Facepalm: Sandisk has unveiled a new line of SSDs designed to expand the PlayStation 5's storage capacity. To no one's surprise, the new drives are priced more like luxury hardware than an affordable storage upgrade for a mass-market home console.

The US memory manufacturer has launched the Optimus GX PRO 850P SSD lineup, which includes storage drives specifically designed for the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro. While high-capacity SSDs are already expensive, Sandisk's PS5-branded drives push pricing to an entirely different level.

The Optimus GX PRO 850P lineup includes four NVMe SSDs with capacities ranging from 1TB to 8TB. The 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB models are priced at $380, $760, $1,500, and $2,960, respectively. Sandisk is also offering introductory discounts on the drives, suggesting their regular retail prices will be even higher once the promotion ends.

Sandisk said the Optimus GX PRO 850P SSDs are officially licensed by Sony and feature an exclusive heatsink design with a PS5 logo on top. The PCIe 4.0 drives have reportedly been optimized for the console's internal M.2 expansion slot, although they are also compatible with any PC motherboard that supports the M.2 2280 form factor.

Additional specifications include support for the NVMe 1.4 protocol, sequential read speeds of up to 7,300 MB/s, and sequential write speeds ranging from 6,300 MB/s on the 1TB model to 6,600 MB/s on the 8TB version. Endurance ranges from 600 TBW for the 1TB drive to 4,800 TBW for the 8TB model, while every SSD is backed by a five-year limited warranty.

Sandisk describes the Optimus GX PRO 850P lineup as a "no-compromise" storage solution that can significantly expand the number of games stored on a PS5 at once. However, the company neglected to mention that the 8TB model now costs about as much as five PS5 consoles. Only the 1TB version is currently "cheaper" than the console itself, and even that comparison is based on the higher PS5 prices Sony introduced earlier this year.

Unlike the Xbox Series X and Series S, the PS5 uses a standard M.2 NVMe SSD for expandable storage. If Sandisk's pricing is too steep, plenty of third-party alternatives can expand the console's storage at a much lower cost.

The Optimus GX PRO 850P drives are the latest example of hardware affected by ongoing supply chain pressures in the memory industry. The retail SSD market is shrinking, while consumer electronics prices continue to climb because of rising memory costs. AI companies are buying up virtually every memory chip they can secure, even though many planned US data center projects for 2026 have yet to materialize.