Your PS4 is a great games console, but its base hard drive might not satisfy your requirements. Meager storage space, slow load times, and frequent crashes might be plague your console. If you're experiencing any of these, or other problems, then it could be time for you to upgrade your PS4 hard drive.
If you're thinking of getting an external PS4 hard drive, here are the pros and cons to help inform your decision.
You Should Buy a PS4 External Hard Drive Because…
First, let's start with some wonderful benefits a PS4 external hard drive will give you.
1. You Get a Portable Gaming Library
An external hard drive is the perfect portable gaming library. With it, you can take all your digital games and installed game data wherever you go.
This is a win-win scenario if you use physical games, digital games, or both. If you use physical games, you can take your save data to a friend's house, and you won't have to endure the long wait as their PS4 installs the game data if you use an external hard drive.
If you want to play a digital game, you can simply plug in your external hard drive, log into your PSN account on your friend's PS4, and play. Just remember to log out after!
2. You'll Have a PS4 With Tons More Storage Space
The PS4 can support up to 8TB of external storage, which is way more than its base 500GB hard drive.
If you're having to delete games on your PS4 to free up space, an external hard drive would solve this problem. You'll notice and appreciate the difference immediately, as your PS4 can suddenly hold more than five games!
This is especially handy if you have a big digital library: deleting and re-downloading digital games can be incredibly time-consuming.
3. A PS4 External Hard Drive Is Very Easy to Set Up
Unlike with an internal PS4 hard drive, it's very quick and easy for you to set up an external hard drive for your PS4.
There's minimal hassle and you'll be ready to use your new hard drive within a few minutes. What's best is that you don't have to open up your PS4 or worry about getting the right dimensions for your hard drive.
All you need is an external hard drive between 250GB to 8TB that uses USB 3.0 or higher and a USB-A connection.
4. An External Hard Drive Makes Up for Its Physical Space With Its Benefits
While an external hard drive is a separate device from your PS4 and therefore takes up physical space, it's really not that big of a deal, especially when you consider its benefits.
The fact that you can store dozens of games on an external hard drive and take it anywhere you like outweighs the fact that it takes up some more real estate in your living space. You can easily put it next to or on top of your PS4.
5. An External SSD Is Perfect for Both Your PS4 and PS5 Games Library
While the PS4's base hard drive is a slow HDD (Hard Disk Drive), the PS5 boasts a lightning-fast SSD (Solid State Drive) that can boot up and load games within seconds.
If you buy an external SSD for your PS4, you'll experience the benefits of loading up your games much quicker than ever before, and you can transfer these games onto your PS5. You'll also be able to bridge the gap between your PS4 library and your PS5 library as you store PS5 games on your external USB drive.
6. You Can Use It to Back Up Your PS4's Internal Storage
If you're happy with your PS4's internal storage, you should still consider using an external hard drive for your PS4 to back up your data.
No one likes corrupted data. In gaming, this can mean losing all of your game progress, or re-downloading and installing a game from scratch, software updates and all. And, with the increasing size of games, that won't be fun.
You can bypass all of this by backing up your PS4's internal data to an external hard drive. It's a smart move.
You Should Not Buy a PS4 External Hard Drive Because…
External hard drives are great but aren't without their faults. Here are some downsides to consider if you want to use an external hard drive for your PS4.
1. An External PS4 Hard Drive Is More Exposed
As the name suggests, external hard drives are… well, external.
This means that your hard drive is more vulnerable to damage than an internal hard drive. Though this might not be a big problem, everyone's gaming setup is different, so it's something you should take into account.
2. You Risk Corrupting Your Data if You Don't Properly Disconnect It
If you disconnect your external hard drive from your PS4 without following the proper procedure, you risk corrupting your data and losing your game files.
Thankfully, it's very easy to safely disconnect your PS4's external hard drive; taking these steps ensures that you won't have to worry about losing countless hours of gaming progress.
3. It's Easier for You to Lose an External Hard Drive
External hard drives don't take up much space, which is great. It also means you can lose them pretty easily.
This problem is worse if travel a lot with your external hard drive. You could misplace it somewhere, or it could fall out of your bag and disappear forever. You could also just lose it in your house, and it never appears again. If you're prone to losing things, keep this in mind.
4. An External SSD Is More Expensive Than an External HDD
External SSDs are incredibly fast and will improve your gaming experience. But, this comes at a big price difference between the two.
SSDs should get cheaper over time. But, right now, if you were to decide whether to buy an external SSD or HDD at the same storage level, the cost is much, much higher for an SSD.
Choose the Best PS4 External Hard Drive for Your Gaming Needs
While they do have some faults, external hard drives offer some great benefits and serve as a fantastic storage option for your gaming needs.
If you're set on buying an external hard drive for your PS4, make sure you've done your research. There's a whole range of external hard drives that suit different needs. Choose the right one for you.