PS4 Internal Hard Drive (HDD) Upgrade Guide
PlayStation ain’t what it used to be. In most ways, it’s so much better. While the games of the past were fun, the visuals on modern games are breathtaking and the deep, immersive gameplay is spectacular and practically cinematic. The one caveat with PS4, though, is the fact that these days, we save games on the hard disc drive. And much like your computer’s hard drive, the space on your PS4 hard drive can quickly whittle away until you have nothing left.
Even though a full PS4 internal hard drive may seem like the end of civilization as you know it when there’s a new game you really want to add to your collection, there are solutions you can use to get around this issue, the most common of which is a hard drive upgrade/replacement.
As enthusiasts, we have to like that Sony shies away from proprietary storage technologies in its gaming consoles. Instead, the company sticks with standard hard drives, making upgrades quick and easy. Back in the day, its PS2 accommodated 3.5-inch PATA devices, which sound downright ancient now. The PS3 was compatible with 2.5-inch SATA-based storage. Today, the PlayStation 4 includes an easy-to-replace 2.5″ disk as well, keeping the tradition going.
Best PS4 HDD Replacement Options
Before going through this guide and elaborating on its different aspects, let’s start from somewhere else. I think it’s better to lay out the best PS4 hard drive upgrades currently available on the market. These drives offer larger storage space, solid performance and high reliability, all that for a reasonable price.
The internal hard drives listed below are all compatible with PS4 HDD upgrade standards. Therefore each of them will seamlessly fit into PS4 drive cage without any issue. So, totally relax about this matter.
Hard drive’s reliability is one of the biggest concerns when it comes to pick a new drive for PS4. Especially if you already read the tons of reports about the reliability issues related to PS4 HDD. As after a year or so of regular long use, the PS4 hard drive might start to seriously decline. This is expected with this old, cheap and obsolete hard drive utilized by PS4. It was authorized to reduce the market price to a competitive level (Read more).
The good news is that the recommended hard drives below are the newest drives in the market as of today. That means the latest storage technologies have been implied that improve performance and reliability. Additionally, they are backed by a long warranty (3-5 years) which indicates their high reliability. This will protect you from any potential mechanical error/failure in the future for an extensive time.
PS4 2tb Hard Drive Upgrade
Upgrading PS4 hard drive to 2tb has been, for years now, the most popular option. Not only the vast 2tb storage capacity contributes to its popularity, but also high performance plays a major role here. It’s vivid with Seagate Firecuda 2tb SSHD—the best 2.5-inch hard drive for PS4.
There are only 3 available 2tb hard drives compatible with PS4 storage upgrade standards. Two from Seagate and one from Western Digital (WD). This circle of options can be expanded if you consider using 2tb SSD. But here we will only list 2tb mechanical hard drives.
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Look nowhere else if you’re serious about enhancing your gaming experience with PS4. With Seagate Firecuda 2tb Gaming SSHD [ST2000LX001], you’ll get a 2tb of HDD storage space, 8gb of SSD storage on the 2nd tier caching, and 128mb cache buffer as 1st tier caching, making this drive the best non-SSD 2.5-inch hard drive ever in history. (Read an extensive review here) |
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Alternatively, you can get a complete upgrade kit like “Fantom Drives PS4 Hard Drive Upgrade Kit“. It includes, in addition to the above drive, everything you need for an easy, hassle-free upgrade process.
More Options
Additionally, if you don’t like to opt for an SSHD, you can go for a traditional hard drive. Just like the one laid out below.
It’s exactly the same drive as Seagate Firecuda SSHD in all aspects with only one significant exception. In a nutshell, it doesn’t have a 2nd-tier SSD caching plus the warranty is only 2 years.
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Seagate Barracuda 2tb HDD ST2000LM015 |
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If, for any reason, you don’t like Seagate, you can try Western Digital (WD) products. They have a great 2.5-inch hard drive with 2tb capacity.
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WD Blue 2tb HDD WD20SPZX |
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WD Blue is a great and viable alternative to Seagate drives. If you just don’t want to use an SSHD and want instead to go for a classical hard drive, choosing between Barracuda and Blue is quite difficult as they share almost the same exact major specifications.
You may want to read with deeper details on upgrading PS4 HDD to this specific storage capacity. If so, please view our article: PS4 2tb Hard Drive Upgrade Guide – The Best Options.
PS4 4tb Hard Drive Upgrade
The 4tb storage size comes second in popularity after 2tb. Most users would love to go for it if they have large storage requirements. Something like they have a shared console with a few family members or close friends. Or, maybe they need that vast space to store movies internally, especially after Sony has allowed it eventually.
It might not be a good news to some users to know that there’s no direct PS4 HDD upgrade to 4tb, unlike the case with 2tb, because there’s no 4tb hard drive that fits into the drive cage of PS4.
But still, there’s a workaround for that. There’s an accessory/add-on called “Data Bank” that allows you to incorporate a 3.5-inch desktop hard drive into PS4 without any issue at all.
