PS5 ‘slim’ teardown shows the clever engineering of its detachable disc drive

The new PlayStation 5 hasn’t come out yet — it doesn’t even have a specific release date — but a few YouTubers have gotten their hands on it, including Dave Lee from the Dave2D channel. Lee posted his teardown of the console yesterday, and if you’ve been curious about how that detachable disc drive works, this is the best look you’ll get at it without buying the $499.99 PS5 yourself later this month.

After Lee pries off the PS5’s plastic side cover, you can see the drive sitting there with three screws staring back at you. I thought they were pentalobe screws at first, but a later zoomed-in shot shows they’re just standard crosshead screws. Philips head, if you like. Okay, no surprises there. Good.

But then it just pops right out. The screws were a red herring! Such sleek modularity!

When Lee pulls the drive aside, it reveals a port framed within an oblong hexagon where the drive’s connecter settles. This is what I loved about so much of the design of machines like the PowerMac G5. You see the part, you grab it, and you take it out — there’s no hard, angular plastic connector to stab your sweaty fingers as you wriggle it free. Very tasteful.

The drive aside, the new PS5 is a nice-looking system if you’re into the pointy Dracula collar look of the first one. And when Lee puts it next to the original, the size disparity is more drastic than past comparisons have made it seem, even if they’re really not that differently sized; it’s still larger than the Xbox Series X, after all. Lee says it feels significantly lighter, too — great for when you take your PS5 out for its afternoon walk (or over to your friend’s house).

Here’s the full video, if you’d like to check out the rest of the teardown.