hard drives.

 

[DeepEnigma]

They will ban your console for jtag. But not hard drives.

I am teasing you because of your choice of words.

But yes, if you were caught with your own HDDs early on, they could ban you for it. it was in their TOS because you needed a hack to get the Xbox file system formatted on an off the shelf HDD.

Upgrading the Xbox 360 Hard Drive CHEAP!

Upgrading the Xbox 360 Hard Drive CHEAP!: With all the new content for download and the ability to copy games to the hard drive, 20GB just would not cut it. So I decided to invest in an upgrade. I like to do a lot of research into things before I just jump in, especially expensive purchas…

www.instructables.com

 

[Bernkastel]

I am teasing you because of your choice of words.

But yes, if you were caught with your own HDDs early on, they could ban you for it. it was in their TOS because you needed a hack to get the Xbox file system formatted on an off the shelf HDD.

Upgrading the Xbox 360 Hard Drive CHEAP!

Upgrading the Xbox 360 Hard Drive CHEAP!: With all the new content for download and the ability to copy games to the hard drive, 20GB just would not cut it. So I decided to invest in an upgrade. I like to do a lot of research into things before I just jump in, especially expensive purchas…

www.instructables.com

Thats why I said its illegal. Unlike jtag they never took the hard drive thing seriously and eventually removed all restrictions.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Then I will just call anything from Cerny regarding SSD a "PR speak".

See, I was saying you could quote the official PR and buzzwords at me (you use them as buzzwords as you are taking them without context and using them to stop the argument there... Tempest Engine and Velocity Architecture are buzzwords, what they do is not). Your answer is that you are going to call what Mark Cerny (which you are not calling Mark Sony for once) PR speak and he works for Sony as an independent contractor... not sure how you two compare, are you accusing yourself to be a paid astroturfer ?

Seriously, please reread what I was saying.

Things like Xbox Velocity architecture are built into the drive, even AMD mentioned that in a blog post. You cant just get the same thing with any other NVMe drive.

Velocity Architecture is a set of components, API’s, and design principles... not a thing you pack into an SSD. From DF’s article:

It's a system that Microsoft calls the Velocity Architecture and the SSD itself is just one part of the system.

"Our second component is a high-speed hardware decompression block

Inside Xbox Series X: the full specs

This is it. After months of teaser trailers, blog posts and even the occasional leak, we can finally reveal firm, hard …

www.eurogamer.net

Nothing beyond MS making it so that you cannot and buy their own Memory Card makes it impossible to connect a suitably fast (2.4 GB/s or more) to the PCIE 4.0 bus their internal drive connects to.

You keep saying revenue for MS, as always anything you write will make one side look like an evil corporate and the other side like Tesla. You keep ignoring almost everything pointed out to you and only focus whats convenient for you agenda(thats what I call PR).

You can think that and I will keep on thinking your passion and excitement for XSX and all things connected is clouding your judgement and making you unable to see the situation beyond total enemy annihilation and utter BEAST B E A S T need of superiority (I think it is passion, will keep giving you the benefit of the doubt...). I address what you say, think it over and reply, but I do not have to agree where I do not.

First of the expansion card is manufactured by Seagate and there will be other manufacturers later. See this

Talon Media Remote for Xbox One puts Microsoft's remote to shame

Cord-cutters who want a great remote-control experience with the Xbox One should get the PDP Talon Media Remote for all their movie and TV needs.

www.windowscentral.com

This is an accessory for Xbox One using proprietary Xbox formats. Its cheaper and better than the official media remote. Its so good that Microsoft stopped manufacturing their own Xbox media remote and promoted this instead. There were proprietary Xbox One external drives (licensed and officially recommended by Microsoft) made by Seagate which were only around 20 USD more than equivalent(sometimes slightly worse) Seagate external drives. Seagate is the exclusive launch partner, but there may be more later.

Not sure your single example of a peripheral part of the TV TV TV strategy they were abandoning and that risked tanking the entire console generation for them is the kind of trump card you think it is with regards to the proprietary Memory Card strategy.
You are also comparing the MS “official” Xbox One external drive, an apple, to a Memory Card that is designed exclusively for the XSX and works only with the XSX and nothing else that is not licensing the design and is certified by MS can connect, an orange. The official MS Xbox One drive is like the Nintendo branded SD card they did in partnership with Sandisk... horribly overpriced yet still not Switch exclusive / proprietary.