For more information and elaborated details on upgrading PS4 4tb hard drive, please read: PS4 4tb Storage Capacity Guide – The Best Options.
PS4 6tb Hard Drive Upgrade
No PS4 fanboy would want to go for 6tb hard drive unless they have very exceptional needs and high storage requirements. Like you need it for storing heavyweight movie files, or, for some reasons, you want to install huge heaps of applications and games, then 6tb of storage space can meet your needs.
Just like the case with all capacities larger than 2tb, upgrading the internal hard drive of PS4 to 6tb requires that Data Bank add-on alongside a 3.5-inch desktop hard drive, which might be nuisance to some users who look for an easy and fast method.
There are also other PS4 HDD upgrade methods you might want to learn to see which one suits your needs the most. Please visit this article and learn about the different PS4 HDD upgrade methods and the pros and cons of each.
Adding 6tb of Extended Storage
Note that if storage is your main concern, and the performance improvement is marginal, try to connect a 6tb external hard drive to your PS4 instead of the internal hard drive replacement. This is the easiest and fastest way to expand PS4 system storage limit. But it might not come without troubles to some users. That’s because a 6tb external hard drive only comes as stationary drive (i.e. 3.5-inch desktop hard drive empowered with a separate electrical cable), and it might trouble you with its large size and electrical requirement.
It’s eventually your choice. We always prefer replacing PS4 hard drive with 2tb SSHD to gain the powerful advantages of replacing the stock hard drive with SSHD, and the shortage of storage can be covered by adding a 4tb portable hard drive that doesn’t need any electric cable to function.
PS4 8tb Hard Drive Upgrade
I couldn’t believe that someone wanted to upgrade their PS4 hard drive to 8tb storage capacity until I found people requesting it. Although it’s not easy for me to understand why this tremendous storage capacity is needed in PS4 environment, but the fact remains that everyone has their own needs of which they are aware more than others.
So, if you’re looking for storage upgrade alongside performance boost, you can just upgrade directly to an 8tb internal hard drive using the Data Bank accessory and one of the 8tb 3.5″ desktop drives. As 8tb hard drives of today are designed to high standards, and offer very solid performance and higher speed than lesser size.
Or just pick one of the 5 methods laid out in this article for the best compromise between performance and space.
Adding 8tb of Extended Storage
Just like what has been stated above on the 6tb storage, there’s no portable hard drive with 8tb capacity. Rather, that limit of external storage capacity come only with stationary hard drives that need an addition electric cable.
If you hate electric power cables, and don’t like the big size of stationary external hard drive, you have the option to upgrade PS4 hard drive with 4tb drive and add a 4tb portable external hard drive to your console.
Why Upgrade PS4 Hard Drive
From the factory, you get a 500 GB (465 GB formatted) drive that allocates about 57 GB for the operating system and other software. Now that digital downloads and local installations are necessary, though, we anticipate the remaining 408 GB will start disappearing quickly once more content becomes available. Does that make you want to drop in something bigger, even if you’re still stuck with a mechanical disk? Well, I think that you being here reading this article up to this point clearly answers this question.
More Storage Requirements
In 2017, after 4 years of the initial launch of PS4, 500GB or even 1TB of hard drive storage isn’t what it used to be. Games such as Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare ask for around 130GB of space on their own, and when you combine that with all the other DLCs and add-ons, it’s pretty easy to run out of space. In fact, if you’ve had a PS4 for around three or four years now, you’re probably coming to the limits of your HDD space. So why not replace your PlayStation 4’s hard disk drive?
When it comes to hard drives, no matter how large the capacity of your original model it’ll never be enough in the end. 1TB seemed like more than enough back in the day, where did all the space go?
Sure, deleting old games to free up space is easy enough to do, but somehow making that decision seems harder and harder, as one will always be telling themselves that they’ll eventually find time to finish that one game.
Performance Degradation
Moreover, there will come a time when the drive could not provide the needed performance from it. Despite not being used physically, it will wear down and eventually slows down in processes. What if you also get to know that PS4 stock hard drive, whether in launch version (500gb) or updated version (1tb) is an obsolete backward drive that doesn’t meet the modern storage standards of today, to the extent that, regardless its limited storage capacity, it offers low performance and less endurance compared to modern hard drives. For this reason, the person utilizing it at the moment would have difficulties playing and even pulling up the proper graphics. This explains the escalating user complaints of PS4 HDD failures/errors after a year or two of heavy use. Replacing or choosing to upgrade a PS4 hard drive would be a good option for anyone.
Better Stability/Reliability
Modern hard drives in general implement the latest storage technologies that make them much better in performance and more stable/reliable than older hard drives. So, by getting a new modern hard drive for your PS4, you’ll rest your mind from the issues caused by the obsolete stock hard drive that many PS4 users started to undergo after a year or so of regular use.
It’s worth to note here that a drive like Seagate Firecuda SSHD give you a solid 5-year limited warranty on the drive, which is a clear indication of its high reliability.
