How To Use An External Hard Drive With Your PlayStation 4

So, something new for PlayStation 4 owners is the ability to use an external hard drive. In system update 4.50 which has just been released for all PS4 and PS4 Pro owners, you can now use an external hard drive instead of having to put a larger internal hard drive in your system.

  • Plug your external Hard Drive into your PS4. It’s worth noting that you’ll need a USB 3.0 HDD. Most Hard drives on the market are now 3.0, but if you’ve got an old one lying around, it might not be compatible. It’ll also need to be 250gb at the absolute minimum and a maximum of 8TB
  • The new USB Extended Storage menu is located under Devices.
  • You’ll have to format a USB Hard Drive before you can use it. WARNING: This will delete any previous data on the Hard Drive.

33280471626_148281d188_o

  • Under Storage, you’ll now have system storage as well as Extended Storage.
  • You can now choose which is the primary install location as well as move applications and games between your internal hard drive and external hard drive. By default, the external HDD will be the default location for new installations as long as it’s plugged in.

32506968653_a83b24818a_o

  • It’s also worth noting that you can only have one external hard drive connected to your PS4 at any given time.

33321101765_4a24fcb6c2_o

  • There’s also an extremely safe way to stop using an external storage solution. If you hold down the PlayStation button and access the quick menu, you can hit ‘Stop Using Extended Storage’ to safely disconnected. At this point the game tiles which are stored on the external hard drive will disappear from your PlayStation until it’s reconnected.

So there you have it. It seems incredibly similar to the external hard drive solution available on Xbox One. We’d recommend that you leave the external hard drive plugged in at all times unless it’s absolutely necessary for you to remove it. It’ll give your data a better chance at staying non-corrupt.