If you’ve weighed the reasons to get a PS4 over an Xbox One and by choosing Sony for your current experience, you have made a great choice! Along with some amazing exclusive games of exclusive games of exclusive games PlayStation 4 allows users to change their hard disk drive (HDD) in just a few minutes. In comparison, Xbox One uses external hard drives. about the increased space that PS4 does not support .
In this tutorial, we’ll walk you through how to upgrade your PS4 hard drive in detail, as well as which drive to buy.
What disc will I get?
Before you start replacing your stock PS4 hard drive, you’ll need a new one to replace it. You have three main options:
- Hard drives (HDD) are the traditional option, and what is currently in your PS4. This is the slowest of the three options, but also the cheapest per gigabyte.
- Solid State Drives (SSD) have no moving parts and use flash memory to store data, making them incredibly fast. The main disadvantage is their cost. For example, you’ll pay $430 for a 1TB SSD, and a 1TB HDD for just $70. Costs will certainly decrease over time, but so far they are not budgetary. If you’re interested in the details, we’ve covered how SSDs work. work
- Hybrid Solid State Drives (SSHD) are a combination of the two. You can get a speed boost and more space without breaking the bank, like this $85 1TB SSHD.

IGN has checked all three if you’re short on numbers, but the best choice depends on your needs. An SSD is the most expensive option, and frankly, the slight increase in speed isn’t worth it.
Think about it: if you bought a new car for $20,000, would you pay $18,000 for an upgrade that would give it an extra five horsepower or one more mile per gallon? That would be stupid and it’s pretty much the same with PS4. Your system costs $400, and paying $400 for a slightly faster terabyte drive isn’t worth it. PriceZombie offers great prices with PriceZombie. but still not worth it.
The main thing when choosing between a hybrid drive and a conventional hard drive is how much space you need. A standard PS4 drive has 500GB (~407GB of free space after initialization), so using a terabyte drive doubles that space. If that’s enough for you, a 1TB hybrid drive is your best bet; you will have approximately 861 GB of free space after installing the PS4 system software.

With free PlayStation Plus games and 40GB+ installs even for disc games, you may find that 1TB is not enough. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to find a 1.5TB or larger hybrid drive that will work on PS4. If you’re going big, I recommend getting a 2TB hard drive. For about $40 more than 1TB, you can quadruple your current disk space and not have to worry about storage for long.
If you need a specific recommendation:
- If money is useless and you want to go overboard with an SSD, then the $430 Samsung 840 EVO-S 1TB is your best bet. Keep in mind that you are only doubling your storage space more than what you paid for the system.
- If you’re looking to ride the hybrid middle path, try this $85 Seagate 1TB Solid State Hybrid Drive.
- If you need maximum space, buy the 2TB Samsung Seagate Momentus SpinPoint for $115. This is the same disc that I put in my PS4.
If you decide not to use either of these options, please make sure the drive you choose is 2.5″ (laptop), no thicker than 9.5mm, greater than 160GB (not so much), and is Serial ATA (SATA) compatible , For brevity, see the Reviews and Answers sections. about Amazon (search for «PS4») to make sure others have already used them successfully.
Hard drive replacement
Okay, now that you’ve chosen a stunning new PS4 disc, let’s go through the process. You will need a new disc, a Phillips screwdriver and a flash drive it is more than 1 GB to install the system software.
Backing up your material
Just as important as backing up your computer. In the event of a drive failure, you need to back up your PS4 data as you are starting from a clean slate. This includes saving game data and any screenshots or video clips you take. If you are a PS+ subscriber, you can back up this data to the cloud by selecting » Settings» > «Manage App Data Saving» > «Saved Data in System Storage» > «Upload to Online Storage» . From here, simply select each available game and upload all save data to PS+ cloud storage.
If you’re not a PS+ subscriber, you can download your saves to a USB device. Go to the same menu as above but select » Copy to USB Drive» and follow the same steps to copy the saved data to a flash drive.
To save pictures you don’t want to lose, select Settings > System Storage Management > Gallery Snapshots», which will allow you to see everything that you have recorded. You can click Options and then Copy to USB or click the «Share» button to upload the images to Facebook for safekeeping. For videos, use the same USB method or upload them to Facebook. or YouTube. Don’t worry about backing up your games; you will have to reinstall them after replacement.
By doing this, you’ve backed up everything you can. Make sure you know your PSN account login details and then proceed!
Step 1: turn off and disable
First, turn off your PS4 completely. Make sure the system light is off; if it is orange rest mode enabled and you need to start it so you can shut it down properly. Once it is completely off, unplug all cords and USB devices from it. You must have a completely isolated system.
Step 2: Remove the plastic case
The PS4 has two sections on top, one with a matte finish and one with a glossy finish. Facing forward, slide the glossy part to the left of the center of the system; it should come off without any struggle.