Guide: How to Attach an External HDD to Your PS4

I'd still like to know if anyone has tried to connect more than one external hard drive, and if it actually works. Just something that I was wondering. Other than that, I'm still waiting for an update where the movies and tv episodes you buy from the Playstation store, can be downloaded onto your system...especially if you go somewhere, have no internet service, and want to watch one of them.

The fact this even exists is scary.

Guess 3 years with proprietary cards and no HDD externals will require some refreshing of the brains huh?

Seriously its great its here and uses USB-3 but that raises questions of why so long.

Still itll be nice to use as my 1TB is near full with next to nothing on it, because everything has to install.

I really hate that there are no rear USB ports now.

Thanks for the helpful video @get2sammyb
Seeing as I only have two usb ports,one for VR and one for charging controllers will the VR or External storage work from an hub?

@get2sammyb Do you know if I can use an external HDD to back up all my digital content, buy a Pro and restore games from the external HDD?

@get2sammyb - Can I get the link to the timeline version of the site? I meant to put it in my favs but forgot.

Finally caught up with Wii U then, well done Sony

Looks now like the slim and Pro should have been designed with 4 usb ports.

Anyone know about how well a 3.0 usb hub works with a PS4 and if an external hdd will work as well as if plugged into a usb port on the console.

@chiptoon Haha I was just thinking that, external HDD support from day 1!

@get2sammyb Do I have any questions? Always.

1. So this can be either USB powered or outlet powered? Does it need a Y adaptor if USB powered, Wii U supposedly did but I never used one.

2. Can it be, have you tried, a 3.0 USB thumb/flash drive? Those dont' have much storage space but they also don't take up as much physical space either. 128GB $30 on Amazon.

3. "your external HDD will become the default location"
Are there any options besides default? I'd really like for the PS4 to ask me where to download things. Options are good. Otherwise it feels like all open space on the internal storage is going to waste.

3a. Do discs automatically also install to the external?

3b. What happens if my 500GB internal has 320GB free and my 500GB external is full, will the PS4 say - "Sorry, no room to download or install.". Will it then add "Please move games from your external to your internal storage to make more room." I haven't quite filled up my internal yet so I don't even know what happens when that gets full.

4. Is loading noticeably slower from external than internal. Try it with FFXV, I could take a shower after I hit "Load game" as it was.

5. Do saves default to external? I trust the internal storage more than external, my external burned out, up in a poof of smoke, on my Wii U, which is why I switched to a thumbdrive.

6. Can you hook it up to more than 1 PS4? I transferred all of my save files from my 1 PS3 to the other w/ a thumbdrive back before I had PS+. I doubt it would, but figured you'd have original, Slim and Pro PS4 to try it out on all with the same user ID.

7. More a request than a question - try out some hubs please, we have the Skylanders Imaginators portal plugged into the PS4 and are thinking about getting Lego Dimensions on it as well, that would cover my 2 USB on my Slim so we would need a portal. We have one on the nearing retirement Wii U, suppose I could always move it over and give it a go, but I'll let you try first.

Think that's it for now, thanks.

@chiptoon not fully. PS4 now only supports ONE external HDD while Wii U supports 2

installing on the external drive doesn't work for me. it always installs on the system drive no matter what I select.

@rjejr
1. yes. as only USB 3.0 drives are supported and PS4 has USB 3.0 ports you don't need a Y-cable
2. def. not the 128 GB one, minumum size has to be 250 GB
3. you can always revert back to installing on the system HDD
3a. yes
3b. it tells you that you have to delete things on your external, it doesn't automatically switch to the internal..you have to select that manually
5. save data can't be moved to the external at all, it's only for games
6. yes

Glad to see memory cards are finally making a come back!!

@get2sammyb No rush, but you did ask in the video, "Any questions?"It's at the 3:04-3:06 mark.

It's ok, I know this was simply the "How to attach" article, and the "How does it work in practice" article is probably coming, and you'll answer all of these questions then, but again, you asked.

@manu0 Thank you very much. See @get2sammyb people around here know things, never hurts to ask. Well sometimes it does, people call me mean names when I ask stupid questions, but besides that...

Thanks again manu0 that 250GB min pretty much means no flash as it would be cheaper to just get a HDD at that size. The OS telling you to delete stuff when the external is full is kind of stupid if you have free internal space to move it to, maybe nobody at Sony thought of that. Or they just assumed people would only buy an external if internal was full. Though I know some people would probably buy a 2TB and hook it up day 1, leaving 500GB internal empty, well except for saves. Forgot about USB 3.0 having enough power so no Y cable necessary.

Whilst it is absolutely great, I do think they are still behind Xbox in terms of handling data. I am not bothered about not being able to plug in 2 External devices like you can on Xbox but I am a little disappointed that you don't have as much control over where the data is downloaded or installed to. On the Xbox, you have the option to set any HDD (the internal or up to 2 externals) as the default option and can change this at any time easily without having to remove or disable the external(s).

Like I said though, its absolutely great that Sony have finally caught up and added External support. Just wish it had arrived before the Pro launched as it would have made transferring my games over a LOT easier and quicker. Also wouldn't have needed to buy a 2TB internal for the same price I could have bought a 5TB external!

