Why NS 128GB SD is better than Xbox/PS 500GB HDD.

[Pyro as Bill]

Michelasso said:

I've read few comments.. Do people realise the SD Card <> SSD? A fast 128GB SD Card goes up to 90-95MB/s reading speed and 30-35 MB/s writing speed. HDDs in the PS4/XB1 are generally faster. And SSD can be much, much master (500MB/s easily).

Then I've seen this table...

Pyro as Bill said:

	DLC/Patch Size
Storage	5 GB	15GB	25GB
500GB HD (50GB/Game install)	9 games	7 games	6 games
128GB SD (0GB/Game install)	25 games	8 games	5 games
128GB SD x2 (0GB/Game install)	51 games	17 games	10 games
128GB SD x4 (0GB/Game install)	102 games	34 games	20 games

First of all, as it has been pointed out already, 50GB is the maximum size for a game in the two consoles with HDDs. Second, people like to buy digital as well. And tehre the result will be the same, if the games are of the same size (hardly since I bet the Switch games will have a lower resolution). Third, patches may even be 15GB big, but that doesn't mean that the space added to the final installation will be 15GB. Because when installing a patch many files get replaced and some even deleted. Theoretically it's even possible the case where, after a patch, the installation is actually smaller. Then sure, the DLCs do require more space since they add new content.

Said that I am not against SD cards. The technology is there, they will get bigger, faster and cheaper (unlike the HDDs lately), and they are easily replaced. So why not..

50GB isn't the maximum size for a PS4/XBO game. 50GB is only the BR limit. The new CoD is expected to need 130GB.

You couldn't fit more than 3 of those on a 500GB HD. Switch could use a campaign and multiplayer cart each and wouldn't lose 1/3 of it's storage in the process.

SD only has to worry about read speed and it's ~equal to HDD at 90-95 and can go much higher.

SSD in consoles is interesting. People are already upgrading to 2TB HD for PS4/XBO and that's going to be very, very expensive using SSD. Not to mention 4K video and other assets are going to increase game sizes even further. 130GB of video content at 1080p becomes 520GB at 4K, so faster transfer speeds required. BR's speed and size is going to be a bottleneck.

If Sony/MS move to carts next gen, then the HD size won't have to be as big, making SSD more economical and much faster. If not, then surely it would be better to use multiple, tiny, micro-SD cards as storage instead of a much bigger, spinning drive, assuming SD cards continue to plummet in price.