Hardware Recommendations for upgrading my HDD for faster loading? (Can't do SSD)

Cyber Akuma

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Ok, so I have a PS4 Pro, and loadtimes for FFXV are ABYSMAL, about 25-30 seconds or so every time it has to bring up a load screen. Sometimes it even takes several dozen seconds to bring up my list of saves. I am starting to wonder if something is wrong with the HDD itself...

Anyway, so I want to upgrade the HDD primary for faster access. Now, I know what everyone is thinking "SSD! SSD! OMG SSD!" but the thing is, my PS4 came with a 1TB HDD, and I am already using a lot of it and just barely got it, not sure if even 1TB will be enough. A 1TB SSD will run me nearly as much as the console itself cost, I can't afford that, not even close.

So I was looking at what other options I had.

I was told about these Seagate Firecuda drives, and looked into them, the 2TB model was pretty cheap..... suspiciously so. I looked into them further and noticed that they for some crazy reason were 5400RPM.

I looked at mechanical 2TB drives, but noticed that all of them are 5400RPM, the 7200RPM models only exist in enterprise-level drives that cost more than a SSD would, so that is out of the question. 2TB of storage would be nice, but I primary need speed with a minimum of 1TB right now.

So going back the 1TB drives, plenty of them exist in the 2.5 form factor at 7200RPM, but again, the Firecuda 1TB drives seemed to be 5400RPM.... though this time there was no reason for them to be unlike the 2TB models.

Are there any 7200RPM models of the 1TB Firecudas? Several sites seem to list them as being 7200RPM, but Seagate themselves seem to purposely hide that spec (which makes it seem very suspiciously likely that they are 5400) and several people have insisted that they are just simply 5400 even on sites that claim they are 7200RPM.

Which would even perform better in this instance: a 5400RPM SSHD, or a 7200RPM HDD? They are about the same price anyway.
 

The Real Jdbye

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Ok, so I have a PS4 Pro, and loadtimes for FFXV are ABYSMAL, about 25-30 seconds or so every time it has to bring up a load screen. Sometimes it even takes several dozen seconds to bring up my list of saves. I am starting to wonder if something is wrong with the HDD itself...

Anyway, so I want to upgrade the HDD primary for faster access. Now, I know what everyone is thinking "SSD! SSD! OMG SSD!" but the thing is, my PS4 came with a 1TB HDD, and I am already using a lot of it and just barely got it, not sure if even 1TB will be enough. A 1TB SSD will run me nearly as much as the console itself cost, I can't afford that, not even close.

So I was looking at what other options I had.

I was told about these Seagate Firecuda drives, and looked into them, the 2TB model was pretty cheap..... suspiciously so. I looked into them further and noticed that they for some crazy reason were 5400RPM.

I looked at mechanical 2TB drives, but noticed that all of them are 5400RPM, the 7200RPM models only exist in enterprise-level drives that cost more than a SSD would, so that is out of the question. 2TB of storage would be nice, but I primary need speed with a minimum of 1TB right now.

So going back the 1TB drives, plenty of them exist in the 2.5 form factor at 7200RPM, but again, the Firecuda 1TB drives seemed to be 5400RPM.... though this time there was no reason for them to be unlike the 2TB models.

Are there any 7200RPM models of the 1TB Firecudas? Several sites seem to list them as being 7200RPM, but Seagate themselves seem to purposely hide that spec (which makes it seem very suspiciously likely that they are 5400) and several people have insisted that they are just simply 5400 even on sites that claim they are 7200RPM.

Which would even perform better in this instance: a 5400RPM SSHD, or a 7200RPM HDD? They are about the same price anyway.
A SSHD will not give you much performance increase as the SSD cache on them is very small, barely large enough to fit boot files on a PC so they can around halve boot times, but games are often tens of GBs large and the cache is likely only 4 or 8 GB.
 

Tikker

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A SSHD will not give you much performance increase as the SSD cache on them is very small, barely large enough to fit boot files on a PC so they can around halve boot times, but games are often tens of GBs large and the cache is likely only 4 or 8 GB.

this is pretty much 100% wrong

read/write on ssd is waaaaay faster. on a pc, it'll take boot time from a minute, to under 10 seconds. no idea what he's talking about halving boot time.....

the basic idea of the SSD is that it's almost as fast as being able to have the whole game in RAM


but back to OP you have the classic triangle of choices

FAST
CHEAP
Big Storage

choose 2, and only 2
 

Cyber Akuma

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this is pretty much 100% wrong

read/write on ssd is waaaaay faster. on a pc, it'll take boot time from a minute, to under 10 seconds. no idea what he's talking about halving boot time.....

We are talking about the performance of s SSHD in a PS4 though, not a SSD.
 

Futurdreamz

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It depends on what it's used for. Frequently accessed files greatly benefit. But a PS4 game would mostly need to access large data files like textures, and probably only once each file. Not enough for the SSHDD to optimize.
 

Cyber Akuma

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Hmm, in the cases of the 2TB SSHDs, there seems to be some more confusing information...

There seem to be two models of the 2TB SSHD model, ST2000DX001 and ST2000DX002. Neither of these are listed on the official Samsung spec sheets, for some reason the sheets don't seem to cover the 2TB models, only 1TB and smaller.

Now, common sense would tell you that the ST2000DX002 one is the newer model.... but according to Amazon, the ST2000DX002 came out last July, while the ST2000DX001 came out last October:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IEKG2HM/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M1NHCZT

So then does this mean the ST2000DX001 is actually the newer model? Where can I even find out what the difference, if any, between the two models is since Samsung doesn't have a spec sheet for those models? And random tech sites I try to use to find into on them seem to list incorrect specs, such as half of them claiming they are 7200RPM instead of 5400RPM.
 

aos10

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OP,check this



i am currently using the same one for my PS4 Pro,it's working great.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Hmm, in the cases of the 2TB SSHDs, there seems to be some more confusing information...

There seem to be two models of the 2TB SSHD model, ST2000DX001 and ST2000DX002. Neither of these are listed on the official Samsung spec sheets, for some reason the sheets don't seem to cover the 2TB models, only 1TB and smaller.

Now, common sense would tell you that the ST2000DX002 one is the newer model.... but according to Amazon, the ST2000DX002 came out last July, while the ST2000DX001 came out last October:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IEKG2HM/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M1NHCZT

So then does this mean the ST2000DX001 is actually the newer model? Where can I even find out what the difference, if any, between the two models is since Samsung doesn't have a spec sheet for those models? And random tech sites I try to use to find into on them seem to list incorrect specs, such as half of them claiming they are 7200RPM instead of 5400RPM.
The ST2000DX002 is a 3.5 inch drive,it's won't fit on PS4.
 

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