The problem with that is it's a pain to have to open up your console, unscrew the drive, remove it, replace it with the new one, close everything up again, and then having to format the drive and re-download everything you had on the old one again. External drives just make things so much easier.
It's an informative video to be sure. Though I would have liked for them to have compared a few external Hard Drives against each other. I'd like to know how the different external drives compare, and what the best options are for when looking for an external drive.
Morrowind on the original Xbox took around 5 mins (from what I remember) to load the game. I had a C64 too but can't remember if it took a bit to load the floppys. Those gold box AD&D games were the best.
I have a PS4 PRO and i am glad i switched from the original PS4. The upgrade for the difference in price between the original PS4 and PS4 PRO is an absolute steal. Having SATA III in the PS4 PRO and a Solid State Drive installed in it, makes the PS4 PRO a super fast, powerhouse of a console. I should know, as i have a 1TB SSD in mine and the loading times in games are near non-existent. Mass Effect Andromeda loads in 10 seconds when going to a planet. Installed games load even faster! Get a PS4 PRO, get a solid state drive, put that inside the PS4 PRO, use the 1TB hard drive that was originally inside the PS4 PRO as an external hard drive and thank me later.
you forgot you bought a PS4 then a PS4 Pro, online subs the entire generation and then a 480gb SSD just so you can play games without having to delete and re-install every time you want to play something different. Thats about £1000. But you dont have a 480gb SSD do you, you said a 1TB, so you downplayed it a touch ;) Then i asked at what cost. So make that £1000+
I have a 250 gb ssd just laying around, if I install it internally and use a 1 tb hdd externally, will ii get faster load times? You guys seem to know something.
Yes for PS4 games they can all run from the ext drive .. xbox I'm guessing must load data in the background , so it needs to be able to get that data quickly, I know the X and S games need to be on the internal SSD or the SSD expansion to run, although older gen games can run on these newer consoles from an external drive, even if the ext drive is a standard HDD .. hope that helps
just a word of warning; if you're going to use an external drive you should definitely remember to go to [devices/stop using external storage] before you turn off your console, otherwise you may find yourself getting hit with a drive corruption when you next turn on your console. it allows you to repair the drive, which is usually fine, but not always. it happened to me a week or so ago and I had to reformat the drive from scratch to get it working again. bit of a pain in the arse if you're on a slow connection. anyway, with some luck they'll automate the safe disconnection of the external hard drive in a future update, but for now, be aware.
Kim Sanderhoff I'm not entirely sure and I'm hesitant to test it personally (my 1tb HDD is almost full and I'm in no hurry to redownload it all again on my cans-and-string internet connection). That said, yesterday I did turn off my console after forgetting to stop the HDD, but I had already quit out of the application. when I turned the console back on it didn't tell me to repair the drive, so... either is already been addressed in a patch that I didn't notice installing, or it's safe to turn off the console if you're not physically accessing anything on the external drive when you do... either way, I'm wary of leaving my console in suspend mode if I'm away for more than a few hours lest a power outage occur and corrupt my data, until some clarity on the issue arises anyway.
Orias rest mode is fine, assuming there's no power outage, turning the power off all together, not so much. another factor that might be relevant is that I've enabled peripheral charging when in rest mode, so the HDD retains it's power. I am not entirely sure if external drives retain their power without it turned on. further testing required.
Taran Charlton-Blore my External shuts off when I put my PS4 into rest mode unless something is downloading but my External is one that plugs into an outlet
There is also SSHD's from seagate available. They come in sizes from 500gb to 2TB. They have an SSD cache built in that will give you near SSD speeds after the first few loads in any game. They don't cost much more then a regular HDD either. Downside to these drives is if you switch back and forth between a bunch of games you won't see much of an advantage. If your the type who starts a game and keeps playing until the end then it's an easy choice. Honestly unless you need more then 2TB there really isn't much reason not to use an SSHD over a traditional drive for an extra 10 or 20 bucks.
@Digital Foundry, now that it is nearly June of 2019, and the PS4 has been updated to OFW 6.50+, could you re-run some tests using some of the faster SSD's of today? I saw a video from someone else that was testing the loading speeds from older models of PS4 firmware's vs today's newer firmwares, and the firmware's alone were loading and booting the console up faster. I would like to see what the difference is for today's best SSD's and the newest firmwares combined, please. If there is a decent difference, I would finally like to upgrade. Also, is there any difference from loading games on the PS4 Pro with the newest firmware using USB 3.0 HDD's and SSD's? Would be nice to see a re-test, all things considered. Technology moves at a steady pace, and this video of yours is a few years old now.
