GTPNewsWire
Contributing Writer
- 21,621
- GTPHQ
This is the discussion thread for a recent post on GTPlanet:
This article was published by Calvin Kirstein (@calvins48) on February 3rd, 2017 in the Gaming category.
PlayStation 4 Update 4.50 Detailed, Brings External HDD Support
- Thread starter GTPNewsWire
- 23 comments
- 2,620 views
- 6,264
- Ottawa
- Pyano1132
Would have been nice if I knew this would have been supported in the future before I opened mine up and replaced the Internal Hard Drive with a 2TB one.
- 27,387
- Toronto
- NewAesthetic
- SlipZtrEm
Right there with you.
I'm very curious about how this will work with regards to multiple PS4s. I know saves are still stored on the main HD, but if I transferred all of them to a USB, I wonder if I could take an external full of installed games to another person's house (or, more pertinently, a potential replacement PS4 Pro), transfer the saves over from the USB, and just continue on my merry way.
The transplant with a 2TB last month was a huge pain working from a Mac. Had I known this was coming, I would've just suffered without some of my games for a short while longer.
- 1,078
- Near Nürburgring
- DanPrez
Thinking about the boost mode, Assetto Corsa and Project Cars come to mind. Both hit 60 fps in some spots, but struggle to achieve it. Boost mode could really help, altough i would prefer a true Pro patch for Assetto Corsa for higher resolution. Kunos. Just do it.
- 312
- England
- skells22
- BreezySkells2
As I am very happy with the upcoming firmware update meaning I do not need to delete stuff from my PS4 anymore. I wonder if Seagate is on the case here and doing a PS4 version of its Xbox harddrive
- 1,743
- Aussie
- Tassie_tiger
Keen to test the 3D Blu-ray function on the VR myself.
I like the HDD support, but the 3D function, as far as getting more from the console, is a bigger game-changer to me. 👍
I like the HDD support, but the 3D function, as far as getting more from the console, is a bigger game-changer to me. 👍
- 1,632
- Mass UTC-5
- HugoStiglitz_420 and GTP_HugoStiglitz
"the convenience of using an external HDD to back up data means many players can rest assured knowing that their precious game saves, screenshots and videos are safe."
I think the person who wrote this article might be a little confused.
We already could back up up game saves, screenshots, and videos to an external, this update is to allow us to install and play games on an external hard drive. Similar to how Xbox 360 and Xbox One allow it. It's basically an extension of the internal drive so we'll have much more space for games.
Also "great alternative to using Cloud saves or a USB-to-USB cable connection between two consoles."
It's not USB to USB. You can use an ethernet cable to transfer a PS4's contents to another PS4's though. Or backup and restore with an external HDD but not USB to USB. Just trying to help.
How do you know the saves will still be stored only on the internal HDD? Did you read that somewhere? On Xbox 360 you could choose to save to external or internal, but Sony might not do it that way.
But, you should still be able to do what you were talking about I think. If you have to, just back up the saves to the USB like you normally would, and restore them when you get to the other PS4. Then when you play the games on your external they should work fine unless there are some dumb restrictions on the saves like with GT PSP only allowing your saves to work on 1 PSP. I haven't heard of any of that happening with PS4 saves though.
Also, on the other PS4 you might have activate your account on it to play those games on it. Not sure.
I assume it will be exFAT or FAT32 like the current external hard drives on PS4. NTFS is microsoft owned so maybe Sony doesn't want to pay licensing fees. The funny thing is though, Xbox 360 doesn't support NTFS or even exFAT either though. You'd think they would
I think the person who wrote this article might be a little confused.
We already could back up up game saves, screenshots, and videos to an external, this update is to allow us to install and play games on an external hard drive. Similar to how Xbox 360 and Xbox One allow it. It's basically an extension of the internal drive so we'll have much more space for games.
Also "great alternative to using Cloud saves or a USB-to-USB cable connection between two consoles."
It's not USB to USB. You can use an ethernet cable to transfer a PS4's contents to another PS4's though. Or backup and restore with an external HDD but not USB to USB. Just trying to help.
How do you know the saves will still be stored only on the internal HDD? Did you read that somewhere? On Xbox 360 you could choose to save to external or internal, but Sony might not do it that way.
But, you should still be able to do what you were talking about I think. If you have to, just back up the saves to the USB like you normally would, and restore them when you get to the other PS4. Then when you play the games on your external they should work fine unless there are some dumb restrictions on the saves like with GT PSP only allowing your saves to work on 1 PSP. I haven't heard of any of that happening with PS4 saves though.
Also, on the other PS4 you might have activate your account on it to play those games on it. Not sure.
I assume it will be exFAT or FAT32 like the current external hard drives on PS4. NTFS is microsoft owned so maybe Sony doesn't want to pay licensing fees. The funny thing is though, Xbox 360 doesn't support NTFS or even exFAT either though. You'd think they would
- 55
- Storm--Trooper-
Fantastic news, although i play uncharted in HDR and have noticed the difference in some VR games i was beginning to think the upgrade to pro was an expensive mistake, now i'm looking forward to trying project cars and Asseto with the boost mode. I think the future is looking good for the pro now.