Better late than never!

@BAMozzy you still can't delete DLC without deleting the game. which is especially annoying for the playroom. i stupidly downloaded the DLC for that at some point (which I don't even need) and now I can't uninstall it. and guess what? you can't delete the playroom! so now i'm forever stuck with that useless DLC. lol
the only way to get rid of it would be to format the PS4

@rjejr I wouldn't recommend using a flash drive as an external for anything, really. Solid state USB drives have a much lower read/write limit than say, an external HDD. A normal PS4 game in the 20-30GB range will be doing A LOT of work on a thumb drive. Better to spend the extra $30 and get an actual external.

@manu0 WiiU also requires you to use a wall powered external, or risk the chance that the power cuts out mid read/write and corrupts your entire drive

@RedMageLanakyn well that's a limitation of USB 2.0, y-cable also works

@manu0 Ah, but then you can't use two!

Edit: I guess you technically could if you had one using y cable and one using external....if the wiiu can handle that much.

Can you tell us which HDD you'd recommend I'm not sure what 3.0 is and never had one so this is all new to me? I've only heard of sea gate brand

@get2sammyb I was just wondering about media on the HDD. Can I finally play my extensive collection of HSBS 3D blurays on my PSVR? I've got two HDD's. One 1TB NTFS with all my media and one 500GB exfat for the PS4. Can I now play these files directly from the exfat HDD? Or is it solely used for downloads from PSN and game saves?

@belmont Yes you can that is exactly what I did when I upgraded from the PS4 to Pro.

@BAMozzy You could have backed up all your games and data to an external hard drive and transfer to a new system the feature was already there. I backed up about 800 GB to transfer to my Pro.

@RedMageLanakyn or you could just use the other two usb ports
Wii U has 4 USB ports

@GBMatthew the backup process is incredibly slow on PS4. upgrading from my filled up 500 GB drive took 6 hours I think. plus you need an additional HDD. with the new external HDD support you can just plug it into the new console.

@GBMatthew Thanks! I have a good HSSD on PS4. I want to buy a Pro, back up in an external drive, put the HSSD on Pro end restore the back up.

@RedMageLanakyn Really? I just use a generic usb 3 flash drive on the wii u... Works fine. I don't want bulky things and more cables around a console. I can't stand them!

@GBMatthew I probably could have done but then I would have been left with a external HDD that at the time would have just gathered dust in the hope that Sony would one day add support. I had already just spent £350 on the console as well as another £110 on a 2TB upgrade so spending more for an external just to back up data to transfer over to the PS4 Pro which I can do for free by other methods didn't make sense. Its not like I needed an External or had a spare lying around doing nothing and as Sony seemed very reluctant to catch up , it didn't seem that they would ever add External support so would have been a very expensive way of doing things.

Point I was making is that IF Sony had put this in before the Pro launched, I would have bought an External HDD as soon as the update was available. Then when the Pro released, I wouldn't have needed to buy a 2TB internal and it would have been so much easier to just unplug the External from my PS4 and into the Pro and would have been gaming within minutes instead of the hours it took to swap out the internal and transfer the data through my router.

@Wazeddie22 @get2sammyb according to the video posted by PlayStation Access, it needs to be plugged in directly.

@hi_drnick Damn,thanks for letting me know before I go off and buy one.That complicates things then..

@JLPick That does not work, it was reported a few weeks ago. You have to pick which hdd to use or set as extended storage

@manu0 what manu said

@belmont I'd rather be safe than sorry when it comes to things like save data. I guess it does depend on if it's worth the risk to you, and your affinity for cable tolerance/management. I'm ok with an extra couple wires to help secure my data.

@manu0 Oh I know, that's why i said "if" the wiiu could handle it, you could run a y cable HDD and an external. I wouldn't test it though, wiiu units are getting harder and harder to find, wouldn't want to burn mine out (at least until I'm done with BOTW)

@manu0 but the WiiU does not support any internal storage

@RedMageLanakyn The problem is that the internal disk on the Wii U is flash also, yet Nintendo claims we should not use flash as external drive. It really makes no sense.

@belmont Yeah you'd have to ask them on that one. I always make backups regardless, can never be too safe with important data.

@RedMageLanakyn why wouldn't wii u be able to handle that and break? lol
I'm doing exactly that quite regularly to backup my stuff from my one permanently hooked up external HDD to another one I use for backups.

@manu0 I guess there's something about the wiiu that just makes me nervous in terms of it's power draw and data transfer capabilities. I've had a few issues with mine so I tend to lean towards caution when it comes to using it with multiple externals.

@get2sammyb Hi Sammy, I have a question that I've not seen asked/answered anywhere yet. I replaced the 500GB HDD that was originally in my ps4 with a 1TB HDD a few years back. I still have the original 500GB HDD. Can I use the original 500GB HDD as an external HDD if I insert it in a USB 3.0 caddy and connect it to the PS4?

@get2sammyb Many thanks for your help.

Hey I really need to know- if you have 2 external hard drives plugged in to the two usb slots where the dualshocks would be, can you transfer data from one to the other?