Storage for PS4 Console

smr · 13 Mar 2020 at 16:11

Hi,

I've had a bit of a hiatus when it comes to gaming, at 36 I don't tend to play games much at all anymore. However, I bought a PS4 recently for my boys for Christmas, to replace the PS4 I bought at launch, which died about two years ago.

I'm amazed to see how big updates are for games these days... 70GB etc. for one game as soon as you install it, therefore I can only have several games on a 500GB drive.

So, I need more storage, wondering if it's best to replace the internal drive with an SSD, or buy an external SSD USB drive. Are there any particular brands which play better with PS4s than others. I like Sandisk and Crucial in terms of build quality.

Black Dog · 13 Mar 2020 at 16:40

You won't gain much advantage with SSD as the PS4 is not built for it. Your best off getting a 2tb Firecuda SSHD which is a hybrid drive and supposed to be very good with the PS4. You can use it internally of buy an external enclosure and use it externally. I think you can pick one up for around £80-£90. Save yourself some money and don't get a pure SSD.

TheVoice · 13 Mar 2020 at 17:52

I've got a 1TB SSD in mine, works really well. Some games benefit more than others but it's certainly much quicker than an HDD or SSHD in most games. I had one of the earlier 1TB Seagate SSHDs in my original PS4 which worked fairly well, but the newer 2TB ones are too aggressive at saving power and spin down of their own accord which causes performance issues.

ic1male · 14 Mar 2020 at 00:10

Black Dog said:
You won't gain much advantage with SSD as the PS4 is not built for it. Your best off getting a 2tb Firecuda SSHD which is a hybrid drive and supposed to be very good with the PS4. You can use it internally of buy an external enclosure and use it externally. I think you can pick one up for around £80-£90. Save yourself some money and don't get a pure SSD.

Not sure you’re right about the Firecuda. That drive seems to be more mither than it’s worth in PS4. There are a lot of forum posts on the web where it’s failed.

Black Dog · 14 Mar 2020 at 08:24

Can't say I've had any issues so far with the Firecuda.

smr · 14 Mar 2020 at 11:44

I guess even if the PS4 isn't optimised to take advantage of SSD drives there's the point of an SSD being essentially flash memory without spinning or moving parts, therefore less chance of the drive failing.

It's a compromise between price, performance and storage space. I'd like to go for 3-4TB as I think even 1TB might fill up quite quickly.

Scort · 15 Mar 2020 at 10:56

I have two 2TB drives on my Pro - one internal, t'other on the rear USB - get a fair few games on those. Iirc the standard drive is 5400 rpm, I believe my internal one is 7200 - which I noticed offered a slight load time improvement.

smr · 30 Mar 2020 at 11:41

Haven't bought one yet but will today, just shopping for a new drive but unsure whether to buy an external or internal. If I buy a new internal drive it means I lose all progress on saved games etc.

Also don't think the standard PS4 has a rear USB connection so an external USB drive would take up one of the two front USB ports.

Then there's me still deciding on which drive to get !

jokerguv · 30 Mar 2020 at 15:07

You can backup your save games on a thumb drive and restore these once the new drive is installed. This would only be an issue if you upgrade the internal drive. If you have a larger spare drive you can also make a full backup of the existing drive and restore from it once the new internal drive is installed.

Regarding whether internal or external, the internal drive could be slightly faster in terms of loading times than an external drive. But you'd you have to reinstall the system software, download/restore games and data after the upgrade.

With the external drive it should just be plug and play.

So really its just a question of whether you're faffed about the hassle of upgrading the internal drive or rather just get the external drive and be done with it.