Tag Archives: Sonos

Sonos memory capacity

There’s an excellent chart on Reddit (and a slightly different one on Sonos’s forum) plotting the amount of memory each Sonos device has built into it. This has increased over the years.

I thought I’d do a table with this info, but also with the year of release, and the new crop of devices just released.

And I’ve also added a column noting if each device supports voice commands (which take more memory) and is compatible with the new Sonos operating system S2 (introduced August 2020), or whether users of these are stuck on S1.

(There are a few gaps which hopefully I’ll fill over time. And I’ve deliberately excluded non-playing accessories such as the Bridge and Controllers. For now I also haven’t included the Sub, which is not a standalone player.)

DeviceYears soldMemoryStorageVoice S1 or S2Supports SonosNetReplaced by
ZonePlayer 1002005-08??NoS1YZonePlayer 120
ZonePlayer 802006-08??NoS1YZonePlayer 90
ZonePlayer 120
aka Connect:AMP
2008-153232NoS1YConnect:AMP (gen 2)
ZonePlayer 90
aka Connect
2008-153232NoS1YConnect (gen 2)
Play:52009-153232NoS1YPlay:5 (gen 2)
Play:32011-186464NoS1 or S2Y
Playbar2013-20128128NoS1 or S2YArc
Play:12013-1712864NoS1 or S2YOne
Play:5 (gen 2)2015-20256256NoS1 or S2YFive
Playbase2017-20256256NoS1 or S2YArc
Connect (gen 2)2015-19256256NoS1 or S2YPort
Connect:AMP (Gen 2)2015-19??NoS1 or S2YAmp
One2017-1910241024YesS1 or S2YOne (gen 2) / One SL
Beam2018-2110241024YesS1 or S2YBeam (gen 2)
Amp2019-10241024NoS1 or S2Y
One (gen 2)2019-202310241024YesS1 or S2YEra 100
Symfonisk Lamp2019-512256NoS1 or S2Y
Symfonisk Bookshelf2019-512256NoS1 or S2Y
Port2019-512512NoS1 or S2Y
Move2019-10241024YesS1 or S2N
One SL2019-512512NoS1 or S2Y
Arc2020-10244096YesS2Y
Five2020-512512NoS2Y
Roam2021-10244096YesS2N
Beam (gen2)2021-10244096YesS2Y
Roam SL2022-10244096NoS2Y
Ray2022-10244096NoS2Y
Era 1002023-10248192YesS2N
Era 3002023-81928192YesS2N

There’s certainly a pattern there.

Devices with at least 64Mb storage and 64Mb memory can support S2, but others can’t.

Voice command support appears to require at least 1024 Mb of storage and the same of memory.

S2 was the first big move in the 15 years since the first devices were released that they left behind some legacy devices on an older version. (Though in 2018 they did do an update which dropped support for their CR100 controller, sold from 2005-09, and long replaced for most users by iPads and smartphones.)

S1 will continue to get security and bug fixes – but not new features. And those users can get a 30% voucher for upgrades (and still use the older devices if they want – initially Sonos’s unwise idea was to brick them, but they changed that scheme).

S2 has only been out for a few weeks, so it’s unclear how quickly new features will be added. And from a software development perspective, under the hood there may have been a great culling of legacy code, which might be good for performance and stability (not that either have been a big issue in my use of Sonos).

Hopefully it’s another decade or more before they decide to exclude more older devices from the latest and greatest.

Updates: Updated with new models. Added SonosNet column, as some new models don’t support it.

Update 2024-11-13: As new products continue to come out, I probably won’t keep updating, but Wikipedia has a similar table.