Hey DigitalFoundry, it'll be great to include a SSHD in comparison, by having it in the system and also in an USB enclosure. Since SSHD is a great option of having capacity:price:speed balance, I believe a lot of PS4 owners will love to see how it stacks up with other disk drives. Thanks!
I agree; I'm guessing it was 7200rpm too. Based on the thickness of the drive when they show it, it definitely looks like a full sized desktop drive in a USB enclosure. Tom's comment half way through the video that external is always faster than internal neglects to point out that he's specifically referring to the drives they tested here. It likely won't be faster if you're using a cheap USB drive that is also 5400rpm like the stock drive. But it's really good to know that there isn't a significant performance hit if you do decide to use an external drive.
And if I recall correctly you can transfer between the two and put the current game your playing on the ssd, then move it over to the external after you are done.
Yes, thought the process isn't very fast and "on the fly" especially for those huge 50-60gb games. For dome reason ps4 re-encrypts game data when moving between storages.
Yea, except, some may have a gaming PC already. And somehow It doesn't make em poke a silly self-affirming agenda onto others faces. And it does not even prevent those people from enjoying games on other platforms.
There was a warning and it specifically told you it would format the drive for use with the PS4 before you do it. You can even see the moment it tells you it'll wipe all data on the drive in this video.
I can't believe that SSD + External enclosure idea didn't click didn't even cross my mind til you showed it on the video. Just for that thanks a million.
I currently use a 500gb SSD for my PS4. Don't have spare cash for an external again currently but I have had in the past for my PS4 and it's a great investment :)
I just bought a 4TB Western Digital external drive last weekend. With the 2TB in my PS4 I have 6TBs, It awesome to not have to worry at all about space.
You missed testing a 7200 RPM with an external USB drive and also internally to see if the internal SATA 2 and external USB 3.0 connections makes a huge difference...
Be aware of future updates still being on console storage. NOT the EXTERNAL, this can explain why the "Other" folder on the console is large. 1. Install game to HDD, updates included. 2. Move game to external SSD. 3. Game has new update and DLC. This stays on the HDD in the "other" folder. 4. Move game back across to console HDD to get rid of the "Other" folder and merge contents. 5. Move completely updated game with DLC back to External SSD. Why cant updates and DLC automatically be moved across to external storage Sony?
The PS4 Pro supports SATAIII compared with the stock PS4 which only supports SATAII, so it would be great if you could do some load time tests with the SSD installed internally in the PS4 Pro and compare that with the SSD running externally via USB.
Finally found a cheap enough upgrade to do a proper PS4 Pro upgrade to 2TB Samsung 870 for $50. I was going to put it in a enclosure but between the 2 enclosures I was getting around 100mb lower read/write when benchmarking them in a PC. Decided just to go through the entire process to replace the small Samsung 850 250gb internal drive I had in there. Once the 2TB was installed I just moved the games off my 1tb external SSD. Now I have more room then I will ever need as I mostly game on PC. Only care about exclusives and VR games.
Just bought a 4 TB for $95 and am glad to know my games won't be slower but actually a little faster! Really glad I bought it and good job on the video as always DF!
Honestly it's be best to use both together. Using an ssd internally to install multiplayer titles and a hefty external for single player games. That should give you the best of both worlds.
while external drive support is great and all (and long overdue) I'd really like the ability for the PS4 to interact better with home networks. ie. would be nice to be able to transfer screencaps and dvr videos and game saves directly to my NAS or have these folders made available as network mount points.
Thank you for your time making this great Video! Now 2021 with new updates on 1GEN PS4.. the FASTEST way to LOAD a game is still the INTERNAL SSD yes ???
what about loading speeds from the SSD in the ps4 pro? i have a ps4 pro and was wondering if i should get an ssd as my internal drive or just keep my 2tb drive in it with my 5tb drive as an external drive
I know this video is about 5 years old but I only buy ssd's. The reason is simple, HDD's die quickly, some of them last only few years and you throw your money and data out of the window. I Have a 9 years old SSD which is not even the highest quailty in a daily use and it's still in excellent condition. It won't last forever but an average HDD dies in 9 years time.
I own a PS4 with a 4TB SeaGate External HardDrive, and it’s awesome. Loading times seem slightly faster. I have about 50 PS4 games, in total about 2.5 TB of used data. For most people a 2 TB external hard drive would be good enough plus you can still use you’re consoles storage whether that’s 500GB or 1TB.
So, the best deal we can get is a small internal SSD with a huge external Hard Drive and we get SSD like load times in games on the external Hard Drive, am I correct? - -planning to get an internal 500GB SSD with an external 1TB Hard Drive.
