Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2021]

[Arwin]

Those poor bandwidth starved sods! I guess this firmware update really is a big deal to them after all. My internet will be bumped from 400Mb to 600Mb for free coming Monday apparently. 54GB in about 7 min, that is about 8GB a min, so 128MB/s? That’s ok I guess. About as fast as redownloading if you have a 1GB/s connection which Richard and John aren’t even close to with 40Mbit and 100Mbit respectively.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

that is about 8GB a min, so 128MB/s?

My 2km copper DSL barely manages 8GB an hour with a fair wind on a sunny day.

FTTP is supposedly coming this year and I shall be going for the 1 Gigabit connection.

 

[PSman1700]

My 2km copper DSL barely manages 8GB an hour with a fair wind on a sunny day.

FTTP is supposedly coming this year and I shall be going for the 1 Gigabit connection.

Will be world of a difference going from DLS to fttp, its not just the speeds but latency etc too. Downloading things is a thing i dont even notice anymore, the PS5 does it while asleep mostly (standby) and steam whenever im not playing any games.

 

[London Geezer]

Those poor bandwidth starved sods! I guess this firmware update really is a big deal to them after all. My internet will be bumped from 400Mb to 600Mb for free coming Monday apparently. 54GB in about 7 min, that is about 8GB a min, so 128MB/s? That’s ok I guess. About as fast as redownloading if you have a 1GB/s connection which Richard and John aren’t even close to with 40Mbit and 100Mbit respectively.

oh GO AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Allandor]

Those poor bandwidth starved sods! I guess this firmware update really is a big deal to them after all. My internet will be bumped from 400Mb to 600Mb for free coming Monday apparently. 54GB in about 7 min, that is about 8GB a min, so 128MB/s? That’s ok I guess. About as fast as redownloading if you have a 1GB/s connection which Richard and John aren’t even close to with 40Mbit and 100Mbit respectively.

1Gbit/s here, but that doesn't help if the network-server (xbox live/Playstation network) is not able to deliver. Deleting games is still something I really don't want to do. But even external SSDs are still to small. My old 8TB HDD is a bit to loud (and slow) so I really don't want to use it anymore. But now I really must select what I want on the console (external SSD). Problem with that is, I'm not the only one that uses the console. Also my kids and wife use it. So having only limited storage is a problem really fast, even if your internet connection is fast.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

But even external SSDs are still to small.

Ignoring the ludicrous enterprise things, you can get 12Tb and 16Tb SSD - if you have the coin. It would be nice if consoles allowed you to archive a game install to a NAS on the local network though.

 

[snc]

 

[Deleted member 11852]

With reading to PS4 games loading slower from PS5's internal NVMe drive vs external SSDs, I entirely expect this.

PS5 almost certainly used a completely different filesystem; one optimised for it's I/O system and PS4 games very likely exist in some virtual filesystem container with a bit of an overhead.

 

[BRiT]

DF Article @ https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2021-whats-the-best-external-storage-for-ps5

PlayStation 5: the best external SSD upgrade options tested
Can SATA and NVMe SSDs match the internal drive for back-compat PS4 gaming?

For a console that pushes technology to the next level in so many respects, there is one defining limitation to the PlayStation 5 hardware - its restrictive 667GB of useable storage. This week's system software update finally allows users to archive PS5 titles to external hard drives and SSDs, and of course, PS4 titles can be run from plug-in storage too - but what's the best option? We decided to put things to the test, stacking up the internal solid-state solution against three alternatives: a passport-style external hard drive, a SATA SSD and an NVMe alternative, housed within an appropriate enclosure.

It's an exercise we've carried out before of course, when we tested out the same SSD storage options on Xbox Series X, the difference being that Microsoft offers its own external solution that does allow next-gen titles to run. However, our alternative options remain the same - an off-the-shelf 5TB Seagate hard drive, a Samsung 870 QVO hooked up via a Sabrent USB to SATA adapter and an NVMe drive housed within an Asus ROG Strix Arion enclosure. In our Xbox Series X tests, we used an OEM Samsung SSD but for PlayStation 5 we went one step further, slotting in a Samsung 980 Pro - one of the very fastest drives on the market.

Before we go on, we should state that the PS5 is a little picky about what kind of USB to SATA adapters it will support - make sure you get one with UASP SATA-III support, otherwise you may get an error telling you to use a USB device with higher bandwidth. Oh, and we also tested both the front USB-C and rear USB Type-A ports to see if there was any advantage either way. Long story short: using Cyberpunk 2077 for our tests, we noted no real difference whatsoever.

...

 

[snc]

With reading to PS4 games loading slower from PS5's internal NVMe drive vs external SSDs, I entirely expect this.

I don't belivie you expected this

 

[Pete]

My internet will be bumped from 400Mb to 600Mb for free coming Monday apparently. 54GB in about 7 min, that is about 8GB a min, so 128MB/s? That’s ok I guess.

You just made a very low bandwidth enemy.

Spoiler

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I don't belivie you expected this

Okay, acknowledged

But DF's reports do not surprise me. Accepting that PS5 has an entirely different filesystem, PS4's filesystem would be emulated much like any non-native disc image in a computer filesystem and that has an overhead.