Pros & Cons
You may have already learnt some of the major advantages of replacing PS4 hard drive with a new 2tb hard drive. But let’s be tidy here and boil down everything in two lists that illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of this matter.
Note that we base the verdicts here on using Seagate Firecuda 2tb SSHD as your PS4 HDD replacement.
The Advantages
There are several solid advantages of swapping PS4 stock hard drive, that are:
- Getting rid of the obsolete and backward hard drive that PS4 is using. The stock hard drive of PS4 is manufactured in 2011 and implementing old storage technologies and doesn’t meet the modern storage standards of a hard drive. So, intuitively, it is a good idea to get rid of it for a better one.
- You’ll get up to 2tb of storage space that can serve your storage needs for a long time. That means you can now install extra games and applications and store huge movies without having a big concern of running out of space.
- SSHDs offer much better performance and reliability than old hard drives. Your games and applications will load noticeably faster, and your new drive will last for too long before you start to observe any kind of performance degradation or even functional error.
- You’ll enjoy a 5-year limited warranty with Seagate Firecda SSHD, which means that any casual serious failure of the drive that impacts its functionality is covered by this warranty for 5 years.
- Unlike external hard drive add-on, there’s no need to add a new peripheral to your PS4 in order to expand its storage capacity. Thus, more room is saved on the shelf, the traditional appearance of PS4 is kept intact.
- Unlike the extended storage solution, swapping the internal hard drive of PS4 doesn’t prevent you from using the Backup & Restore feature that’s offered by PS4 System (Read more about that in this article).
These are the major advantages we can think of regarding replacing the internal hard drive of PS4 with a new drive.
The Disadvantages
As for the disadvantages of replacing the stock hard drive of PS4, we can count just a few:
- The time spent in the upgrade process is somewhat long compared to the extended storage solution. You have to backup the old hard drive’s content, re-install PS4 system software on the new drive, and finally restore the backed-up content. This would take up to one hour and half, and it might not please some users who look for a quick solution to expand PS4 storage limit. But when it comes to adding an external hard drive as an extended storage, it just takes up to 5 minutes to get it ready.
- There’s no larger size than 2tb for a direct HDD replacement, as the 2.5-inch drives that fit into PS4 drive cage are limited to 2tb only, unless it’s an SSD, you can get up to 4tb but for a hefty price. Otherwise, you have to use an additional equipment (i.e. Data Bank) in order to carry out an internal hard drive replacement.
That’s it. Balancing the advantages and disadvantages it’s easy to deduce that an internal hard drive upgrade for PS4 is suitable and useful for the overwhelming majority of users.
PS4 Hard Drive Specs
It’s always good to know the specifications of the hard drive you’re going to replace in order to realize the benefits of the new hard drive through a comparison.
It’s worth to note that PS4 comes in two versions: Launch version with 500gb HDD, and updated version with 1tb HDD, and we will list the basic specifications of both.
| Brand & Model | HGST Travelstar Z5K500 (500gb model) HGST Travelstar 5K1000 (1tb model) |
|---|---|
| Capacity (Size) | 500gb (old version) 1tb (updated version) |
| Spindle Speed | 5400 RPM (both models) |
| Interface | SATA II (3.0 Gbps) (both models) |
| Form Factor | 2.5-inch (both models) |
| Thickness | 9.5mm (both models) |
| Memory Cache | 8mb (both models) |
| Year of Manufacture | 2011 (both models) |
From the specs table above, it is easy to notice that the drive utilized by PS4 is a low-profile drive that does not meet the minimum standards of a good hard drive of today.
PS4 Hard Drive Speed
As stated in the specs table able, the spindle speed of PS4 hard drive is 5400RPM. This is the standard speed of 2.5-inch hard drives of today, but it’s NOT the only factor that determines the speed of processing and transferring data within the hard drive itself, which impacts the overall PS4 system performance. The cache buffer plays a major role in determining the overall speed of any hard drive, and the larger the cache buffer is, the faster the hard drive performs. (Note that PS4 stock hard drive comes with only 8mb cache buffer in both versions, while Seagate Firecuda 2tb SSHD comes with 128mb cache buffer as a 1st tier caching, and 8gb NAND memory as a 2nd-tier caching).
PS4 Hard drive Size
The size of PS4 hard drive is either 500gb or 1tb, depending on the version you own. But it’s important to note that you won’t get the FULL size as advertised. There’s a huge cut-off dedicated for HDD system files and PS4 system software and its essential applications.
Therefore, the actual usable size of PS4 HDD (500gb) is: 408GB, as you can see on the image below:
As for the PS4 1tb version, you’ll get about 861.4GB of free usable space as you can see in the image below:
And when you upgrade your PS4 hard drive with a 2tb drive, you’ll get around 1.77GB of usable space:
PS4 Hard Drive Dimensions
Before upgrading the PS4 stock hard drive, you have to know its dimensions in order to get a compatible drive that fits into PS4 drive cage.