Very nice - I have a 120 gb SSD lying around, and unfortunately I can't format it since the PS4 wants something 250 GB or larger ... Does anyone know exactly what filesystem sony uses on these ? (I just need to fit gta v on there that's all)
Thank you very much for this video! I've been using that same 4TB drive with my PS4 for over a month now, so this information was very useful to me. Also, I hope you feel better soon, Sir!
curt maas How so? the Xbox UI is slow (hence the bad input latency compared to PS4), a fast internal SSD might help that. Also HDDs fail, it's good to be able to easily replace them.
My guess is the OG PS4's SATA II interface is the main bottleneck on HDDs whereas it's less on Pro, but probably still a bit of a bottleneck there. SSDs are still the route to go for your more frequently used games it seems (or buy a 2 TB FireCuda drive and cache the games you'll most frequently play onto the SSD portion through frequent bootups and whatnot.
Q1:Which one do you recommend an external HDD that is portable or powered/desktop? Q2: is it ok to use external Hdd for extended time like 4-6 hours or on for 24 hours?
The stock internal 500GB is 5200 rpm, of cos it will be slower than the 7200 rpm HDDs. You should take the 4TB out of its casing and swap it into the PS4 internally. Let us know the difference between using the same HDD externally vs internally. This will answer the big question of whether the USB external approach comes with performance penalty.
This may be a stupid question but I'm constantly getting the CE-36329-3 error when playing all my games. I've come to the conclusion the problem is a faulty HDD. My question is...will using an external HDD get rid of the problem? Or do I have to replace my current HDD(the one that came with the PS4) any way?
You can use the fastest SSD but the read/write speed will be capped by the bus speed. USB 3.0 top speed is aroung 5Gb/s (a MOBO can till qualify as USB 3.0-compatible with just half of that), while SATA6 (internal bus of the PS4) is 6Gb/s. It is of course better to use the internal bus of the PS4 (eg. replace the internal HDD with a faster one than to use an external HDD).
Larger HDDs = larger platters = faster loadtimes. Thats why the external 4 TB is faster then the internal 500GB drive. SSHDs are a good alternative. My testing show on a PS4/PS4 pro basetime 1 min on internal drive. 45 sec on SSHD (50% improvement in speed) and 30 sec on the fastest SATA3 SSD available. That are the baselines. 2TB SSHD drives cost about 100 dollars and is therefore the best price/performance. Best is of course an internal SSD and use a large HDD external and load in the active games onto the SSD. SSDs also improve textures loading and so on since games use streaming from the media. This was even more notable an Xbox360/PS3 where the internal 480meg forced developers to fanatical stream from media = popin and texture loading in game.
Great Video Tom, what about an M.2 and there are some devices that do raid0, which allows to use both SSD and HDD. You should now do the XBOXONE version test just like this, and also include an M.2 and a raid0 enclosure.
Off topic, but if I had a British accent, I would call random places pretending to be Bond, James Bond! How awesome is that accent. I have always been jealous! Cheers!!
I would love you guys to make a behind the scenes video of your testing. I imagin it is a long process of swapping out hardware and getting everything configured just right.
Ever since I got my external hard drive, my wireless controller doesn't work as good, if my controller is blocked by anything, it cuts out, is there anyway you can test this? Thanks
Hi! Great video! Have a question, bought a 2TB Seagate Slim External HDD for my son's PS4, right after 2 months the disk started to give problems to him, then I took it to the store, the guy at the store told me that we should be using this kind of hdd's for PS4 as they can get damage due to the read and write process. But I really doubt it, they will refund me the money but was this guy right? My son was using it to save the downloaded games to it. Can I get an external 2TB regular HDD from another brand? or get a 480Gb SSD?. Cheers!
Is this a problem That happened to me? My ps4 has a 2tb external hard drive and it dropped on the ground. The console is fine but I had to send the storage for repair but without it I’m lagging horribly. Does the storage give better connection or is it because my ps4 had an impact
nice review good details, ...can I ask what seagate drive you tested as they seem to have 3 slim and 2 fat versions.... are they all the same or are some better? also in name of scince would adding ssd internal boost load times when using usb drives?
I do have a question? A few months ago I bought a Seagate external hard drive and I hooked it up to my PS4 and I wanted to save my game data and game saves for MK11 and SFV just in case anything should ever happen to my PS4 that I could have everything saved but I saved everything and put the external hard drive away for save keeping. but recently I just unlocked the bunch of new stuff for those games. Do I have to erase the data and resave everything again or could I just add the updated data to the hard drive with the existing data already on there?