Even then, sometimes the way the data is stored in the emulated filesystems can benefit from the design of the nascent filesystem design. Based on what DF are reporting, where data is packed into massive packs (.PAK/ZIP) files, the overall I/O is faster on PS5 but if data is stored in lots of smaller files then I/O will be slower on PS5.

 

[Pete]

The latest PS4 8.50 system update mentioned something about changing the “file format” on external drives which makes them incompatible with earlier system OSes. Do we know why?

• We've updated the file format for extended storage.
  
  • When you connect an extended storage device, its file format will be updated.
    
    
  • After that, you won't be able to use the device on a PS4 that has a previous version of the system software.

• • 
    
    

 

[Deleted member 11852]

The latest PS4 8.50 system update mentioned something about changing the “file format” on external drives which makes them incompatible with earlier system OSes. Do we know why?

I wish I'd spotted this before upgrading, I would have snapshotted my external SSD before and after patch.

I imagine they've done something fundamental to the filesystem to support PS5 like metadata, probably adding a bunch of extended attributes (XATTR).

 

[JPT]

Okay, acknowledged

But DF's reports do not surprise me. Accepting that PS5 has an entirely different filesystem, PS4's filesystem would be emulated much like any non-native disc image in a computer filesystem and that has an overhead.

Even then, sometimes the way the data is stored in the emulated filesystems can benefit from the design of the nascent filesystem design. Based on what DF are reporting, where data is packed into massive packs (.PAK/ZIP) files, the overall I/O is faster on PS5 but if data is stored in lots of smaller files then I/O will be slower on PS5.

It wont be apple to apple, not even sure if its possible. But would be interesting to see comparisons of a PS5 version of a game vs the PS4 version of a game.
The PS4 game in back compat on the PS5 internal and external drives and of course the PS5 on internal only.

Candidates would be Borderlands 3, COD, Dirt5 etc.
Titles that are optimized for PS5.

 

[manux]

It wont be apple to apple, not even sure if its possible. But would be interesting to see comparisons of a PS5 version of a game vs the PS4 version of a game.
The PS4 game in back compat on the PS5 internal and external drives and of course the PS5 on internal only.

Candidates would be Borderlands 3, COD, Dirt5 etc.
Titles that are optimized for PS5.

Spiderman Miles Morales is probably as good of a comparison as we can make

 

[see colon]

Spiderman Miles Morales is probably as good of a comparison as we can make

That would be a great example of optimized use, but not as much of an apples to apples comparison as a 3rd party game. There are asset quality differences in SM:MM more than most other titles with a PS5 version, I think.

Okay, acknowledged

But DF's reports do not surprise me. Accepting that PS5 has an entirely different filesystem, PS4's filesystem would be emulated much like any non-native disc image in a computer filesystem and that has an overhead.

Are you not surprised that an external SATA drive can have better load times than the internal custom SSD? That's the most surprising thing to me. You have a much slower drive over a much slower bus getting better results fairly often.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Are you not surprised that an external SATA drive can have better load times than the internal custom SSD? That's the most surprising thing to me. You have a much slower drive over a much slower bus getting better results fairly often.

No, because of the overheard of emulating the virtual filesystem on the internal NVMe. DF's whole video demonstrates that I/O is slowed by factors other than raw I/O and in most cases this will be the check-in design of PS4 games, rather than how like Miles Morales are designed to load and barely have any loading time at all.

Once you're on that level playing field, comparing a slower external SSD using the native PS4 fielsyetms versus the faster internal NVMe but where it has overheard for the emulator filesystem will generally show a disparity. But like I said, you're going to get edge cases where PS4 games that use big PAK files for assets maybe marginally faster verses games with lots of individual files where the emulation overheard will hit you.

This is exactly the same behaviour you'll see any on platform (console, Windows, linux, macOS) where using a non-native filesystem.

 

[see colon]

No, because of the overheard of emulating the virtual filesystem on the internal NVMe. DF's whole video demonstrates that I/O is slowed by factors other than raw I/O and in most cases this will be the check-in design of PS4 games, rather than how like Miles Morales are designed to load and barely have any loading time at all.

Once you're on that level playing field, comparing a slower external SSD using the native PS4 fielsyetms versus the faster internal NVMe but where it has overheard for the emulator filesystem will generally show a disparity. But like I said, you're going to get edge cases where PS4 games that use big PAK files for assets maybe marginally faster verses games with lots of individual files where the emulation overheard will hit you.

This is exactly the same behaviour you'll see any on platform (console, Windows, linux, macOS) where using a non-native filesystem.

Do we know that the file system is definitely different? I was under the impression that changes made were a superset of the PS4 file system.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Do we know that the file system is definitely different? I was under the impression that changes made were a superset of the PS4 file system.

Mark Cerny said the whole stack was redesigned for solid state storage. The PS4 filesystem was designed for spinning-platters and Sony would have been foolish to use a filesystem not designed from the outset for solid state storage having gone to the effort of making a whole bunch of custom hardware to get I/O as fast as possible.