PS4 SSD Upgrade

I'm kicking around the idea of getting a PS4 and picking up Heavensward along with it. I'm curious as to how many people upgraded to an SSD in their PS4 or are you just using the stock hard drive? IGN.com did a comparison for load times on some other games and it doesnt look like it made that much of a difference. I would like to know if anyone here noticed a difference in performance while playing FFXIV?

It really REALLY does make a difference, and im not using a full SSD but a hybrid HDD/SDD

when i upgraded from PS3 to 4, i initially went from my hybrid in the 3 to the standard in the 4 and the load times were abysmal, or at least compared to how fast the hybrid 3 loaded it all up [i was keeping up with my pc friends etc]

upgrading to a hybrid in the 4 made noticable improvments, so i can imagine if you go full SSD it will be pretty good

When I got my PS4 before even doing anything else I upgraded it to a hybrid drive. Never looked back. It's well worth it.

I upgraded the PS4 right after pulling it out of the box but before setting up the PS4 with a hybrid drive

I used a Seagate 1TB 2.5 inch Laptop Solid State Hybrid Drive

not having much issues with it and don't have an issue with loading times

I added an SSD to my ps4, its been wonderful

Do it. Plus, Sony made it ridiculously easy to swap it out.

I'm running stock hardware and as far as I know it's not hindering the game any. (No more than my shitty isp does anyway) But after spending 400 USD on a PS4 I don't feel it nessisary to blow anouther 200 on new hardware.

If anything has new hardware priority its my 14 year old PC.

Putting a SSD in my PS4 was the best decision I ever made for FF14! 110% do it!

Plus, if you are like me and enjoy hunts, the 5 second load times, even with an S rank, mean you actually get there in time :)

There are a few YouTube vids showing the difference using FF14, if you are still not convinced.

Isn't the life expectency less and issues greater on hybrid drives for failure?
Just asking as some have varied opinions about it.
Myself i had upgraded to a 1 tb drive (non ssd or hybrid)

If you do get one, don't skimp on the price. You get what you pay for.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Maero

Isn't the life expectency less and issues greater on hybrid drives for failure?
Just asking as some have varied opinions about it.
Myself i had upgraded to a 1 tb drive (non ssd or hybrid)

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its mostly full SSDs of high capacities that are failure prone over time
hybrids typically dont have the same issues due to the SSD section being small, but a large capacity hybrid [like 4TB+] can have issues.

i ran a 500GB Hybrid for years and its still going strong so idk

It does make a difference for FF14 on PS4. But it's a "nice to have" difference. Not a requirement by any means.

I always like the idea of full SSD rather than a hybrid. But price is a limitation if you want to put more games than just FF14 on your PS4 :D

125GB SSD is close to $100 or so.
500GB SSD jumps right up to $500-$600.

If you go hybrid, though... you can go to 1TB for back down to $100 again.

At this point, I would suggest a hybrid if you were going to upgrade the PS4 HDD.

Also, don't forget about products like the Nyco Data Bank for PS4.
It's a little side product that allows you to connect full 3.5" size drives instead of only 2.5" drives. That makes things a lot easier when shopping around for a Hybrid drive.

The Nyco thing is nothing to worry about, too. It's simply a cable that's run into the PS4 that goes into a larger plastic-housing-thing that connects to the top of the PS4. Rather nice, actually.

ah yes the Nyco, wondering if anyone else knew about it

i use one since im a game hoarder who plays 12 things at once so constant uninstall/reinstall is murder

so with the nyco im now running a 3.5 4TB hybrid.

thing is the nyco does reccomend only going up to 2TB and i have to admit to some issues on occasion, sometimes it fails to read the HDD and other times it chucks me out the game claiming dirty disc or corrupted install even if i redo it so.

thing is, you can get 2.5 2TB hybrids so, unless you want to go higher its not overly worth the investment

well i just put an ssd in my pc and its so much faster than the old style drives, super fast map loads and stuff.

im sure it will be great on a ps4 and even a ps3 to kill load times somewhat.

Ahh cool, thanks for that info Kessler. Should i decide to upgrade again down the road i may look into trying one.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Maero

Isn't the life expectency less and issues greater on hybrid drives for failure?

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Technically yes, practically no.

Technically the SSD flash RAM used has a rated number of write cycles before it may fail. So, technically, you could create a failure condition by specifically rewriting a spot on the SSD sufficient times for it to actually fail. However, the number of cycles is generally very conservative, so generally the cells last much longer than rated. Also, the write cycle issue is well known to SSD makers so they use software in the drive to spread the load across the drive to minimize the number of times any given part of the SSD is written to. The more expensive the drive, the better the FLASH RAM used, and the better the firmware is at evening out the wear and tear on the memory cells.

I read some reviews recently tha addressed this topic and it seemed that the wear leveling in consumer SSDs is quite well done, and the quality of the actual memory is not terrible, so SSDs are no more prone to drive failure than a standard HDD.

One last thing. As far as I am aware, even if cells in the SSD start to fail after a long life, the use of error correction protocols and the wear leveling mechanism allows the drive to detect and avoid failed memory. So the drive continues to operate, but eventually it may reduce in performance/capacity.

This article from Toms Hardware should help you.

The key 'take away' is that for consumer use, the estimated time to failure based on wear and tear is measured between 18.7 and 62.6 years of use. And that was calculated on very conservative write cycle ratings, small drive sizes 80GB-160GB and 10GB of writes to the drive per day. Larger drives with better memory cells will last even longer. The upshot I got from this is that the drive is more likely to fail due to physical deterioration of components in the potential 2+ decades of life the drive will have, than it is due to memory cells wearing out.

Here is a link at Amazon for SSDs from 320GB to 999GB capacity, priced anything up to $200 ranked 4 stars and above by users. Definitely some nice devices for not bad money.