- 1,689
- NY
- SavageEvil
Good news, sounds good to me. On Playstation blog it states game saves will still be stored locally on the HDD, only applications and games will be allowed on the external HDD. Boost mode sounds great but even if it is across the board, unless developers release a patch that allows unlocked frame rates for many of the games that are 30 fps locked, the boost will only benefit games that run at 60fps with dips and 30fps with dips below. Custom backgrounds sounds nifty, I'm only looking for any performance oriented updates but this is always welcome addition.
- 1,632
- Mass UTC-5
- HugoStiglitz_420 and GTP_HugoStiglitz
Good catch. Hadn't seen that before but PS Blog had more info than what I saw elsewhere. Thanks.
The thing is though, I'm betting you can still back up saves to the external, but they just won't be used for anything besides backup. I can't see why not if it's just a normal exFAT or FAT32 format HDD. You'll probably be able to backup screenshots, gameplay videos, and music as well.
- 269
- WyldAnimal_
I don't have the update to test, but I imagine that anything game saved to the external HDD will be encrypted to the PS4 that saved it.
So you won't be able to use One HD on Multiple PS4's.
Just the same as the Internal HD is Specific to just that PS4.
So you won't be able to use One HD on Multiple PS4's.
Just the same as the Internal HD is Specific to just that PS4.
- 1,689
- NY
- SavageEvil
The PS4 will force you to format it when you wish you use it, it will format in exFat. Nice stuff, but just to warn everyone you cannot move, save game files, background images or any of that to the external. It is mainly for playing games and other applications off of. They really tried to cut out as many avenues as possible leading into the system through conventional means. Still no ability to save music to the system, you'll need another drive connected to do any MP3 stuff, I haven't tried partitioning my external 1TB drive I had laying around to use about 80% for games and the rest for music. There is a little project I'll get to one day.
You can use any USB 3.0 external HDD as long as it is above 250GB, per Sony's blog. Turbo mode actually works on some games including The Division and Project Cars, hard to calculate most things in most games but I will keep an eye and ear out for any word. The Division is a CPU hogging game, on the regular PS4 if you fast travel and try to go to the XMB watch your system suffer crippling slowdown, turbo mode almost completely mitigates this issue. Hope someone tests the data rate via USB versus internal HDD. This is a good sign for all those who own are in the market for a PS4 Pro, it's the best way to play any PS4 games bar-none.
Cheers!
The thing is I don't think the PS4 reads HDD like a PC does(files don't get fragmented either), I'm not sure it even recognizes multiple partitions, I haven't attempted to do that yet. Either way I will check around to see if it is possible to use the same external for extended HDD and Back Up simultaneously. I'm thinking a whole partition idea might be good, but a thumb drive might fulfill that need, since they come is absurd sizes and you won't be able to fill it easily with save files. 64GB thumb drive should have you set until we get word that we can pull double duty with an external on PS4. I have my reservations on it not being possible due to what ever weird OS Sony uses.
Last edited:
- 27,387
- Toronto
- NewAesthetic
- SlipZtrEm
Whoops, just catching up, fixed both things. Cheers.
Also late getting back to this, but as you've probably already seen, Sony mentioned it.
Yeah, me neither. I think the cloud saving available now means you can use your saves on just about any PS4 system provided you're logged into your PSN account. I haven't tried anything in terms of copying saves over to a fresh install without connecting to the 'net, though.
Yeah, I assumed that'd be a requirement. Minor issue, though!
- 1,632
- Mass UTC-5
- HugoStiglitz_420 and GTP_HugoStiglitz
- 1,632
- Mass UTC-5
- HugoStiglitz_420 and GTP_HugoStiglitz
Well if you back up your ps4 fully, you can still use the drive normally. I use mine a lot actually. It's just like any other exFAT drive. My PC can load anything onto it, and I can back up game saves or screenshots to it with ps4
Now, what you're thinking does make sense that putting games on them will make Sony want to make the whole drive encrypted however, I think the game files themselves are encrypted which is why it's not needed for the whole drive when you do a ps4 back up
It could be different for a drive used for installating games though. Maybe they can't afford to have the game files encrypted because they need to be accessed as quickly as possible so they encrypt the whole drive instead. We'll see I guess
- 1,689
- NY
- SavageEvil
As a back up drive the contents are packaged differently as Ext Storage things are full on encryption, I think Sony went through a lot of layering and twists and turns to keep the user from interfacing with the PS4 data or the machine. When you format a USB device for extended storage on PS4 the whole drive is encrypted, I tried disabling extended mode and the PS4 would not recognize the HDD at all for USB purposes. So it seems only read only applications can go to extended storage as the games and apps are for all intents and purposes are read only.
Edit; PC cannot read an HDD formatted for PS4 Extended Storage use, just shows up as unallocated space and you'll have to initialize for the PC to read it which deletes all the data instantly.
Last edited:
Similar threads
