How to Backup and Replace Your PlayStation 4 Hard Drive

[Julio Franco]

When the PlayStation 4 launched in 2013 its 500GB hard drive seemed like more than we could ever use, but the size of games has ballooned exponentially over the years. Upgrading your PS4 storage is not that difficult, so here's a quick guide to help users avoid headaches during the process. Grab your PS4, and let's get started.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/guides/1910-replace-ps4-hard-drive/

 

[Uncle Al]

While I don't have one, I recognize a well developed technical article and this is certainly a great one!

 

[rrwards]

Is there any chance you guys could do some sort of benchmarks comparing the different hard drives proposed to the stock drives? I'd be interested in seeing how much of a difference it would make, especially for comparable 5.4k rpm drives with large cache. I've got several spare WD blacks laying around, wondering if it's worth swapping.

 

[Vulcanproject]

Is there any chance you guys could do some sort of benchmarks comparing the different hard drives proposed to the stock drives? I'd be interested in seeing how much of a difference it would make, especially for comparable 5.4k rpm drives with large cache. I've got several spare WD blacks laying around, wondering if it's worth swapping.

Several benchmarks exist. The results are as you would expect, bigger 5400RPM drives help a bit, rare 7200RPM drives help a bit more, SSDs help a lot more.

It varies game to game, some games cut huge chunks of the loading time, others less so because they were never slow at loading in the first place.

If you're playing Fallout constantly on PS4 which has damn near 1 minute loads, then an SSD can halve that. If you're playing Gran Turismo with 15 second loads, then it doesn't really matter in the first place.

I always found the idea of increasing internal size by swapping in a $100 1TB SSD a bit perverse, unless the console was my only source of gaming goodness. The console is cheap, a 1TB drive alone costing half as much as the entire machine.

Best bet for me was either using a cheap $50 500GB SSD externally to store the slow loading games on, or going for a 2TB mechanical internal to boost size and improve loading a decent amount.

 

[Bluescreendeath]

While you are at it, you might as well take apart the rest and repaste your PS4's CPU if you're experiencing loud fan noises (assuming you're out of warranty). I repasted my PS4's thermal paste with MX-2 and it runs much quieter than before.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Is there any chance you guys could do some sort of benchmarks comparing the different hard drives proposed to the stock drives? I'd be interested in seeing how much of a difference it would make, especially for comparable 5.4k rpm drives with large cache. I've got several spare WD blacks laying around, wondering if it's worth swapping.

Several benchmarks exist. The results are as you would expect, bigger 5400RPM drives help a bit, rare 7200RPM drives help a bit more, SSDs help a lot more.

It varies game to game, some games cut huge chunks of the loading time, others less so because they were never slow at loading in the first place.

If you're playing Fallout constantly on PS4 which has damn near 1 minute loads, then an SSD can halve that. If you're playing Gran Turismo with 15 second loads, then it doesn't really matter in the first place.

I always found the idea of increasing internal size by swapping in a $100 1TB SSD a bit perverse, unless the console was my only source of gaming goodness. The console is cheap, a 1TB drive alone costing half as much as the entire machine.

Best bet for me was either using a cheap $50 500GB SSD externally to store the slow loading games on, or going for a 2TB mechanical internal to boost size and improve loading a decent amount.

I bought a 4TB Western Digital Passport for my Xbox One. The transfer speeds are slow enough to be annoyingly noticeable.

Unfortunately, SSD is still $100 per TB and as you point out, even a 1TB SSD costs half as much as the machine itself.

I did more gaming and backups of games on Xbox One than anything else (although I had more fun games on Xbox 360).

 

[Digitalzone]

I would recommend going the way of using external. Buy good external drive and external USB3 bay. Might use even 3.5 size with proper bay.
Cause this method will leave you with 3 drives - console one, backup one, the replacement one. If you don't have the backup drive, you have to buy it just for this.
I bought used (but low hour count) SSHD Seagate 500GB for my Xbox. Just separating the system drive and games drive makes system more lively.

 

[Ben Myers]

All I have to say is WOW! Why not 1TB SSD?

 

[usatrooper]

Just wanted to say thanks for the tutorial. I used this to upgrade my ps4 500gb to 2 TB Seagate Barracuda monster. It is currently in the restore process, and looks like it'll be done in about 90 mins, and hopefully Battlefield 1 will load waaaay faster with 128mb cache.

 

[Rkent]

Please reply asap. I ahve replaced my hdd to a 2tb seagate firecuda from amazon,it says there that itis ps4 compatible. But when I boot up the ps4 it doesnt go into "safe mode" like in the videos ive seen.the light just turns white after the 2nd beep but no signal on the tv.please help me...