In fact, the dimensions of the drive are:
- 500gb drive: 3.94 x 2.76 x 0.28 inch
- 1tb drive: 3.94 x 2.76 x 0.37 inch
PS4 drive cage accepts drives not thicker than 9.5mm (i.e. 0.37″). So make sure the drive you chose conform to that.
PS4 Hard Drive Format
PS4 internal hard drive is formatted with FAT32 file system. Therefore, bear in mind that PS4 system won’t operate on any internal drive that’s not formatted with that file system. But the question here is: Do you really need to format the new hard drive before putting it in the place of the stock hard drive? The answer is NO, even if your new drive is initially formatted with a different file system (e.g. NTFS), the PS4 system will automatically format the new hard drive with FAT32 once you fully replaced the old hard drive and connected the new one to PS4. So there’s no worries here, and you don’t have to format the new replacement hard drive before connecting it to PS4.
PS4 Hard Drive Compatibility
The drive you choose for PS4 storage upgrade must be compatible with this purpose. For this sake, it must conform to the following standards specified by Sony:
- 2.5-inch form factor in order to fit into the drive cage, otherwise you’ll need a Data Bank add-on so as to connect a 3.5-inch drives to PS4.
- SATA interface. This is a mandatory standard that’s indispensable.
- Max 9.5mm thickness, or 0.37 inch equivalent
- Formatted with FAT file system, as PS4 system cannot recognize other file systems.
These are the requirements of PS4 from any hard drive so as to be a relevant storage upgrade. If you find a drive with these specifications, rest-assured then it’s a PS4 compatible upgrade drive.
To make it easy for our readers, we list below the PS4 compatible hard drives depending on their availability on the market.
| Brand | Type | Capacity | Speed (rpm) | Cache | Thickness | Warranty |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seagate FireCuda | SSHD | 1tb and 2tb | 5400RPM | 128mb + 8gb NAND | 7mm | 5 Years |
| Seagate Barracuda | HDD | 1tb and 2tb | 5400RPM | 128mb | 7mm | 2 Years |
| Samsung Seagate Spinpoint M9T | HDD | 2tb | 5400RPM | 32mb | 9.5mm | 2 Years |
| WD New Blue 1TB | HDD | 1tb | 5400RPM | 8mb | 9.5mm | 2 Years |
| HGST Travelstar | HDD | 1tb | 7200RPM | 32mb | 9.5mm | 2 Years |
| Toshiba Notebook | HDD | 1tb | 5400RPM | 8mb | 8.9mm | 3 Years |
| WD Black Performance Mobile | HDD | 1tb | 7200RPM | 32mb | 9.5mm | 5 Years |
As can be seen in the table above, there are several PS4 compatible hard drives that can be a great upgrade for your game console. We strongly recommend that you mostly focus on the cache memory, as it is a major factor that determines the overall performance of the drive, and the larger it is, the strongest the drive is.
Finding the Best Hard Drive for PS4
In order to find the best hard drive for PS4, there are a few things to bear in mind before taking the last step and making your decision, which are:
- The hard drive you choose must meet your expectations and fulfill the needs you want from upgrading PS4 HDD. Larger storage capacity and solid performance is what all users needs for their PS4. Just make sure the hard drive you pick can satisfy you in both aspects.
- When gauging the quality of a hard drive you must take into consideration its brand and the history of reliability. The drive selected here as the best HDD for PS4 is a highly-reputable drive. It offers high performance and long reliability to the extent that its manufacturer offers 5-year limited warranty. It’s a too long warranty for a consumer-level hard drive. This factor is important to determine which hard drive is best for PS4.
- Read the reviews made experts and even ordinary users on the particular HDD. That helps you judge how it performs in real world and see what complaints users have against it.
- The hard drive price matters a lot. If you don’t care about price and you have a broad budget, go for an SSD. Undoubtedly, it’s the best storage device ever, whether for PC or PS4. But because it’s too expensive compared to traditional hard drives, I didn’t include it in our list here.
Read these tips carefully and see whether our recommendation suits your needs or not. You can get a larger hard drive but miss the performance boost the SSHD offers. You can go for an SSD, or just add an external hard drive, but our priority is for upgrading the internal hard drive of PS4 first, then other options come next.
Using External Hard Drive
Since Sony has released PS4 System Software 4.5 in Feb 2017, users are allowed to connect an external hard drive to PS4 and set it up as a storage extension to the main system storage. That way, users don’t have to upgrade the internal hard drive of PS4, rather they can just expand the system storage with an external HDD addition.
This technique has its own advantages and disadvantages. And honestly, after gauging the different situations, we came to a conclusion that, in terms of storage expansion and performance boost, the best thing you can do is to replace the internal hard drive of PS4 with a faster and larger drive featured by Seagate Firecuda 2tb SSHD, and add the shortage of storage can be covered with an external hard drive, the size you want.
Following that way you can gain high performance for your PS4, alongside the capacity you’re looking for, which will noticeably enhance your gaming experience with PS4.