MS designed a proprietary XSX Memory Card they sell customers and decided not to allow to expand the memory, for now maybe, in any other way for XSX native games. Seagate is part of the supply chain that provides MS with the Memory Cards to sell: if tomorrow they split the orders between Seagate and Samsung to diversify and derisk their sourcing strategy it does not change one bit of what we are talking about. You the consumer still buy the XSX specific cards only from MS.
Well, unless they just license out the design and certification program for a very very low fee and more manufacturers pick it up and start manufacturing the final card in high volumes.

I see lots of assumptions (some based on MS relaxing restrictions on Xbox 360 two years after the Xbox One launches on the market) and hope based on nothing more than “it is not impossible, so it could happen”. Who manufactures the disk for MS to work on their XSX console is not a proof of anything much.. I guess that since MS gets the SoC designed by AMD and fabbed by TMSC means that that APU is now an off the shelves component you can buy on the open market.

This is not the same business model as Xbox 360 and PS Vita, this is a business model that they experimented on in Xbox One. They also removed the Xbox 360 restrictions so that you can use any 2 TB hard drive on it in 2015, meaning they have different goals under Phil now

http://[URL unfurl="true"]https://m...ogram-members-now-supporting-2tb-hard-drives/

[/URL]

Different goals (changing a policy for Xbox 360 in 2015...) until they do not, and from how they designed the system they do not.

You cant get the convenience of expansion cards with m.2. slot. The drive inside the expansion card is the same one as the internal XSX drive, so it is mass produced in bulk not made in limited quantities.

Beside for the internal Flash chips which are mass produced for the entire world and common for many other SSD’s too, the actual manufacturing and assembly of the Memory Card is just for XSX and tied to its production just like PS5’s exclusive components are. You want to have external drives too? Fine, give me the option to use my own storage and I will be much happier .
Forcing me to get the card only from you may be good in the end or not, but it does not inspire me as a move towards an open standard ecosystem not designed to take the profit margin of the cards and offset the investment in the main unit (aka the PSP and PS Vita strategy, especially the latter).

Very few people replaced the internal SSD in PS4(there is no 'debatable' in this, how many people did this vs getting an external drive ? Most people went for external hard drives.) and now you have to get a way more expensive NVMe drive. Most people will prefer an expansion card(there is no 'debatable' in this).

It is nice how you shut down the debate with an essentially “because I said so”, but do not let me stop you. I am interested in seeing how we went from celebrating open standards to saying closed one are more pro consumer.

The market of Sony certified super fast(since you hate numbers)

I do not hate numbers, just dislike people trying disingenuously twist them and mix them with half truths just to “win” and create “concern“ around the other side of the fence.

Since you love numbers and do. It avoid arguments volleyed your way, could you please let me know why you dodged this bit :

I was not even talking about USB 3 drives, but if you wanted to there are USB 3.2 drives capable of 2.4 GB/s (20 Gbps) transfer rates like MS requires for their memory card and internal drive (late 2019 drives): https://www.provideocoalition.com/g...ve-your-old-pc-transfer-speeds-up-to-20-gbps/
By the end of 2020, we are likely to go a notch above that too.

?

NVMe drives wont magically get cheaper and PC gamers wont suddenly start using them, there is always things like 128 GB RAM, best RTX cards, very expensive liquid cooling solutions(like liquid nitrogen coolig), 100 TB hard drives, 10 GB/s ethernet, but very few go for them. Anything below PS5 certified NVMe drives being more heavily adopted in PC workstations wont help the PS5 in anyway.

This is almost a variation of the 640 KB ought to be enough for everyone argument as 2.4 GB/s proprietary Memory Cards will suddenly become cheaper and cheaper (anything faster than that is useless and something the market will never adopt).

We will see as time goes on anyways. Sony certainly took a system design gamble by betting on very fast SSD speed to enable game developers and this men’s that they get more heat and grief for a bit until the open market does its thing .

 

[Panajev2001a]

What if they using a customized version of the Cell for the controller?

Does Sony still have access to them with IBM, I would imagine so.

I think they could, but AMD would help more with repurposing a CU than shrinking an SPU to 7nm I guess. I would like it as I do have a soft spot for CELL and the SPU’s (not so much for the PPE ).

 

[marquimvfs]

There were proprietary Xbox One external drives (licensed and officially recommended by Microsoft) made by Seagate which were only around 20 USD more than equivalent(sometimes slightly worse) Seagate external drives.

No, there were no proprietary disk format for Xbox One. That's not what proprietary means.

 

[LittleBusters]

You know that just had a regular hard drive inside you could swap yourself right?

A regular old spin drive? Dude, 2010 is calling you.

 

[Genx3]

I'm not convinced by the concept of proprietary storage. As long as USB is supported, I'd rather use that and swap data with the internal SSD if necessary.

I'll buy the external SSD and put most of the games on it so that the majority of SSD Wear and Tear occurs on the external.

