Nextorage NEM-PA 4TB review - The best high-capacity SSD for PS5
While it may lack the same name-brand recognition as some other Gen 4 SSDs targeted for PS5, the Nextorage NEM-PA can certainly keep up with the flagship models where it counts. Without question, it’s one of the best SSDs for PS5 that you can buy right now, and that’s because it’s bolstered by an excellently designed heatsink and some of the most consistent performance I’ve seen which scales with larger file transfers.
At a time when some of the best PS5 games are getting larger, some even pushing up to 100GB of space or more, the Nextorage NEM-PA excels with its competitive price per gigabyte. If you’ve been wanting the maximum amount of overhead allowed by the PS5 console then this is a definitive choice which is only made better by the fact that rates on Gen 4 SSDs continue getting cheaper.
Price and Availability
The Nextorage NEM-PA is available in the US, the UK, and Australia, however, availability varies. It is most easily accessible to find in America with the 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB versions purchasable via Amazon. My review unit is the 4TB variant which currently retails for $299.99 (around £232 / AU$439) which is one of the cheapest rates for the capacity to date. In other regions, only the 1TB and 2TB versions appear to be available but that could change in due time.
Design and Features
The Nextorage NEM-PA 4TB is a double-sided Gen 4 NVMe SSD that utilizes a thick, rigged aluminium heatsink ensuring it is compatible with the PS5 as the system’s M.2 port offers no cooling. Function is chosen over form here and it’s a smart decision considering you won’t see it inside the system, that means exposed screws and thicker metal lining instead of something sleeker, but it’s all in the pursuit of keeping core temps down.
Under the hood is where things start to get impressive. That’s because the Nextorage NEM-PA 4TB utilizes the excellent Phison E18 controller combined with TLC NAND flash memory, a winning combination for many top-end drives such as the exceptional Kingston Fury Renegade and the Seagate FireCuda 530 before it. This allows for rates as close to the Gen 4 cap as possible. The choice of the controller shouldn’t be too surprising seeing as Phison acquired Nextorage last year, a team made up of ex-Sony hardware developers, and it’s clearly being put to use here.
A major strength of the 4TB variant specifically is the write endurance which is significantly higher than what you’ll typically find from the competition. It’s claimed that the Nextorage NEM-PA 4TB has a 3,000 TB TBW, which should be good for thousands of hours of hard-wearing use. This is combined with 2GB of DDR4 DRAM cache which allows for higher sequential performance than cheaper DRAM-less options meaning top-end performance is very much attainable.
Performance
The Nextorage NEM-PA 4TB may not be the absolute fastest SSD for PS5, however, in my testing, it quickly became one of the most consistent. Sony’s internal console benchmark revealed a read speed of 6,276 MB/s when formatted for the system which is in line with several Gen 4 SSDs rocking these specs that I’ve tested in the past. It falls just short of the company’s claims of 6,500 MB/s, however, it still absolutely excels passed the minimum recommend rate of 5,500 MB/s that Sony itself recommends so it’s not an issue.
File transfer speeds show something which is fairly uncommon for high-capacity PS5 SSDs, and that’s due to the fact that the Nextorage NEM-PA 4TB actually speeds up when under heavier loads. It’s usually the opposite, as even flagship models start to slow down when larger file sizes are copied from the internal drive to the target NVMe. Not so here. You can take Crash Team Rumble (5.62GB) and Deathloop (29.69 GB) as examples here, which made the jump in 7 seconds and 26 seconds respectively, transferring over what translates to around 1 GB/sec. Not quite the fastest I’ve seen but still more than serviceable.
However, things become far more interesting when greatly increasing the file sizes. You only need to look as far as Death Stranding: Director’s Cut (69.35 GB) and Demon’s Souls (53.76 GB) which were written onto the Nextorage NEM-PA 4TB in only 53 seconds and 43 seconds a piece. It’s really impressive and consistent throughout, too. The same can be said of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (34.16 GB) which leaped over in 30 seconds. Considering the price point, which comes in much cheaper than the aforementioned top-end SSDs in 4TB capacity, you really can’t argue with the performance here.
Should you buy the Nextorage NEM-PA 4TB?
Buy it if…
You want a competitively priced high-capacity PS5 SSD
The Nextorage NEM-PA 4TB is one of the cheapest NVMe drives at this capacity but with the performance of far pricier drives.
You want a ton of space for more PS5 games
If you’re someone who downloads a lot from the PS Game Catalog or installs from discs, you won’t run out of room any time soon with the 4TB capacity here.
Don’t buy it if…
You want a smaller capacity PS5 SSD
While the Nextorage NEM-PA is a stellar SSD for the system, the pricing becomes far less aggressive at smaller capacities when compared to the competition.
A PS5 SSD is one of the best PS5 accessories you can get. You'll be able to enjoy more games available through the best monitors for PS5 or the best gaming TVs.
