A PS4 SSD upgrade may be in order

The inevitable truth is that load times have becomes incessantly long, particularly with recent games like Just Cause 3 for the PS4, and a part of that problem is the console’s use of a traditional hard drive.

Patches are generally needed to fix such issues, but will installing an SSD give you those faster load times you’re searching for?

Your PS4, by the way, uses a pretty sluggish 5400rpm hard drive, which is actually slowing down things considerably. That’s what recent tests suggest, at any rate.

Given that the prices for SSDs are steadily dropping, and factoring how easy it is to install such a hard drive, this could definitely be an option for those who want higher load speeds in their games.

Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry took the the PS4’s stock drive and put it against OCZ’s 480GB Trion 100 SSD (R3,372) and a hybrid 1TB Seagate SSHD (R1,640), both of which are fairly expensive prospects.

The SSHD provides a middle ground between the two technologies. It’s combination of a mechanical drive and solid state cache, which boosts loading times across nearly all games. However, it is not as fast as an SSD.

It must be noted that with these storage upgrades in-game performance is normally unaffected with frame-rates and draw distances remaining nominally the same.

Loading Time (Seconds)	PS4 500GB Stock Drive	Seagate 1TB SSHD	OCZ Trion 100 480GB
Bloodborne – Central Yharnam	30.8	23.4	16.9
Bloodborne – Great Bridge	26.1	16.2	15.0
Bloodborne – Old Yharnam Respawn	30.7	23.9	15.4
Bloodborne – Return to Hunter’s Dream	10.7	9.1	7.4
Fallout 4 – Vault 111	31.7	28.8	17.4
Fallout 4 – Exiting Vault 111	25.7	24.1	17.2
Fallout 4 – Concord Town	55.5	39.7	29.1
Fallout 4 – Diamond City	49.0	40.4	28.6
Just Cause 3 – New Game	69.9	55.6	43.8
Just Cause 3 – First Mission Respawn	28.9	25.4	21.1
Just Cause 3 – Baia	65.6	59.7	43.7
Just Cause 3 – Baia Respawn	23.4	23.2	16.2
MGS5: Phantom Limbs	22.3	19.2	15.1
MGS5: A Hero’s Way	19.0	12.4	9.4
MGS5: C2W	19.4	12.7	9.5
Project Cars: Willow Springs (16 Cars)	38.1	34.5	31.9
Project Cars: Azure Cost (31 Cars)	50.5	43.6	40.4
Project Cars: 24 Hour Le Mans (44 Cars)	49.6	48.5	45.8
Project Cars: Quit to Menu	21.4	21.2	20.5
Witcher 3 – Novigrad Town Centre	92.5	79.5	69.2
Witcher 3 – Fast travel to Woesong Bridge	46.8	40.7	35.5
Witcher 3 – Crookback Bog	63.5	57.9	50.8
Witcher 3 – Crookback Bog Respawn	64.6	61.5	56.3

One of the most interesting results is that Just Cause 3’s normal loading time is 1 minute, whereas an SSD cuts loading times down to 43 seconds, and with an SSHD that figure stands at 59 seconds.

Essentially, the SSD takes off 37.3% of the loading time when compared to the PS4’s stock hard drive. An SSD takes 7 to 8 seconds off the PS4 stock drive’s 23 seconds in most instances.

With games like The Witcher 3, the results are more disheartening.

The SSD reduces the overall load time for the game by 23.3 seconds, where the stock drive takes 1 minute 32 seconds to load the game. But these loading times change depending on what area you are in the game.

Bloodborne presents an intriguing scenario for an SSD upgrade because patch 1.03 improves load times significantly.

In areas of the game such as Central or Old Yharnam, it takes a maximum of 30 seconds to firstly load on the PS4’s stock hard drive. Respawning takes 16 seconds.

With the SSD, areas takes 15 seconds to initially load in Bloodborne.

When respawning (or reviving) in the game, it takes 14 seconds on an SSD and SSHD, so you’re saving 2 seconds on your load times when compared to the PS4 stock drive.