How Much Space Does A Ps4 Have

How to upgrade your PS4 difficult bulldoze

By Contributions from Matt Hanson , Adam Vjestica , Mike Jennings final updated 25 April 22

We testify you how to upgrade your PS4 hard drive, including the PS4 Slim and PS4 Pro, plus reveal the all-time hard drives available correct now

Practice y'all demand to upgrade your PS4 difficult drive? Chances are that if you're constantly deleting games from your library, the respond is a resounding yeah! Thankfully, upgrading the hard drive on your PS4, PS4 Slim or PS4 Pro isn't every bit tricky as information technology sounds and y'all'll find the clear and simple instructions in this guide make the whole process stress-free.

While you lot tin can definitely have advantage of the all-time PS4 deals available right now and bag yourself a new automobile at a nifty price, you'll save a lot more money if you simply upgrade your PS4 hard drive. This nifty fiddling play a trick on is a keen way of extending the life of your automobile and go it performing at its peak again.

1 of the large benefits of upgrading your difficult drive is to create extra storage space. There's only 500GB of that bachelor on the standard PS4 and PS4 Slim and 1TB on the PS4 Pro, so it only takes a couple of large games and you're presently out of room.

Some games, similar Call of Duty and Marvel's Avengers, need about 100GB of hard bulldoze space, so you lot can see how apace your space would be used up if yous're a fan of storage hogs such as these. Beyond the actress space, if you slot a super-fast SSD into your console, you'll also see a significant speed improvement, although you'll want to read up on the pros and cons of using an SSD before you do that.

In that location are two means to expand your difficult bulldoze capacity on PS4: supersede the internal drive or adhere one of the best external hard drives. These are both good options, but fitting a new internal drive is undeniably a cleaner selection.

This guide will show you how to upgrade your PS4 hard drive, including instructions for the PS4 Slim and PS4 Pro and a video to walk yous through everything. Oh, and don't worry, no matter what drive you're slotting within your auto, it won't void your warranty.

Best hard bulldoze upgrades for PS4

Before taking your PS4, PS4 Slim or PS4 Pro apart you need to have a replacement bulldoze ready – which ways doing a scrap of research. Nosotros've done the numbers to discover out which drive is the best selection, whether y'all're looking for an all-round selection, a budget product or a super-fast SSD.

Best difficult drive for PS4

Seagate FireCuda Gaming SSHD 2TB

If you want to upgrade your PS4 hard drive and are looking for the best difficult bulldoze option right now, then yous should seek out an SSHD. These drives combine platter-based storage with smaller, faster portions of flash memory, and they learn which files y'all use oft and move them to the faster flash storage – so they can exist loaded faster. If y'all play the same games frequently, you'll see a performance improvement.

The 2TB capacity means that you'll get loads of actress infinite even if the games you install don't do good from the flash memory portion of the bulldoze, and it'll certainly never exist slower than the PS4'south internal drives. It'southward not particularly expensive, either.

Best upkeep hard bulldoze for PS4

Seagate Barracuda 2TB

If you're on a tighter budget then you lot can ditch the hybrid portion of the difficult disk and opt for a conventional drive. This won't deliver much of a performance boost over the PS4'southward normal hard disks, but Seagate's drives are certainly no slower. They're available in loads of capacities, but 2TB is as high as you lot can go before the drives become too thick to fit inside Sony's consoles. The prices on offer are tempting: a 1TB model costs just $50, and the 2TB model is the best-value option thanks to a price of $77.

Best SSD for PS4

Samsung 870 QVO

Samsung is the kind of consumer SSDs, so it's no surprise that the firm's solid-state products are the all-time options for slotting within your PS4. The 870 QVO offers great performance levels that are several times faster than the PS4's hard disks, and you lot'll come across noticeable upgrades to loading times and functioning in the PS4 and PS4 Slim and fifty-fifty larger speed improvements in the PS4 Pro, which has a more than modern storage interface.

Samsung'southward drives offer great speed and reliability, and their consistent 7mm form gene means you can choose a bulldoze with a capacity between 1TB and 8TB depending on your needs – SSDs don't have the aforementioned physical size restrictions are hard disks. Every bit ever, though, SSDs are more expensive than hard disks – the 1TB and 2TB models cost $110 and $224 respectively, and the 4TB and 8TB drives sit at hefty prices of $450 and $899.

