More security screws line the path forward. One of them even lives under a tamper-evident sticker—thankfully not a "Warranty Void" sticker, which would be illegal. (As always, you get to tinker and keep your warranty so long as you don't damage anything.)

As we remove the first half of the black plastic shell, we're greeted by the optical drive.

The slender optical drive doesn't put up much of a fight coming out—which would be good for potential replacements, until you actually try a replacement.

Just like the Xbox Series X, our test results indicate that the PS5's optical drive is paired to its motherboard. A replacement drive simply won't read discs.

There might be a workaround if you're willing to disassemble the drive and keep the original circuit board. We'll update if we get a chance to test that.