Is it bad to always only use extended save? I ask because this external save is working i can feel it when i have it in my hands can it overheat or something? I have seagate 1TB
I am thinking of picking up a PS4 Pro and when i get extra cash i am gonna use a 240GB SSD internal and a 3TB external HDD.. is this a good idea ? i already own a custom build pc with a RX 480 and a i7 6700k so no "just get a pc comments" lol
Nice vid! I was hoping you did something like this! On another topic, I started to wonder - is there any way to throttle a console performance? Those are extremely closed boxed, it'd be fun (at least for me lol) to see if you could actually make games work worse under certain conditions!
USB is the greatest invention since the computer mouse.
Silikone You are probably right about that. *Immigrants: We Get The Job Done*
Silikone the greatest invention since the OPTICAL MOUSE. Not the weird trackball mice.
ChingBlingtheKing didn't USB come before optical mouse though? Don't optical mice all us USB only?
Damn, and I thought FireWire would be the next big thing.
+MrDeits97 Mouse had it's own input in the 90s, I don't think usb was a thing yet, at least not universally utilized.
That was a concise, to the point video. No fluff. No crappy attempt at unnecessary satire. Just pure, useful information. A+ mate, you earned my sub.
I was just searching for info on this an hour ago and you finally do the video! Thanks Tom.
Best value is probably still an internal 7200rpm drive.
The problem with that is it's a pain to have to open up your console, unscrew the drive, remove it, replace it with the new one, close everything up again, and then having to format the drive and re-download everything you had on the old one again. External drives just make things so much easier.
Makes me sick that people give a dislike... Digital Foundry is amazing, and you are the very best out there!!! Keep going... ;)
It's an informative video to be sure. Though I would have liked for them to have compared a few external Hard Drives against each other. I'd like to know how the different external drives compare, and what the best options are for when looking for an external drive.
I lived in the tape cassette era...
don't moan about load times until you've tried Commodore 64 game loading times. 👊
Yep, we learned patience. Synapse's Encounter I had on cassette.
Morrowind on the original Xbox took around 5 mins (from what I remember) to load the game.
I had a C64 too but can't remember if it took a bit to load the floppys. Those gold box AD&D games were the best.
Amstrad 464 nearly as bad
I had an amstrad cpc lol
Edds Box One Haha I cut my teeth on space invaders!
I have a PS4 PRO and i am glad i switched from the original PS4. The
upgrade for the difference in price between the original PS4 and PS4 PRO
is an absolute steal. Having SATA III in the PS4 PRO and a Solid State
Drive installed in it, makes the PS4 PRO a super fast, powerhouse of a
console. I should know, as i have a 1TB SSD in mine and the loading
times in games are near non-existent. Mass Effect Andromeda loads in 10
seconds when going to a planet. Installed games load even faster! Get a
PS4 PRO, get a solid state drive, put that inside the PS4 PRO, use the
1TB hard drive that was originally inside the PS4 PRO as an external
hard drive and thank me later.
but at what cost?
Well a 480GB SSD isn't that expensive now.
you forgot you bought a PS4 then a PS4 Pro, online subs the entire generation and then a 480gb SSD just so you can play games without having to delete and re-install every time you want to play something different.
Thats about £1000.
But you dont have a 480gb SSD do you, you said a 1TB, so you downplayed it a touch ;) Then i asked at what cost.
So make that £1000+
All of that to play SJW infested, feminist disgusting induce vomiting looking Mass Effect Andromeda? You are doing it wrong son.
1000 Dollars Could Of Got you an Oldler PC With a i7 4th generation and a Gtx 1080Ti
#DON T WASTE YOURMONEY ON SOMETHING That Isnt Worth it
500GB SSD as my internal. 2TB hdd via usb :)
VirulentPip Me too! Couldn't be happier.
Punch Down King at over £500 for a 2TB SSD.. That's insane lol
I have a 250 gb ssd just laying around, if I install it internally and use a 1 tb hdd externally, will ii get faster load times? You guys seem to know something.
Sugar Hieroglyph
of course u will lol ssd makes everything faster
Sugar Hieroglyph All you need to do is actually watch the video lol
Do all games work on external drives? I know Xbox one had big performance issues on an external drive.
It should work with every game, as applications are sandboxes. Performance depends on game code how and when game reads files.