Best budget SSD for PS4

Crucial BX500

Crucial's drives don't quite take the performance levels of Samsung's drives, but in the PS4 that is less important cheers to their older storage connectivity systems. Drives like the Crucial BX500 however deliver a good performance heave over the PS4's internal drives, and they're simply as reliable as Samsung's products.

The BX500 is a fiddling cheaper, too. It'southward possible to get a 480GB drive for $49 if you'd like to give your PS4 a speed boost without whatever actress space – handy if yous ofttimes play the same selection of games. Its 1TB and 2TB models come in at $100 and $199 respectively.

What yous demand

1x PS4
1x Phillips screwdriver
1x 2.5-inch SATA HDD or SSD
1x USB stick or 1x FAT32 USB HDD or SSD
1x laptop or PC with internet
1x PS4 controller
1x microUSB cable

Stride one: find the right replacement

When information technology comes to wanting to upgrade your PS4 difficult drive, the first affair to do is to buy your replacement hard drive or SSD. The PS4 uses a 2.five-inch SATA format for hard disks and SSDs, and it's quite an archaic design now – information technology's generally only used for more affordable drives.

Any drive you install into your PS4 needs to be under ix.5mm alpine thanks to the size of the caddy that lives inside the PS4, which protects the drive and keeps it in place. This is no problem for SSDs, just information technology does prove to be a little limiting as many 4TB hard drives are a shade too chunky.

When looking for a new hard deejay or SSD there are plenty of things to acquit in mind – click hither to read our guide on the pros and cons of hard disks, SSDs and solid-state hybrid drives.

There are a few rules of thumb if you lot're in a rush. Hard disks are the more affordable options merely even 7,200rpm drives won't have great performance – at best you'll get a slight speed heave over the console's existing drive, at worst you'll merely equal it while improving chapters. A 1TB or 2TB hard disk will cost yous effectually $sixty (around £50, AU$80) or less than $80 (around £100, AU$160).

An SSD volition deliver a more significant comeback to loading times and game functioning, especially on a PS4 Pro console, but SSDs are more than expensive – 1TB and 2TB models tend to cost around twice equally much.

Step ii: Back-up your PS4

Got the difficult bulldoze? The next footstep is to backup anything you definitely don't desire to lose on your PS4. The bad news is that you can't fill-in game installs. Your abode cyberspace will just take to take a beating to reinstall the lot.

You should first by syncing your Trophies commencement since they won't be included in the backup data. But press the 'OPTIONS' push on your controller and select 'Sync Trophies with PSN'. Your Trophies will now be safe and audio.

PlayStation Plus subscribers don't need to worry too much well-nigh game saves either, as they volition automatically be saved to the cloud. Nonetheless, if you want to be actress-prophylactic, yous can back them upwards to a USB stick or external difficult drive.

Only insert the bulldoze, and so in the PS4 menu go to settings > awarding saved data management > saved data in organisation storage. Here you'll meet an pick to re-create your saves to a USB drive. You need to select the files game-by-game and so you might want to leave out any titles you're never going to play once again.

To support everything on your console outside of its trophies, head to the system carte and then into the fill-in option. You'll be able to select what you want to preserve, cull a USB drive to use and see how much space y'all'll have left over on the drive subsequently. Confirm the process, and the PS4 will restart before making the backup.

Step three: uncovering the hard bulldoze

Once you are happy you're not nigh to wipe out your gaming history, make certain there'southward no disc in the drive and turn the PS4 off completely (not standby). If your PS4 heads to standby equally standard, hold down on the PS button until the power menu pops upward, then select turn off PS4. Next, unplug all the PS4's cables (that'southward the HDMI pb and power cablevision most likely).

Set the PS4 on a steady surface, put a hand on the shiny summit plate and move it to the side a niggling. This is actually a simple plastic drive cover that's not held in place with screws merely a basic clip.

One time information technology's costless of its moorings, you'll be able to lift the cover off to reveal part of the PS4'south metal skeleton. There'due south non much damage you can exercise here, though, as it's just the hard bulldoze on testify.

To uncover the difficult drive within the PS4 Slim, unclip the plastic cover by hand. This clip can be institute on the left-hand corner of the PS4 Slim at the rear of the console.

With the plastic clip removed you'll see the hard bulldoze caddy of the PS4 Slim secured with a single screw.

To uncover your PS4 Pro's hard drive, just place the system upside down on a apartment surface and locate the small plastic console on its rear. Use the little tab beside the Ethernet port to pop the panel off.

With this encompass removed you'll see the hard drive caddy and the single spiral belongings it in place.