How to Upgrade PS4 Hard Drive
As with any hard drive swap, adding an empty disk into a platform means reinstalling your operating system. Before you begin that process, though, you may want to back up your saved games or make sure they’re synced to PSN Plus. That’s because once you install the new drive, you’ll need to start from scratch.
Delete any non-essential games, as that will make the process go faster and nearly all of them can be downloaded from the PSN store again. Once that’s done, it’s time to back up your data.
Your favorite titles naturally need to be reinstalled as well, and you can do that from discs or PSN. Sony doesn’t limit the number of times you can grab a game from its network, fortunately.
Make sure you have a USB-based flash drive, to which you’ll copy the operating system install file. Sony provides the complete PS4 system software package for download; simply grab it and make sure it’s in the directory PS4/Update/. Also, take note of the operating system version you’re running, since Sony won’t let you revert to a previous build.
Now, to go through through the upgrade process, please watch the video below that explains everything you need to successfully and flawlessly carry out this task:
https://youtu.be/cbw-hUnBCek
Conclusion
There are many major benefits of upgrading the internal hard drive of PS4 with a new modern drive. Especially if that drive is Seagate Firecuda SSHD that offers outstanding performance for a reasonable and affordable price.
If your main concern is just to expand the storage capacity of PS4, try adding an external hard drive. Using it as an extended storage will suffice you. Otherwise, if you are looking for further benefits and want to enjoy a better performance for your gaming experience, it’s strongly recommend that you do the internal hard drive replacement process.
Hi is a 2TB Seagate Barracuda compatible with ps4 ?
Hi,
Yes, it is, if it’s the 2.5″ version.
Great write up!!!!
It’s been a few years since this article, so I was wondering what is the best hard drive available today you recommend for a PS4?
Thanks in advance for your reply.
Hi Dave,
First off, thanks for your nice compliment, it’s much appreciated.
We have compiled a newer guide with new recommendations. Please visit this page to view it.
Hiya. I just replaced my internal hard drive with a new 6tb one and it won’t boot.
I just get the message : cannot start ps4. Connect the controller via USB and press the Ps button.
This happens in both normal and safe mode but the button does nothing.
What hard drive are you using? Provide me with the model number to check it out. On the other hand, how do you manage to connect 6tb hard drive internally to PS4? Are you using Data Bank?
So I just installed a ST1000LM048 into a ps4 slim, because the oem one basically died, installed the OS on the new one everything is great started playing games and noticed there was a slight lag when playing COD WW2 with bots when they would shoot at me, I tried a few
Things now I’m reinstalling the OS to see if that fixes the issue, I tried rebuilding the database and that didn’t help. Do you think the drive is faulty?
No my friend. The drive is NOT faulty. This is the problem with mechanical hard drives as usual. When they are put under heavy workloads, they suffer from some lag/halt that you see when playing. For this reason, the best storage upgrade you can have for PS4 when playing heavy-resource demanding games is a solid state drive (SSD). Otherwise, an HDD works fine with most games without an issue at all.
Hello, is the Seagate Firecuda 2tb SSHD still the best upgrade drive for the PS4? Thanks in advance for the help
Yes it is, in terms of performance, size and price. Otherwise, the SSD is the best of all in terms of performance only.
And thanks for the information really helped me
You’re welcome. Happy to hear that.
Will the wd10spzx blue fit in the ps4
Yes it will.
Hello
Just wondering what is the minimum internal hard drive capacity for the PS4 whether it be an SSD or HD?
Thanks.
Hi,
It’s 250gb.
Hello, I was wondering is there anyway I can get a 3TB harddrive for my ps4 (original)? I been looking but I can’t find any internal 3TB that would fit. If you could leave a link to one that would be great. Thanks.
Hi Josh. You need first an accessory called Data Bank. Then go get a high-performance hard drive like Seagate Barracuda 3tb HDD.
If you don’t want to use an additional equipment, you’re stuck with 2tb then. I advise you to buy Seagate Firecuda 2tb SSHD and get 1TB external hard drive as an extended storage, such as Toshiba Canvio Basics 1TB. That way you can easily get 3tb of storage capacity and, at the same time, you upgraded the internal hard drive also.
Just want to thank you for all the fantastic information you’ve compiled and provided here for PS4 users. You answered all my questions and then some with great links, suggested products, how-tos…you took all the anxiety away about how to upgrade our PS4 slim 500GB. Naturally with three users on the same console, two of which are pretty heavy gamers we were running into space issues, trying to decide which games to delete every time an update was needed for another. We went with the Firecuda 2tb internal kit from Amazon (great deal especially considering you come away with the ability to reuse the old hard drive as an external) and an external WD 4tb HDD for extended storage (figured it won’t be long before it’s needed and it helped with the backup/reinstall process greatly) that I grabbed on sale at our local Best Buy cheaper than Amazon. The process was really much easier than I thought, just followed the steps you’ve laid out and with help from a couple videos you linked for a visual, all went super smooth. Took several hours for the backup and reinstall, but the actual changing out of the hard drive was completed in less than half an hour and I was taking my time. We now have a noticeably upgraded console, completely DIY with a little patience and great tips from your website. In the end, it was one of those, why didn’t I do this sooner moments. So, just want all those others who may be gun shy about opening up an expensive console to know it can be done, just follow the steps and the advice here for an improved PS4 experience. Thank you again, and know that your website is appreciated.
