Everything about external hard drive on PS4
Sony's latest major update to its PS4 consoles (version 4.50) allows you to add external storage to your PS4 with a USB 3.0 port. This way, you can increase the PS4 storage for your games and applications. To do this, you can buy a Seagate Game Drive or a PS4 USB drive and free up even more free time for games.
If you are an active gamer, the extended storage will be very useful, as the PS4 speed will slow down over time due to the ones stored on the internal hard drive. And external storage will offload your internal drive and thereby increase its performance.
You can easily move applications to an external drive, and keep the saved data, video clips, snapshots in the system storage.
In addition, an external hard drive allows you to watch movies at any time, while improving the quality of their playback.
How to add an external drive?
Protect your data
If, after adding an external hard drive on a PS4, you notice that your games or other data has been lost, do not panic. This can happen to every user, and you may well forget about prematurely backing up some data.
If this happens to you, you are still a little in luck, as this article will help you solve your problem with DiskInternals Partition Recovery, a great professional application. There are no restrictions on the format and size of lost files, moreover, for those who are not familiar with data recovery, there is a built-in wizard that guides you step by step until all your data is in a safe place. You can also use the free adware version of DiskInternals Partition Recovery.
Only after making sure of the quality and speed of recovery, you can purchase a license and, using a unique individual key, export data to any data source.
Another secret and at the same time free for all users function of this application is creating a disk image (by the way, one of the most frequently used functions of this application). You can pre-compile a disk image and save it to another data store until an unforeseen situation occurs, such as the current situation.
It should be noted that DiskInternals Partition Recovery is not a beginner at all, but a rooted program with over 15 years of experience that helps users with different levels of programming knowledge to recover data regardless of the cause and age of data loss. Therefore, you can be sure that this application will help you to restore the storage right now, no matter how difficult and incomprehensible the situation may be for you!
Preparations
Proper preparation is very important in the process of adding an external storage device to your PS4.
You need an external hard drive with a USB 3.0 port and a large capacity (250 GB minimum). A 2 TB external PS4 hard drive is most commonly used, but you can use storage up to 8 TB. However, the external hard drive must be connected directly and you cannot connect the external drive to the console via a USB hub. And keep in mind that the PlayStation will only recognize one external drive at a time.
In addition, the PlayStation 4 system must be updated to version 4.50 or higher for Sony to add support for external hard drives to the PS4.
Well, and the last condition - your external hard drive must have the exFAT file system, so make the necessary formatting in advance only inside the PlayStation.
Note: Since formatting will erase all data on the current drive, you should have a backup of all necessary files at your fingertips.
Connect the disk
Now you need to connect the external HDD to your PS4,before that please update your PlayStation 4 system to version 4.50 or newer.
Connect your external hard drive to your PS4 directly through the USB port on your console instead of a USB hub, and set that external hard drive as the default location for all your downloads and installations.
Format the disk
Next, you need to reformat the PS4 external hard drive directly in the console or using disk management on your computer.
After you have connected your USB storage device to the USB port on your PS4,open your PS4 and go to Settings. Next, select Devices, then click on select the USB drives and external hard drive you just connected.
Then click the "Format as extended storage" button, after which a prompt with the message "This device will be formatted" will appear on the screen. Next, click "Format" and then you will see that this device will be formatted as extended storage.
Transfer data
The next step is to transfer data (games and applications) of the PS4 to an external hard drive.
To do this, also go to PS4 settings, select Storage from the list and click on System Storage.
Next, select Applications and select the Options menu. Now you need to click "Move to Extended Storage", check the boxes for the applications that you want to move and click the "Move" button. Then click OK and wait for the transfer process to complete.
Change download location
Next, you can configure your PlayStation to store apps on external storage by changing the app installation location.
In the Settings, select PlayStation Storage and press the Options menu button.
Next, select Extend Storage, then click "Application Install Location" and click in the Extended Storage submenu.
Save your changes, and now you can store downloaded applications and add-ons on external storage. This, as mentioned above, will help speed up your PS4 and prove its worth.
Remove USB Stick
When you no longer need the USB storage on your PS4, you can disconnect it.
To do this, you need to hold the PS button and you will be taken to the quick menu.
Next, select Sound / Devices and click on "Stop using extended storage", save the changes.
Alternatively, you can go to PS4 Settings, select Devices, then click USB drives and activate the Stop using this extended storage option. Now, just save your changes and you can remove your external hard drive.