Space might be a bit of an issue in the next generation, with bigger games perhaps pushing downloads closer to 50GB in some cases. While the PS4 will come with 500GB of internal storage, I can see this becoming problematic in a few years.
It’s a shame, then, that you won’t be able to expand the game storage of the PS4 with an external hard drive. This comes, once again, from the brilliant Shuhei Yoshida on twitter, who responded to the question – as he usually does – with a quick “no”:
@_Tracid_ no
— Shuhei Yoshida (@yosp) August 31, 2013
Presumably you will still presumably be able to store music, videos, photos to view on the system, and even copy over game saves as you can with the PS3 currently. You can, however, upgrade the internal hard drive of the system.
The Xbox One will support external storage for everything that the console does, including games, and the Wii U (at only 32GB internally) allows for storage of games on an external hard drive. Are Sony missing a trick here?
leeroye
Dont see this as a problem, its pretty easy to upgrade the internal HDD.
Bilbo_bobbins
I don’t understand how this will be a problem a few years down the line? Internal storage can be upgraded so where is the problem?
RocketSOL
What’s the biggest HDD we can currently have in the console, anyone know?
rept0n
Think it comes down to the form factor – likely to be 2.5 rather than 3.5, and that seems limited to 1TB at the moment.
Glad the PS4 comes out a couple of weeks early in the US… gives people time to test performance of larger HDDs, Hybrid SSD and SSD. Then I have time to order the best performing high capacity HDD for the PS4 and not have to worry.
At the moment I’d consider:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-750GB-Momentus-Serial-Hybrid/dp/B0068QO82G/
…but considering I have a 1TB in my PS3, a 2TB drive is probably the optimum capacity.
RocketSOL
Cheers. I’ll have to keep an eye out closer to release then. I don’t think i’ll use up 500GB very quick but it would be nice to have something bigger anyway.
The Von Braun
It was so easy to swap out the HDD on the PS3 that by the time my Phat went belly up, a cack-handed gimp like myself did it with ease.
I’d expect it to be as easy on PS4 so really do not see anything to be concerned about here.Not so much Sony ‘missing a trick’, rather preventing a trick being used when it comes to piracy.
tatoemonkey
while we are on this here does anyone actually know the size of the hdd in the ps4 I’m not talking saving space wise I mean will it be 3.5 or 2.5? I am hoping to swap out the hdd pretty much well on the 30th Nov :) For an SSD if I can find one big enough.
Zephyre
Any word on what usable space is out of the 500GB drive? Any pre-installed programmes you can’t get rid of? OS requirements? if they start reserving space out of the box, 500GB could be tight very quickly
Dazbobaby
As long as Sony’s net is fast enough then re-downloading games should be ok for some if not most people.
On a side note, I butchered a phatty and had it running off an external 5¼ inch HDD. It wasn’t tidy but it was as fast as…
I know it’ll be 2½ inch drives Sony will install, but I hope they don’t and go with 5¼ faster drives.
As for transfer speeds off USB 2 or 3, it’s still faster than a 2½ can manage. Plus if Sony lock the drive down with encryption and ZFS it’ll probably still stay secure.
Starman
What I’m wondering is can you swap a HDD to another ps4 (if it dies or whatever) without it wiping it with a mandatory format? When my ps3 died and I swapped the HDD into another, all data was lost in the formatting.
freezebug2
Highly doubtful given the current security protocols. If they allowed that practice then external USB HDD’s would be acceptable for storing games etc. and hackers would be jizzing.
Starman
That explains it. Thanks.
tatoemonkey
lol
Roynaldo
The second I breach 400gb used on my ps4 I will be upgrading. Just need to know which sata I’m buying. Think ps3 was 5400 or something like that.
Voolar
According to “Major Nelson”, the Xbox One won’t support External Hard Drives at launch. It’s something they “want” to bring later next year apparently. To be honest, as long as the PS4 supports a back up / restore like the PS3, I won’t consider changing the Hard Drive until space starts to become an issue…