Seagate (ST2000LX001) FireCuda 2TB Solid State Hybrid Drive Performance SSHD – 2.5 Inch SATA 6Gb/s Flash Accelerated for Gaming PC Laptop

I installed this drive in my PS4 Pro, and have been very happy with the performance and storage space. However, there is some confusion out there regarding performance, and if you don't understand how the drive works, you'll be disappointed.When you install the drive and begin firing up your games, you may be upset to discover that it's not at all faster than the 500 GB or 1 TB drive that came with your PS4 to begin with. Really, it's not one bit faster. You can time them and they load games and levels with seconds of one another. After seeing this, you may ask why you bothered paying a premium for the drive. After all, there are reliable, cheaper 2.5" 2TB drives on the market?The answer lies in how the drive works and how it uses the onboard 8 GB of faster flash space. The drive has onboard intelligence the monitors your activity. As you do things like repeatedly launch your current favorite game, the drive takes note of this and begins storing that game's or games' data in flash. As a result, subsequent loads become faster and faster, usually maxing out around the 5th load. By then, you'll see times dramatically faster, usually on par with SSDs. If you're a typical PS4 user, mostly sticking with one or two favorites of the moment, this drive will be immensely beneficial in terms of performance once you give it a week or two to learn your habits (yes, you can shortcut this by opening, quitting completely, and then reopening your favorite game a few times in a row).Now, if you're not a typical user, and find you regularly jump around to lots of different game and activities, then this drive probably isn't for you. Its performance gains rely on your having data you access with frequency. If that's not your behavior, it'll never be able to pin down on flash what you're likely to reach for next, instead having to load from the slow 5400rpm platter each time. In that case, a true SSD is your only hope for a noticeable improvement in speed, but then you're likely sacrificing storage space for speed. Used as intended, this drive offer the potential for both.

If you’re in the market for an affordable upgrade to your PlayStation or Xbox, this is definitely the best bang for your buck. SSDs are definitely dropping in price, and fast. But 2TB SSDs are still more than 4X the cost of this SSHD.You can find load time benchmarks and comparisons with a quick google search and you will see that this drive knocks out all competition. The “smart” data access feature does actually work after a few game loads. The drive learns to cache data that it knows is accessed more frequently, slightly speeding up load times in games you frequent.Installation is super easy for both consoles, guides can be found with a quick google search.If you’re on the fence about the upgrade, do it. It pays for itself alone in storage capacity given the paltry 1TB drives standard in consoles when considering the growing size of game downloads/updates. Don’t expect incredible gains in load times, they will improve, but remember that this drive will always be limited by the console and it’s storage interface.

I bought this Harddrive to replace the 500GB in my PS4 Slim. It was very easy (Thanks to Sony) and this drive works very well. I am sure there are faster loading times but I haven't measured them. Obviously, the biggest benefit is the HUGE space increase. After only owning my PS4 for a couple months I already had to start deleting things off of it when I got new games. Hindsight I should have looked into the PS4 Pro but I got the PS4 for $250 and the hard drive for around $100 so with $350 I have a 2TB slim PS4 instead of $400 for a 1TB that would need to be upgraded eventually. ( I used to be a PC gamer but cannot afford to be plus I don't have a 4k tv so meh)Since getting the new hard drive I have reinstalled everything I have had to delete and still have PLENTY of space. This is a great upgrade for anyone wanting to get more space. I also recommend getting the hard drive enclosure that Amazon recommend buying with this hard drive. You can put your old hard drive into the enclosure and format it as extended storage for backing up games and games saves. Basically, your getting a hard drive for $9