The Mysterious Case Of The PS5's 'Other' Storage

Since its launch on Nov 12, 2020, the PlayStation 5 has had its fair share of ups and downs. However, something that has come to the attention of the lucky few who were able to get their hands on the system is leaving owners boggled. Upon downloading games onto the PS5's hard drive, users have noticed that a significant percentage of their storage is taken up by data labeled as "Other."

The PS5's console storage is broken up into four categories: Games and Apps, Media Gallery, Saved Data, and the infamous Other. The other three categories are pretty self explanatory, but Other is a bit mysterious. The ambiguity of this category has left users confused since the number can inflate when downloading data onto the PS5.

The PS5 comes with 825GB of storage, but you can only use 667.2GB of the space for games, apps, and media. So to have a good portion of the storage being taken up by something that isn't specified can be frustrating, especially if you're trying to free up some space.

In an article from Kotaku, the outlet reported that Other is "earmarked 'for system data needed for games and apps to work properly.'" Additionally, Kotaku stated that the amount of space that is taken up is entirely dependent on how you're using your console.

To give more context, Kotaku conducted an experiment. The publication discovered that when PlayStation 4 games are downloaded onto the PS5, the data taken up in Other went up significantly. When Kotaku tried this test with PS5 exclusives, the data in Other did go up, but not to the same degree as a PS4 game. Based on this experiment, Kotaku concluded that backwards-compatible PS4 games will take up "15 to 25 percent extra storage space" on a PS5. It was noted that deleting or moving games to an external storage device will help free up space, regardless if it's a PS4 or PS5 game.

However, there are some weird occurrences that were discovered. When media such as videos are deleted, Other will go up, but the storage in Media Gallery will go down. Additionally, certain games such Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition and Sackboy: A Big Adventure will cause Other to decrease.

While Other still remains a bit of a mystery, there is something you can do to help save frustration and storage space. As of right now, the best method of handling this storage issue is to get a PS5 compatible external storage device and put all of your PS4 games in there. At the moment, it is known that PS4 games cause this mysterious category to take up more space, so your best bet is to minimize any PS4 games that you have downloaded on your PS5.