Editor’s Note: This article contains affiliate links to Amazon and Tiger Direct. Buying a product through these links supports Niche Gamer.
Here’s our Samsung 980 Pro with Heatsink SSD review:
Today we’re taking a look another possible solution to deal with the PlayStation 5’s desperate lack of storage space. While we’ve previously covered Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus, that drive was a bit pricier than the Samsung 980 Pro SSD with Heatsink when it released; so we’re back with an alternative that’s a little easier on the wallet but offers comparably durable and reliable performance.
Samsung 1TB 980 Pro SSD with Heatsink
Manufacturer: Samsung
Platforms: PlayStation 5, PC
Price: $229.99 USD
The biggest advantage that the Samsung 980 Pro SSD has over the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus is the heatsink. The heatsink isn’t as big or as thick as the one Sabrent developed, but it’s sleeker.
Even with its thinness it’s still able to deliver effective thermal control, and it looks a lot cleaner without having to line up cooling pads to apply it once installed in the PlayStation 5. Here’s a side by side comparison, and forgive me for the dog hair.
As you know, electronics can be a bit of a magnet:
Samsung’s 980 Pro is considerably smaller and requires even less time to install than Sabrent’s drive. It’s easily the more Plug-N-Play option between the two flash memory components for those who aren’t tech savvy or who are concerned with possibly messing something up.
You can’t really— the most difficult part of this process is popping the PlayStation 5’s side panel off to access the drive bay.
The drive sits snugly with plenty of extra space inside the PS5 drive bay, allowing you to easily put the metal shielding door back over the enclosure – a feat that the heatsink on Sabrent’s drive can’t do because it’s so big that it replaces the metal door completely.
In the performance area, I got a very nice read speed of just under 6.5mb, which is above the 5.5 minimum for the PS5 recommendations. This drive tested about 1.2mbs or so slower than the Sabrent drive’s maximum speed, just for reference, so it’s still a very respectable competitor.
As far as other performance metrics, I didn’t notice any visible change in playing games off the 980 Pro versus playing them off the Rocket 4 Plus, which indicates stable performance. But the biggest difference came when copying games to and from the console.
Using an 11GB sized game, it took roughly 11 seconds to move the game from the console to the drive, while it took around 57 seconds to move from drive back to the console. On the Sabrent, that time was 9 seconds versus 48 seconds, so again, the two drives are very close in data transfer rate.
As an overall, you can’t really go wrong with the Samsung 980 Pro SSD. While I wish it were available in higher storage options, it’s a solid pick in the 1-2 TB space if you want to optimize performance but don’t want the hassle of the heatsink not already being applied to the drive for your installation. At the time of this writing, the 1TB version is on sale for $169.99, while the 2TB version is on sale for $289.99.
The Samsung 980 Pro SSD with Heatsink is available in 1 and 2TB variations, available at Amazon, Tiger Direct, and other retailers. The 1TB version used in our review was provided by Samsung. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here.
