Updated | Mysterious PlayStation 5 SSD price tag pops up online and suspiciously seems like a steal

Update October 28: The mysterious drive has turned out to be just a Seagate Game Drive that "works with PlayStation". The Walmart tag still reads "PS5 500GB SSD Drive" but this is clearly an external storage drive originally targeted at PS4 owners. The price is surprisingly high for a regular 500 GB drive, and of course, future PS5 owners would not be able to use this device as a full expansion SSD as it would be way too slow.

Original story:

An alleged Walmart price tag shared on Twitter by Marlon Gaming Nation reports a figure of US$115 for a “PS5 500 GB SSD drive”. Unfortunately, no other information is shared in regard to this product, but it has been received warmly by commenters who think it is a more than fair price for an SSD that can function with a powerful next-gen console like the PlayStation 5 and its famously fast PCIe 4.0 SSD.

Although Sony hasn’t yet published an approved list of SSDs that can be utilized by the PS5, a few SKUs have started appearing that are expected to be compatible. For instance, the recently revealed Western Digital Black SN850 NVMe SSD, which comes in 500 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB capacities, has been mentioned in connection with PS5 use. The PCIe Gen4 drive can push 7,000 MB/s sequential read and 4,100 MB/s sequential write in its 500 GB format, and at US$149.99 appears to be a good buy for future PS5 owners looking to boost the console’s limited storage space.

The 2 TB WD Black SN850 can even manage 7,000 MB/s sequential read and 5,100 MB/s sequential write rates, but it costs US$449.99, which while still cheaper per GB than the 500 GB variant (US$0.22 per GB vs. US$0.30 per GB) is unlikely to appeal to owners of brand-new PS5 consoles who have just forked out US$499.99 on the standard variant of the gaming hardware. A cheaper SSD unit will be undoubtedly more welcome after such a hefty purchase, and while the 500 GB WD SSD is priced attractively, you also have to wonder what this cheap and mysterious Walmart SKU is.

Perhaps the US$115 PS5 500 GB SSD is an offering similar to the Sabrent 500 GB Rocket NVMe SSD that can be picked up online for US$119.99 and is a PCIe 4.0 compliant beast that can operate at up to 5,000 MB/s (read) and 2,500 MB/s (write) speeds? The secretive Walmart model would have to be a bit faster though, as the PS5's SSD can manage 5.5 GB/s and an additional drive would need to be able to at least match that rate. Obviously, third-party expansion SSDs are going to come in a wide arrangement of flavors, and prices are likely to drop once competition becomes fiercer to catch those lucrative PS5 gamer dollars.

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