Hi BH,
I too much appreciate your nice comment. It made my day!
Actually it took me too long to compile all the information in one article with the ambition to make it the only comprehensive and ultimate guide on this subject. I hope I have succeeded 🙂
Fantastic article, very informative and useful, thanks. I actually stumbled across this piece when trying to research a fix for my original model ps4 when it suddenly failed and and now displays the following:
Cannot start the PS4.
Cannot access system storage.
Press the power button for 1 second (until the system beeps) to turn off the PS4.
(CE-34335-8)
I now know the hard drive has ‘died, and if I replace it and install the complete ps4 software package it ‘should’ fix the problem.
I was considering upgrading the console itself to a pro for the 4k and HDR benefits, but with Black Friday around a month away in the UK, thought I might be able to get a better deal then. So my question, if you could help, is what is the MINIMUM storage capacity that the ps4 will require??!! 😁🤔🤯
I realise this could seem a ridiculous question when the article is all based on upgrading, however I already use an external 1tb hdd for extended storage, (wish I had found your article before making that decision) so was wondering if a 320gb internal hdd would suffice for a short term fix providing it meets all the other requirements of ps4.
Apologies for the long comment, and completely understand if you do not respond.
Thanks again for an outstanding piece, I’ve bookmarked ready for when/if I get a ps4 pro, as I know it won’t be long be for I do upgrade that hdd! 😉
Hi Jamie,
Foremost, thanks for your nice compliments and welcome to my website. Be sure to come here any time you want to ask about PS4 storage related issues, you will most probably get a sufficient answer.
I only don’t reply to useless comments, and I don’t see yours classified as that, no matter how long it is.
The minimum hard drive capacity that PS4 accepts is 160gb. Well, probably my knowledge is outdated, as this was the situation a few years ago. I think PS4 has increased the limit to 250gb, especially after the release of system software v. 4.0.
So, 160gb may work for you (not sure), but what I can assure is that 250gb and larger will definitely work fine.
Before buying PS4 Pro, I want to ask you if you don’t mind, what are you going to do with your old PS4 then?
Thanks for the response, much appreciated.
I have gone ahead and installed a cheap 320gb drive, just to see if it would fix my problem. On the whole, it has worked, so the ps4 itself isn’t ready for the graveyard just yet!
However all is nowhere near as smooth as it once was and the ps4 itself is noticeably slower than previously, which I am assuming is down to the cheap hdd.
Also of note, current game of choice ( cod BO4) has crashed numerous times since the swap.
I did notice that the USB ports on ps4 weren’t as ‘tight ‘ as maybe they should be, so swapped the install of the game direct to new hdd as opposed to the external storage I had previously and this has helped with the frequency of crashing but not eliminated it.
I can cope with the slow performance and occasional crash for now, however do think I will be upgrading to a pro if a suitable deal can be found Black Friday ( I am soooo tight!!!😝😝😝)
As for what I will do with it when I do replace it, I’m not really sure. I had resigned myself to it being completely broken, but now it clearly isn’t. I may end up using it as a massive blu-ray player for the bedroom! But it would probably not get much use! Any suggestions? Do u think if I installed your recommended Hdd it would be as good as new?
Hi again Jamie, It has been somewhat a long time since your last comment.
I see that you’re not a “performance seeker” and can be totally content with the original performance of PS4 (when you first bought it). And according to what you’ve described, your hard drive still has a “life” that can be “extended”.
The hard drive is not deemed “dying” unless it starts making clicking noise. If this is not your case, you can always give it more chances to “live”.
Most probably the problem in your hard drive is that it holds some bad sectors. You need to perform a FULL format (not quick) on it after you connect it to a PC, then get it back installed inside your PS4. You will see that its performance has been restored to the original state.
This is what a savvy would do in this situation. I don’t suggest buying PS4 Pro at this “critical” time. I am saying “critical” because PS5 is going to be released very soon. So better save your money for it.
How does that sound to you? I hope I have offered a viable solution.
Thanks once again.
The original hard drive is completely dead, I connected it to a pc before swapping it out and it cannot be read at all, I don’t believe it was even spinning.
I had considered waiting for the ps5, but reports seem to suggest 2020 as a conservative estimate. As previously stated, I am tight and don’t want to waste money…But I am also very impatient and can’t wait that long😂.
Thanks again for the very sound advice. Very refreshing to see replys, especially after such an excellent and comprehensive guide in the first place. I’ve learnt a lot and for that I am grateful.
You’re very welcome. I may suggest that you try getting a 512gb SSD into your PS4. It costs you around $65 and offers high performance. You can use it later into your PS4 Pro or PS5 (if you can wait) or even in your PC. See this offer on Amazon, you can get it for only £55.99. It’s such a great deal.