Step iv: freeing upwards the caddy

On the regular PS4 you'll notice the difficult drive is not notwithstanding in total view. At that place's one screw we demand to unscrew to release the frame that holds the difficult drive, using a Phillips screwdriver.

It's the largest one on the metallic surface y'all'll see, and is inlaid with the classic PlayStation push icons.

In one case the screw is removed, you tin just pull the bulldoze caddy out horizontally from the PS4's body.

To supervene upon the hard bulldoze in the PS4 Slim and PS4 Pro, y'all'll but need to unscrew the single screw that holds the caddy in place.

You will and then be able to slide out the hard drive caddy.

Footstep five: releasing the hard bulldoze

In that location are four more screws that hold the hard drive to its metallic frame. These sit on its sides, and can be released using the same Phillips screwdriver y'all used to gratuitous the HDD frame.

It's just the screws we need to have off, though. You lot'll also notice some rubbery $.25 the screws rest against to blot any shocks to the bulldoze: leave those there.

This is pretty much the same process for replacing the hard bulldoze of the PS4 Slim and PS4 Pro.

Step six: Swap the hard drives and supercede

In one case you lot've freed upwardly the original hard bulldoze, it's simply a case of putting your new hd or SSD within, and then reversing the process you've but performed. So put those four screws in the sides, get the caddy back in the PS4, fasten information technology in place with the large spiral and put the shiny plastic HDD comprehend back on the PS4.

If you have the PS4 Slim or PS4 Pro, the process will exist the same. Place the hard drive or SSD into the caddy, secure, then slot it back into the Slim or Pro console, spiral it in, and supervene upon the plastic comprehend.

If the hard drive or SSD doesn't fit, are y'all sure y'all checked information technology was a ix.5mm-tall or less two.5-inch SATA bulldoze before buying?

Should the process go as swimmingly as it went with usa, yous should be washed within 15 minutes.

Pace vii: download the PS4 software

Now you accept a PS4 with a completely blank retentivity. The console's Os is stored on the difficult drive y'all but removed, and the bulldoze inside your console is completely blank.

You demand to download the software in standalone grade, using another computer. You'll find it over at the PlayStation website, and information technology takes up around a gigabyte at present.

You'll need a USB drive or external hard drive or SSD with enough space to hold the download, and information technology must be formatted using the FAT32 file organization and installed into the correct folder – full instructions are available on the PlayStation website. Press and hold the PS4'southward power button for seven seconds – or until yous hear two beeps – to boot the PS4 into safe mode.

You can then connect your controller with a USB cablevision and select option 7 to reinstall your system software. Then, in one case that'southward done, you can restore your backup file and your PS4 should exist back to normal, albeit with a newer, improve hard disk drive or SSD.

Decision

Is upgrading your PS4 difficult drive worth doing? Absolutely. It'due south easy, takes less than half an hour - if y'all're quick - and tin can even be relatively inexpensive: effectually the cost of a brand-new game if you're using a hard disk. And, if you spend more on an SSD, you lot tin get a solid speed heave for your machine, as well. It doesn't fifty-fifty invalidate your warranty - it'due south as though Sony is willing you to exercise it!

The key question every bit of the arrival of the iv.50 firmware is whether to opt to upgrade the internal hard drive or go external. The other big question is whether to opt for a more than affordable hard disk or a pricier, quicker SSD.

If y'all're tempted to stick with an external, USB-continued product instead of an internal upgrade, then deport in listen that yous'll need to observe infinite alongside your panel for a new product – and call back to take information technology with you lot whenever you lot movement your console.

Upgrading your PS4 hard deejay does have a little flake of inquiry, and information technology can be daunting to open up your console – even if the process is pleasingly simple. However, whichever decision you brand, you'll be happy with the expanded infinite.

For enthusiast gamers, you'll no longer have to delete games to brand space for the new additions to your library. Merely think about information technology: the biggest games tin can meridian 100GB these days, and the PS4'due south original 500GB and 1TB drives just can't store that many games.

And, if you're able to employ an SSD, then you tin go a great speed boost equally well every bit lashings of extra capacity. Whether y'all get for a hard disk or an SSD, it's a no-brainer.

Bank check out our picks of the best PS4 games

You might also want to check out the best PS5 external difficult drives.

Andrew is a freelance journalist and has been writing and editing for some of the Britain's tiptop tech and lifestyle publications including TrustedReviews, Stuff, T3, TechRadar, Lifehacker and others.