 

[M1chl]

No, there were no proprietary disk format for Xbox One. That's not what proprietary means.

Except there is, is called FatX.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Except there is, is called FatX.

I am not sure filesystem formatting is the definition, but yes anything that locks the user further away from choosing their components kind of is part of the same area too.

 

[M1chl]

I am not sure filesystem formatting is the definition, but yes anything that locks the user further away from choosing their components kind of is part of the same area too.

I am not sure if it was meant to be like a "physical disk format" or "disk format" as a way to address data. Because the term "disk format" points to the data storage format.

 

[marquimvfs]

I am not sure if it was meant to be like a "physical disk format" or "disk format" as a way to address data. Because the term "disk format" points to the data storage format.

You're right. But I wasn't talking about the format file system. Being clear, I was talking about the physical format, or connection. By definition, there's no Xbox One proprietary external disks. Even if the system uses a proprietary file system.

 

[CrustyBritches]

The internal is probably not removable like MS, and you add via expanded? Or can you replace the internal as well on the PS5?

Going by what Cerny said in the quotes from "Road to PS5" I'm guessing that you can't replace the internal because it has a custom controller. If you did, it would have to be the same exact controller, and the drive would have to be replaceable. I'd assumed it was soldered onto the motherboard.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Going by what Cerny said in the quotes from "Road to PS5" I'm guessing that you can't replace the internal because it has a custom controller. If you did, it would have to be the same exact controller, and the drive would have to be replaceable. I'd assumed it was soldered onto the motherboard.

That is what I assumed as well. So the expansion slot will be there for the certified drives. Now am I correct in assuming that the internal controller will then override the controllers on the SSDs off the shelf?

 

[CrustyBritches]

That is what I assumed as well. So the expansion slot will be there for the certified drives. Now am I correct in assuming that the internal controller will then override the controllers on the SSDs off the shelf?

What Cerny said was:

That commercial M.2 Drive will have its own architecture, its own flash controller, and so on. For example, the NVMe specification lays out a priority scheme for requests that the M.2 drives can use and that scheme is pretty nice, but it only has two true priority levels our drive supports six. We can hook up a drive with only two priority levels definitely, but our custom IO unit has to arbitrate the extra priorities rather than the M.2 drives flash controller, and so the M.2 drive needs a little extra speed to take care of issues arising from the different approach.

I don't know to what degree, but the PS5 IO unit is either supplementing or completely taking over the controller on the expansion drive. Not really my purview, so I couldn't tell you exactly how it works.

 

[SportsFan581]

That is what I assumed as well. So the expansion slot will be there for the certified drives. Now am I correct in assuming that the internal controller will then override the controllers on the SSDs off the shelf?

The additional drives won't know about the PS5 controller, to the best of my knowledge. All data coming out of those drives will pass through the controller built into that drive, the PS5 controller would then handle this data allowing it to masquerade as a PS5 drive. I've never seen an SSD that would allow the controller to be bypassed, as the controller is providing access to the PCIe (or SATA in the instance of an SATA drive) interface.

 

[llien]

I wonder how much "like Vita" will the pricing be. (essentially subsidizing console with outrageous margins on add ons)

The wording is interesting; “should be” not “must be” played from SSD.

Well, if not must be, there goes what Cerny was saying about new approaches to game design.

 

[IntentionalPun]

Well, if not must be, there goes what Cerny was saying about new approaches to game design.

With PC in the mix it's gonna be interesting either way as well as cross gen for a while.

On PS5 I really think the main bottleneck is going to be the feasibility of anyone putting as much detail into a given area of a game as the crazy speeds could handle. Just because you can blast ~10GB of textures per second (after decompression) around doesn't mean your game can actually put that much variety into it's details. The PS5 will be CAPABLE of doing things that would require hundreds of GBs of texture data to pull off... but that's not realistic for numerous reasons.

It will be held back by:
- Other systems devs need to take into account, including it's slower American friend the XBox, not to mention PC and cross-gen for a while
- Just how large a game would be on disk if it really took advantage of the speeds

I think what we'll see out of at least 75% of games is just the same old "Load X up front stream Y in the background" and the SSDs will get the natural advantage of being able to do it all faster. Once devs can truly forget about 5400 RPM drives they'll tweak those systems to need even less up-front data, compounding the SSD advantage... as loading LESS data at FASTER speeds you can imagine is going to be near instant, particularly on PS5. Should also naturally see the freedom for artists to use a greater variety of assets in a given area/map; they still might have limits due to game sizes... but they can do less of "this is the snow area with snow textures, this is the grass area with grass textures" and can mix those assets more often in scenes.