This offer doesn’t suit you if you have lots of important games/apps to install internally. But if your important games/apps are a few, and you don’t mind running other games/apps on a slower speed by installing them externally, then this is the best option to go.
When replacing my internal PS4 drive, can I simply use a disk cloning sw to clone the PS4 drive content to the new one?
I never tried it, but theoretically yes, it’s possible. Just use sector-by-sector cloning to ensure a seamless experience.
Replacing the PS4 harddrive does not void warranty. Get your facts right or your credibility will not be veru good.
Thanks for notifying me about this matter. This article, in fact, was written before there was an official statement by Sony in this regard. I shall correct this right away.
Can I put a 2.5” 4tb internal harddrive in my ps4 pro?
No, that’s not possible. Please read this short article for details.
Hi again, I was wondering that HGST hard drive has an rpm of 7200 whereas the Firecuda is of 5400, does this (speed) determines a better configuration or not? If yes, then, HGST is better? And one more thing, what’s the difference between hard drive and hard disk? Because I just saw a video titled, PS4’s hard disk, it looked like a cd.But, when I search about PS4’s hard drive and disk, I could only see the mentioned above normal hdds, what’s the problem here?
Hi there, and sorry for the delay.
When it comes to the spindle speed, HGST travelstar is faster than firecuda, but the hard drive speed is not only about that. Firecuda has a 2nd-tier SSD caching system that makes it very fast after you run your favorite game 5 times. That means, HGST is faster than Firecuda in the 1st, 2nd up to 5th time of game launch. But after that, Firecuda will stun you with its speed based on the SSD caching system. For more information, please read: >
Hard drive is officially called: Hard Disk Drive (HDD). Some would abridge it as Hard Drive (which is the most common) and some other would say Hard Disk. They are simply the same after all.
As for the video you watched, I am not sure about whether you correctly understood it or the presenter has the sufficient knowledge to speak. You better get your knowledge from authorized resources such as wikipedia and prominent IT websites.
Hope you have got the answer you wanted.
Thank you very much for the info😊. I recently checked my hdd in my cousins PS4 and it was running okay. Hence, I have given my PS4 to a technician cuz I think, the problem is in the motherboard or hardware. After all, the moment I saw his(my cousins) PS4, it was cracked by one end and literally off the edge though, it worked perfect. Whereas, mines is totally fine and well- conditioned but, dumbass not working!
So I was right in my guess. Good luck with repairing your console.
Precisely! Unfortunately, it’s really a difficult task to carry out, since, the country I am currently living in (Qatar) a gulf state, posses a tiny number of electronics repair, most probably PS4s. I even went to its official store but, workers their denied to check as the blue light of death remarks the PS4’s end, however, I am still confident about it being repaired.
Hello, I really liked your info but I have some doubts to be clarified. First of all is that:
My PS4 is damaged after it fell to the floor and some technicians told me to alter its hard drive, as it’s the one causing the problem and my PS4 won’t start, is it okay that I buy another one?
Second is that, can I backup all of my data stored in the previous drive which had gone useless?
Thank you.
Hi again,
If that’s your case then probably it’s something other than the hard drive that got damaged and caused that blue light of death.
To make sure whether it’s your hard drive or not, pull it out of its cage and connect it to a PC, either via an external hard drive enclosure or directly via hooking the data and power cables to it, then see if it works or not.
Thanks,but, what other damage it could be instead?
I am not really sure. Everything is possible and I cannot judge without diagnosing the device myself. Anyway, perform the process of checking your hard drive to eliminate doubts, then tell me what you get.
Thanks, but, I don’t know the way to connect it directly to a Pc, could you help me?
Well, you just need to connect the SATA and power cable to it. It must be a desktop computer not laptop. If you don’t know how, then I sincerely advise you that you better take your drive to a technician to check it for you.
Thank you 😊
You’re welcome my friend
Hello, I need to consult you that, I am replacing my internal PS4 hard drive to fix it’s damage due to which my PS4 is not operating( blue light of death), what hard drive should I get for 1tb storage?
Hi there,
The best thing I can recommend is Seagate Firecuda 1tb Gaming SSHD. It comes with 3-year limited warranty and is deemed the fastest non-SSD 2.5″ hard drive on the market.
Thank you for providing the information that I was searching for, and enabling me to make an informed consumer choice, without having to mine the answers from the depths of the web/ broken corporate “support” pages!! I look forward to any further knowledge you post regarding the same! Now to comb through some comments and hopefully find **internal SSD upgrade** affordable 😉
Nice way to get a backlink to your website. Only because I liked your comment I would approve it although I usually don’t do for others.
As for the internal SSD upgrade for PS4, check this post if you’re REALLY interested (cheers!)
Will this Seagate Firecuda work on a PS4
Model 1115a
Yes, it works on all models.
Hello, first of all I just want to say that this article is the best and complete I read in regard of this issue.
