The Crucial T500 SSD is a new, modern, cavernous, and high-speed solid-state disk that comes in a tiny package. It's perfect for any PCIe-capable PC, and is perfectly designed to slot into the PlayStation 5 too. In fact, it includes a low-profile integrated heatsink that ensures the drive will keep cool and dissipate heat no matter how hard you game.

Most computer users already know you can add disks to your rig; open up the case and so long as you have a spare PCIe slot and power cable you can plug it right in. Boot back into your operating system - Windows or Linux, say, and let it detect the new disk and set it up for you.

Perhaps less known is you can also easily add storage space to your PlayStation 5 too. And with modern games coming in at way over 100GB each - Destiny 2 and Call of Duty for just two examples - a big disk is an excellent way of avoiding the pain of swapping games in and out when you want to play them.

Best of all, the PlayStation 5 doesn't need you to take the internal storage out; you might not be aware it has a dedicated expansion slot that's empty and ready and waiting for you to fill it with a PCIe NVMe SSD - it's as if Sony knew Crucial were on the job of making a new disk right for the job.

The PlayStation 5 will allow you to add USB-based storage but you cannot run PS5 games from it because it doesn't have sufficient throughput. You can thus use the USB storage to temporarily store PS5 games, and you can also launch PS4 games from it, but PS5 games can only be played from high-speed disks. Out of the box that means the built-in internal storage, but with the Crucial T500 you can have another option.

It's super easy. Let iTWire show you how.

First, get ready. Unplug the PS5 and place it on a table. Make sure you are discharged from static electricity.

Slide the back cover off. You'll see a slot for the new storage near the fan. It's the silver metal piece in this photo.

Unscrew the metal cover, and keep the screw safe. Inside, there's another screw - take it out, slot the Crucial T500 SSD in, and then use that screw to tighten it in. Next, replace the silver metal cover and screw it back, then put the PS5 cover back on. Plug it all back in.

It's really that simple.

Next, start the PS5 up and you'll see it's found your new disk and says you need to prepare it for use:

The PS5 will prepare the disk. Now you can escape the cramped feeling of the built-in internal storage:

Instead, you can enjoy the huge cavernous space of the new Crucial T500 -

Look at that! 2TB of extra disk space, and you've not had to remove anything at all from the internal disk. And, it literally only takes minutes to install the Crucial T500. If you are finding yourself having to juggle your PS5 storage then the Crucial T500 SSD really is a no-brainer; you might even consider it a mandatory, essential upgrade for your PlayStation.

Of course, you can use it with your PC too - the Crucial T500 is a PCIe 4.0 NVMe 2280 M.2 SSD and will work in your computer, provided your motherboard supports that.

It's a high-quality device too; the Crucial T500 is a 2TB drive built-with Micron 232-layer 3D TLC NAND, includes an integrated heatsink, uses Micron LPDDR4 DRAM, 1ith 1GB per 1TB of NAND flash, has a Phison PS5025-E25 controller, and is backward compatible with PCIe 3.0 too.

If you opt to use it in a PC, it's optimised for Microsoft DirectStorage with Phison I/O technology, and has TRIM support.

Further, it is built with multi-layer data integrity algorithms, has adaptive thermal protection, has built-in data protection for power loss events, active garbage collection, self-monitoring and reporting technology (SMART), error correction code (ECC), and NVMe autonomous power state transition (APST) support. In short - this is one tough drive that's been engineered for reliability, precision, and performance. It's from Crucial, a brand that's been supplying storage and RAM for decades to gamers and enterprises alike.

The Crucial T500 has a five-year warranty and is available now.