Yes for PS4 games they can all run from the ext drive .. xbox I'm guessing must load data in the background , so it needs to be able to get that data quickly, I know the X and S games need to be on the internal SSD or the SSD expansion to run, although older gen games can run on these newer consoles from an external drive, even if the ext drive is a standard HDD .. hope that helps
just a word of warning; if you're going to use an external drive you should definitely remember to go to [devices/stop using external storage] before you turn off your console, otherwise you may find yourself getting hit with a drive corruption when you next turn on your console. it allows you to repair the drive, which is usually fine, but not always. it happened to me a week or so ago and I had to reformat the drive from scratch to get it working again. bit of a pain in the arse if you're on a slow connection.
anyway, with some luck they'll automate the safe disconnection of the external hard drive in a future update, but for now, be aware.
Thanks!
Kim Sanderhoff I'm not entirely sure and I'm hesitant to test it personally (my 1tb HDD is almost full and I'm in no hurry to redownload it all again on my cans-and-string internet connection).
That said, yesterday I did turn off my console after forgetting to stop the HDD, but I had already quit out of the application. when I turned the console back on it didn't tell me to repair the drive, so... either is already been addressed in a patch that I didn't notice installing, or it's safe to turn off the console if you're not physically accessing anything on the external drive when you do...
either way, I'm wary of leaving my console in suspend mode if I'm away for more than a few hours lest a power outage occur and corrupt my data, until some clarity on the issue arises anyway.
Orias rest mode is fine, assuming there's no power outage, turning the power off all together, not so much.
another factor that might be relevant is that I've enabled peripheral charging when in rest mode, so the HDD retains it's power. I am not entirely sure if external drives retain their power without it turned on.
further testing required.
Taran Charlton-Blore my External shuts off when I put my PS4 into rest mode unless something is downloading but my External is one that plugs into an outlet
Is this still a problem or did they fix it with an update? Just bought one.
And then theirs me running a 120GB SSD in my 2006 PS3.
I know I'm late but this doesn't matter as the PS3 doesn't copy the whole game from the BluRay disc to the PS3; the PS4 does do this...
@@Scoopyyy I think he mean internal storage
Does it improve load time? I have a 320 gig sata installed in my phat
@@marcusinfinity9386 Yes, it loads COD games way quicker, and loads BF4 faster than on my PC weirdly enough.
@@Jamasen you play bf4 on your ps3? 😐
7:10 my concerns exactly. Really appreciate you doing the research and breaking it down so as to settle any doubts I had
There is also SSHD's from seagate available. They come in sizes from 500gb to 2TB. They have an SSD cache built in that will give you near SSD speeds after the first few loads in any game. They don't cost much more then a regular HDD either.
Downside to these drives is if you switch back and forth between a bunch of games you won't see much of an advantage. If your the type who starts a game and keeps playing until the end then it's an easy choice. Honestly unless you need more then 2TB there really isn't much reason not to use an SSHD over a traditional drive for an extra 10 or 20 bucks.
Walmart pnySSD 500gb 60 bucks
@@BigBankBailey please get a good quality SSD at least $150 it is the sweet side
@Digital Foundry, now that it is nearly June of 2019, and the PS4 has been updated to OFW 6.50+, could you re-run some tests using some of the faster SSD's of today? I saw a video from someone else that was testing the loading speeds from older models of PS4 firmware's vs today's newer firmwares, and the firmware's alone were loading and booting the console up faster. I would like to see what the difference is for today's best SSD's and the newest firmwares combined, please. If there is a decent difference, I would finally like to upgrade.
Also, is there any difference from loading games on the PS4 Pro with the newest firmware using USB 3.0 HDD's and SSD's? Would be nice to see a re-test, all things considered. Technology moves at a steady pace, and this video of yours is a few years old now.
Hey DigitalFoundry, it'll be great to include a SSHD in comparison, by having it in the system and also in an USB enclosure. Since SSHD is a great option of having capacity:price:speed balance, I believe a lot of PS4 owners will love to see how it stacks up with other disk drives. Thanks!
These informative videos are unmatched.
You answered literally every question I had about running PS4 games from an external hard drive - thanks!
Didn't even notice you had a cold Tom! Hope you get over it fully soon :)
Awesome Video. I've been looking for this for a couple days. Specifically, the internal vs external comparison with the same drive. Thank You!
Well by the looks of it the 4tb external drive seems to be a 7200rpm drive while the stock 500g in the PS4 would be 5400rpm.
HDDs usually drop in rotation speed when exceeding 3TB. I'm pretty sure that the 4TB model here is 5400RPM.
There are plenty of 7200rpm disk over 3TBs. Given the speed difference in the load times, I would be suprised if it wasn't 7200rpm.
I agree; I'm guessing it was 7200rpm too. Based on the thickness of the drive when they show it, it definitely looks like a full sized desktop drive in a USB enclosure.
