Sony told The Verge that the PS5 will not feature user-upgradeable storage at launch. This means that buyers will be limited to the 825GB SSD built into the console, of which only 667GB will be available. This is quite small compared to the Xbox One Series X's 1TB drive, which has 802GB.

Sony uses custom SSDs in the PS5, and not all M.2 drives are available for the console. Therefore, drive manufacturers will need to produce SSDs that meet PS5 specifications. The expansion slot will be disabled at launch, and this feature is "reserved for future updates," Sony told The Verge.

The Verge's Sean Hollister said that he has spoken to drive manufacturers and none are currently developing drives compatible with the PS5, and Sony has not yet begun a testing program.

Sony confirmed to The Verge that external USB 3.1 drives will be available for the PS5 at launch, but only for PS4 games, as these titles do not require increased operating speeds.

To give users an idea of how much they can cram into 667GB, games like "SackBoy: A Big Adventure" will only be 32GB, while "Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War" will be 133GB.Spider-Man: The Last Airbender Highly anticipated titles like "Spider-Man: Miles Morales" will be 50GB, while "Demon's Souls" will be 66GB, Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Launch Edition, which includes Spider-Man Remastered, will be 105 GB.

Architect Mark Cerny elaborated on the PS5's SSD in a video uploaded earlier this year. In it, he said, "When I was interviewed by Wired last year, I said the PlayStation 5 SSD is faster than anything available on a PC: ..... .M.2 drives with PCIe 4.0 are on the market M.2 drives with PCIe 4.0 are on the market.

Cerny further stated that drives supporting up to 7GB/s will be available by the end of 2020, but that it is not just a matter of raw speed, as Sony's drives still require a different architecture. [For example, the NVMe specification defines a priority scheme for requests for which M.2 drives can be used. While this scheme is very nice, there are only two true priority levels.

Cerny added that the problem is that M.2 has no height standardization, so thicker cards will not fit in the PS5 drive bays. Therefore, manufacturers must produce drives that meet Sony's exact specifications.

Thurney said of SSDs, "It would be great if that happens before launch, but it's going to be a little ways off.