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Credit: Future/Ian Evenden
External SSDs are usually anonymous little boxes that don’t attract attention, decorated only with a USB port, the manufacturer’s logo and, if you’re lucky, a power LED. This model from Seagate is officially licensed for Sony’s PlayStation gaming console, which certainly makes it a shoo-in for our Best SSDs for PS5 frame, and comes with a matching light bar that glows blue while you use it. Whether this is a good idea or not is a matter of taste, but there’s no denying the pretty good data transfer performance that this little drive is capable of.
Key specifications
Seagate Game Drive PS5
Capacity: 2TB or 5TB
Interface: USB 3.2 Gen 2
Dimensions: 20 x 76 x 114 mm
Weight: 249g
Design and construction
The drive is PlayStation-branded, which means you get a 14-day trial of PlayStation Plus in the box, and it comes in the sort of gray-white color of the PlayStation 5 console’s standard cover (if you’re not familiar with the latest Sony console, it is not much different from the color of Canon’s L-series telephoto lenses) with a PS logo at the top. There’s also an Xbox version, if your gaming sympathies lie with Microsoft. Apart from the external branding and color they all look the same from the outside, and this is a standard USB 3.2 SSD, powered by the USB cable, so it can be mounted and used with just about anything.
The housing is plastic and larger than both Kingston XS1000R And Crucial X9. The one sent to us is a 2TB model, but there’s also one available with a 5TB capacity, and it represents pretty good value for money considering it’s less than twice as expensive as the smaller model. When the drive is connected, there is a blue LED strip on the front of the drive (orange on Xbox models) and there is also an activity LED on the back, near the USB-C port. Neither blinks while data is being transferred, so you can easily tell if the drive is getting power or not and, in the case of the blue strip, looks cool.
Seagate Game Drive PS5
Overall, it’s an exceptionally nice looking drive that can’t be mistaken for a USB key, and if the PlayStation logo wasn’t visible on the front of the case it wouldn’t be gaming related. The larger shape and sharper edges don’t make it fit easily in your pocket, meaning it’s less likely to get lost.
Features
Apart from the exterior of the case, there is little to say about the Game Drive itself. It’s an officially licensed product and has built-in firmware that makes it work seamlessly with Sony’s PS4 and PS5 consoles, but there’s nothing stopping you from connecting it to a PC or Mac, and it’s formatted as EXFAT for easy transfer between systems.
Seagate Game Drive PS5
The packaging is a great example of cardboard technology, which keeps the disc firmly in place and prevents it from moving around. It comes with two USB cables, both Type-C and Type-A, instead of one and an adapter, and there’s also a warning document stating that you should keep the drive at least four inches away from your console.
Performance
The PS5 offers a USB 3.2 connection, with both Type-A and Type-C ports. This means there are few demands on a drive designed for use with the console to perform particularly well, especially as the true high-speed drive is found in the PCIe 4.0 SSDs, of which there is room for two. You’re forced to use the M.2 drives if you want to play PS5 games, but you can play PS4 games from an external drive or use it to offload downloaded games to free up space.
But out of curiosity, we connected the Seagate Game Drive to a Windows 11 PC with USB 4 ports, using a cable capable of 40Gbps data transfer, to see if any extra speed could be extracted from it.
While the drive doesn’t perform nearly as fast as an internal SSD, it still performs well and is quite fast for an external USB 3.2 SSD, although at these speeds we’re reaching the maximum the USB 3.2 Gen 2 data bus can handle, so we won’t see anything better without moving to USB 4 or some form of Thunderbolt.
Seagate Game Drive PS5
Price
Bee $90/£110 in Seagate’s online store, the Seagate Game Drive undermines the Kingston XS1000R, WB My Passport portable SSD And Crucial X9 slightly on the price, while data transfer speeds are broadly comparable to the best these drives can offer. If you’re transferring large files to them you won’t notice the difference outside of the one second to two change in wait time, so you might as well buy on price. Seagate is a well-known and trusted name in the data storage industry, making this a competitively priced device.
Who is it intended for?
It may be aimed squarely at gamers due to its branding and design, but this handy portable SSD will be useful for just about anyone who wants something to store data that’s faster than the average USB flash drive. The 5TB model in particular is larger than most other portable SSD offerings, which tend to top out at 2TB or 4TB (Sandisk’s Desk Drive tops out at 8TB, but requires a power connector) and offers plenty of storage space to put in your pocket .
Buy it if…
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You need fast portable storage
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You don’t mind (or even welcome) the PlayStation branding.
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USB 3.2 speeds are sufficient
Don’t buy it if…
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You’re more of an Xbox fan
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You prefer a NAS
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