Tom's comment half way through the video that external is always faster than internal neglects to point out that he's specifically referring to the drives they tested here. It likely won't be faster if you're using a cheap USB drive that is also 5400rpm like the stock drive. But it's really good to know that there isn't a significant performance hit if you do decide to use an external drive.
Actually, its just that the stock PS4/PS4 Pro Drives are only SATA II.
I looked up the External Seagate Drives and, stating to the amazon side, it has 5400 rpm.
So, obvious top option for any PS4 atm is internal SSD + huge external HDD for storage.
And if I recall correctly you can transfer between the two and put the current game your playing on the ssd, then move it over to the external after you are done.
Yes, thought the process isn't very fast and "on the fly" especially for those huge 50-60gb games. For dome reason ps4 re-encrypts game data when moving between storages.
Yeah, it's still a definite step up from re-downloading games, as far as my internet connection goes.
Oforfs Or buy a PC for that money lol
Yea, except, some may have a gaming PC already. And somehow It doesn't make em poke a silly self-affirming agenda onto others faces. And it does not even prevent those people from enjoying games on other platforms.
Didn't realise it would wipe the Hard drive and make it unusable with anything else when you use it with PS4. All my porn... gone.
Starkiller100 ...you should have known this
There was no warning! Luckily there wasn't anything important on there
There was a warning and it specifically told you it would format the drive for use with the PS4 before you do it. You can even see the moment it tells you it'll wipe all data on the drive in this video.
Why the fuck do you have porn on your PS4
ChingBlingtheKing so he can watch porn in 1080p 60fps duh
I can't believe that SSD + External enclosure idea didn't click didn't even cross my mind til you showed it on the video. Just for that thanks a million.
My PS4 pro still has like 600GB left, so I'm good. I love my pro!
squalltheonly Do you have 2 games? Lol
I currently use a 500gb SSD for my PS4. Don't have spare cash for an external again currently but I have had in the past for my PS4 and it's a great investment :)
Finally! I have been waiting for this video from DF for a long time.
I just bought a 4TB Western Digital external drive last weekend. With the 2TB in my PS4 I have 6TBs, It awesome to not have to worry at all about space.
You missed testing a 7200 RPM with an external USB drive and also internally to see if the internal SATA 2 and external USB 3.0 connections makes a huge difference...
Ps4 pro has sata 3, which is bad ass. the usb 3 is quicker than the SATA 2 in the og ps4.
It isn't much better than the internal 5400RPM IME.
amazing video, got even more than I was looking for. Thanks!
Was able to try the internal and external ssd so glad u made this vid
Still a useful and great video in 2019, thank you!
Be aware of future updates still being on console storage. NOT the EXTERNAL, this can explain why the "Other" folder on the console is large.
1. Install game to HDD, updates included.
2. Move game to external SSD.
3. Game has new update and DLC. This stays on the HDD in the "other" folder.
4. Move game back across to console HDD to get rid of the "Other" folder and merge contents.
5. Move completely updated game with DLC back to External SSD.
Why cant updates and DLC automatically be moved across to external storage Sony?
Wow DF! Finally. I've been holding back getting an ExtHDD until you guys review it.
The PS4 Pro supports SATAIII compared with the stock PS4 which only supports SATAII, so it would be great if you could do some load time tests with the SSD installed internally in the PS4 Pro and compare that with the SSD running externally via USB.
Finally found a cheap enough upgrade to do a proper PS4 Pro upgrade to 2TB Samsung 870 for $50. I was going to put it in a enclosure but between the 2 enclosures I was getting around 100mb lower read/write when benchmarking them in a PC. Decided just to go through the entire process to replace the small Samsung 850 250gb internal drive I had in there. Once the 2TB was installed I just moved the games off my 1tb external SSD. Now I have more room then I will ever need as I mostly game on PC. Only care about exclusives and VR games.
This video was exactly what I was looking for. Thank you.
Indeed one of the best features released! can't complain about loading times it's pretty much the same as the internal one
Just bought a 4 TB for $95 and am glad to know my games won't be slower but actually a little faster! Really glad I bought it and good job on the video as always DF!
Honestly it's be best to use both together. Using an ssd internally to install multiplayer titles and a hefty external for single player games. That should give you the best of both worlds.
Exactly
Thanks for this helpful video man!! You cut my research time down to nothing!! 🙏🏽👍🏽
Tom's voice is really nice to listen to!
while external drive support is great and all (and long overdue) I'd really like the ability for the PS4 to interact better with home networks. ie. would be nice to be able to transfer screencaps and dvr videos and game saves directly to my NAS or have these folders made available as network mount points.