Now the question; I have a 500Gb model of PS4, and my kids (and mee too) occupied the full capacity of the HDD. My doubt is the following, When I read at PS website (and also confirmed with the PS support), they said that it is “reccomendable” to upgrade up to a 1Tb HD.
Is it because a limitation of my equipment or can I go directly for the 2Tb HD?
Just in case I have a CUH 1200 model
Hi Leandro,
It’s just an opinion not related to any technical issue. When counting the majority of PS4 users, they really don’t need more than 1TB. But when the PS4 is shared by more than 3 users, each that has his own favorite games, apps and movies, you’ll find yourself compelled to upgrading to 2TB.
According to my long experience in PS4 storage, and due to the dramatic increase of the file size of AAA-grade games, a mediocre and enthusiast users have to upgrade to at least 2tb.
And yes, if you like to go to 2tb capacity, you can do that without any problem at all.
Hope that helps. If not, you are very welcome to contact us again.
Do you think I will need more than 2tb HDD for PS4 in the near future? Or do you suggest that I only upgrade my PS4 hard drive capacity to 2tb without worrying about any additional storage need in future?
Whatsoever! If you upgrade your PS4 HDD to 2tb, you can simply compensate the gap with an external hard drive. Isn’t that a good idea?
Do you think 2tb hard drive has enough storage capacity for an average PS4 user? I have liked what you wrote here and want to make sure this capacity limit is the right one to go for. Thanks
Be certain that PS4 2tb hard drive upgrade is the best option for the vast majority of PS4 users. If you think deeply about it, you can install almost 40 games, each game with 50gb file size, and that is too many for a single user. Unless you have exceptional storage needs in PS4, or you share your game console with more than 2 other family members, then you may consider expanding PS4 storage to 4tb or even more, either by using an external USB hard drive or a 4tb 3.5-inch desktop hard drive (read more).
Concerning using a 2tb hard drive upgrade for my PS4, do you think it’s better to get a 2tb external hard drive instead of all the hassle of upgrade process? What will I lose if I just keep the stock hard drive as it is and enjoy an external storage addition to expand my system storage?
Hi Abraham,
What you’ll miss here is the performance boost the new hard drive upgrade offers. If you have upgraded PS4 hard drive with Seagate Firecuda SSHD (which we believe to be the best 2tb internal hard drive upgrade for all PS4 models, due to featuring a very good compromise between price, performance and price), you’d have get a performance boost up to 30-40% compared to the stock hard drive. As for using an external hard drive to expand PS4 system storage, please read this article that compares between the two solutions.
In terms of performance the best hard drive for PS4 is SSD. Is this true? and is SSD advised to be used in PS4? Thanks
Yes, that’s fully true. An SSD, although will have heavy limitations when used in SSD, is still the best storage upgrade for PS4 in terms of performance. That’s because of the high speed it offers and solid reliability that no storage device can compete with. But because of the high price tag an SSD comes with, we don’t make it our preferred option here, and an SSHD is the best options if you consider the overall features.
Amazing piece of writing. Is there any other 2tb hard drive for PS4 you recommend other than the ones listed above? Or do you suggest going for a 2tb external hard drive instead of upgrading the stock hard drive? Thanks in advance
Hello Stewart,
As said in the article, we only recommend those two 2tb hard drives for PS4, as all other drives that come in the same capacity and fit for PS4 storage upgrade are outdated and succeeded by newer versions. We recommend Seagate Firecuda 2tb 2.5″ SSHD as the ultimate best 2tb hard drive upgrade for PS4, as it features an excellent compromise between performance, price and capacity.
You can add extra storage space to PS4 up to 8tb by using a PS4 USB external hard drive, but you’ll miss the performance gain the internal hard drive upgrade offers. It’s all stated in this guide.
With my best regards
When I tried to restore my original data(after installing the new hard drive), It says, “The USB storage device is not connected”. I tried unplugging it and nothing works. How do I retrieve my game data(settings, capture gallery, saves)??
You mean your storage device was working when you took a backup and now not working when you try to restore this backup?
If this is your situation, try to connect that USB storage device to a computer to check its health/functionality first. Do a “Check Disk” operation to eliminate any bad sector, and make sure that you have cloned it first to your computer before starting the fixing process.
Tell me what happens to you next, and I will be glad to help you further.
You have stated that Seagate firecuda 2tb gaming SSHD is the best hard drive upgrade for PS4 and I totally agree with you. But I want to ask you if you don’t mind: What’s its cache buffer actual size? Amazon says it is 64mb and you say it’s 128mb. So what’s wrong?
Hello Jahrban and welcome to our website.
Yes, Seagate Firecuda 2tb Gaming SSHD is undoubtedly the best hard drive upgrade for PS4 in terms of overall features. It’s an excellent compromise between speed, capacity and price and offers up to 80% of performance that an SSD can offer to PS4.
As for your question, the actual size is 128mb, and what has been stated on Amazon is a mistake. You can verify the certitude of what I said if you read our review on this drive.