My Seagate 5TB turned out to be a life-changing upgrade. I knew it wasn't any slower - didn't realize it's actually faster, holy hell
Thank you for your time making this great Video! Now 2021 with new updates on 1GEN PS4.. the FASTEST way to LOAD a game is still the INTERNAL SSD yes ???
Very informative i just converted my pc 3.5 inch hard disk into external drive for my ps4.
i got the same seagate 2TB version exellent choice people 👌
This is comparison I was looking for, thanks!
Just the review I was looking for. Thanks a lot.
clear and concise as ever. good work
what about loading speeds from the SSD in the ps4 pro? i have a ps4 pro and was wondering if i should get an ssd as my internal drive or just keep my 2tb drive in it with my 5tb drive as an external drive
Personally, Im rocking a internal ssd for games that suffer from slow loading textures, and a 4 tb external for the rest!
General Zubbis so a 250 gb ssd ?
@@BearYuri no i have 1tb ssd internal, but 250 Works too
General Zubbis what is it called?
@@mohamedmahadi3607 1TB Samsung EVO SSD and Seagate 4tb external hdd
exactly what i was looking for, thank you!
I know this video is about 5 years old but I only buy ssd's. The reason is simple, HDD's die quickly, some of them last only few years and you throw your money and data out of the window. I Have a 9 years old SSD which is not even the highest quailty in a daily use and it's still in excellent condition. It won't last forever but an average HDD dies in 9 years time.
It's ridiculously easy to change the internal drive. No "tampering" needed.
Stopped by in preparation for PS5. Thanks guys!
I own a PS4 with a 4TB SeaGate External HardDrive, and it’s awesome. Loading times seem slightly faster. I have about 50 PS4 games, in total about 2.5 TB of used data. For most people a 2 TB external hard drive would be good enough plus you can still use you’re consoles storage whether that’s 500GB or 1TB.
Thanks for this. I was really considering an SSD 1 TB for PS4
Internal SSD is the best upgrade that you can do to your PS4 and PS4 Pro. The speed improvement and usability is massive!
Covered everything I needed. Nice one.
So, the best deal we can get is a small internal SSD with a huge external Hard Drive and we get SSD like load times in games on the external Hard Drive, am I correct?
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-planning to get an internal 500GB SSD with an external 1TB Hard Drive.
Very nice - I have a 120 gb SSD lying around, and unfortunately I can't format it since the PS4 wants something 250 GB or larger ... Does anyone know exactly what filesystem sony uses on these ? (I just need to fit gta v on there that's all)
Thank you very much for this video! I've been using that same 4TB drive with my PS4 for over a month now, so this information was very useful to me.
Also, I hope you feel better soon, Sir!
great video with just the information I wanted to know. Thanks!
I recently bought the 4TB Seagate ext HD myself, and i can only recommend it! Its amazing, fast and easy to use (drag and drop)
Great work as usual!
Better late than never I guess.
Hell yeah!
No shit... late is right! fail
Yeah wonder if the Switch will even add it.
Also it would be nice to see Scorpio allow swapping internal drives like you can with PS4.
Makes no sense but ok...
curt maas How so? the Xbox UI is slow (hence the bad input latency compared to PS4), a fast internal SSD might help that. Also HDDs fail, it's good to be able to easily replace them.
My guess is the OG PS4's SATA II interface is the main bottleneck on HDDs whereas it's less on Pro, but probably still a bit of a bottleneck there. SSDs are still the route to go for your more frequently used games it seems (or buy a 2 TB FireCuda drive and cache the games you'll most frequently play onto the SSD portion through frequent bootups and whatnot.
should of been available day 1 but at least its here now
Your review was great!! I've been trying to figure out should I go for speed or size. Thanks
Top job in explaining stuff man! Liked and subbed;)
Q1:Which one do you recommend an external HDD that is portable or powered/desktop?
Q2: is it ok to use external Hdd for extended time like 4-6 hours or on for 24 hours?
my boy Tom, 500gb SSD internal with a 4TB external seem like GGs
The main thing with this is that you can now use several drives if you include the internal drive, and even use the classic SSD+HDD combination.
The stock internal 500GB is 5200 rpm, of cos it will be slower than the 7200 rpm HDDs. You should take the 4TB out of its casing and swap it into the PS4 internally. Let us know the difference between using the same HDD externally vs internally. This will answer the big question of whether the USB external approach comes with performance penalty.
So is that seagate drive 7200rpm?
This may be a stupid question but I'm constantly getting the CE-36329-3 error when playing all my games. I've come to the conclusion the problem is a faulty HDD.
My question is...will using an external HDD get rid of the problem? Or do I have to replace my current HDD(the one that came with the PS4) any way?
You can use the fastest SSD but the read/write speed will be capped by the bus speed. USB 3.0 top speed is aroung 5Gb/s (a MOBO can till qualify as USB 3.0-compatible with just half of that), while SATA6 (internal bus of the PS4) is 6Gb/s. It is of course better to use the internal bus of the PS4 (eg. replace the internal HDD with a faster one than to use an external HDD).
Brilliant video mate! You're freakin awesome. Thank you
Larger HDDs = larger platters = faster loadtimes. Thats why the external 4 TB is faster then the internal 500GB drive. SSHDs are a good alternative. My testing show on a PS4/PS4 pro basetime 1 min on internal drive. 45 sec on SSHD (50% improvement in speed) and 30 sec on the fastest SATA3 SSD available.
That are the baselines. 2TB SSHD drives cost about 100 dollars and is therefore the best price/performance.
Best is of course an internal SSD and use a large HDD external and load in the active games onto the SSD. SSDs also improve textures loading and so on since games use streaming from the media. This was even more notable an Xbox360/PS3 where the internal 480meg forced developers to fanatical stream from media = popin and texture loading in game.
Yeah I went with a 3TB 3.0 drive and I'm loving it. I can download all my games and just not worry about it anymore.
Great informative video. Thank you. Now I know what I want.
Great Video Tom, what about an M.2 and there are some devices that do raid0, which allows to use both SSD and HDD.
You should now do the XBOXONE version test just like this, and also include an M.2 and a raid0 enclosure.
Off topic, but if I had a British accent, I would call random places pretending to be Bond, James Bond! How awesome is that accent. I have always been jealous! Cheers!!
I would love you guys to make a behind the scenes video of your testing. I imagin it is a long process of swapping out hardware and getting everything configured just right.
Ever since I got my external hard drive, my wireless controller doesn't work as good, if my controller is blocked by anything, it cuts out, is there anyway you can test this? Thanks
Hi! Great video! Have a question, bought a 2TB Seagate Slim External HDD for my son's PS4, right after 2 months the disk started to give problems to him, then I took it to the store, the guy at the store told me that we should be using this kind of hdd's for PS4 as they can get damage due to the read and write process. But I really doubt it, they will refund me the money but was this guy right? My son was using it to save the downloaded games to it. Can I get an external 2TB regular HDD from another brand? or get a 480Gb SSD?. Cheers!
compact and very informative video, excellent
Does it matter if I plug my external drive into the back USB port of the ps4 pro? Are they all USB 3.0 ports on the ps4 pro?
Is this a problem
That happened to me? My ps4 has a 2tb external hard drive and it dropped on the ground. The console is fine but I had to send the storage for repair but without it I’m lagging horribly. Does the storage give better connection or is it because my ps4 had an impact
great vid, I had been wondering about this!
You guys are the best!👍
Tom is using a 5400rpm external HDD here but the mains powered ones are 7200rpm and should be faster still?
external original licenced hdd's are HELD BY TINFOIL?
nice review good details,
...can I ask what seagate drive you tested as they seem to have 3 slim and 2 fat versions.... are they all the same or are some better?
also in name of scince would adding ssd internal boost load times when using usb drives?
I needed this video thank you so much!
Does anyone know if I can reformat the external drive back to exFAT if I don't want to continue using it as extended storage?
I do have a question? A few months ago I bought a Seagate external hard drive and I hooked it up to my PS4 and I wanted to save my game data and game saves for MK11 and SFV just in case anything should ever happen to my PS4 that I could have everything saved but I saved everything and put the external hard drive away for save keeping. but recently I just unlocked the bunch of new stuff for those games. Do I have to erase the data and resave everything again or could I just add the updated data to the hard drive with the existing data already on there?
Very informative, thank you!
I added external 500GB hard drive but when I plug it to ps4 my controller respond so slowly ( lag ) ..any solutions ?
Is it bad to always only use extended save? I ask because this external save is working i can feel it when i have it in my hands can it overheat or something? I have seagate 1TB
I am thinking of picking up a PS4 Pro and when i get extra cash i am gonna use a 240GB SSD internal and a 3TB external HDD.. is this a good idea ? i already own a custom build pc with a RX 480 and a i7 6700k so no "just get a pc comments" lol
Nice vid! I was hoping you did something like this! On another topic, I started to wonder - is there any way to throttle a console performance? Those are extremely closed boxed, it'd be fun (at least for me lol) to see if you could actually make games work worse under certain conditions!