
Do you supplement your PS4’s storage with an external drive? If you don’t delete it correctly, you could lose everything.

On your PS4, corrupt data is a nightmare. Your game data or save data may be affected, which could result in the loss of many hours of effort. You risk corrupting your data if you don’t remove the external USB device from your PS4 right after after using it.
Fortunately, there are three quick, simple, and secure ways to guarantee that removing your external USB device—whether it’s an external hard drive or memory stick—from your PS4 won’t corrupt any data. Let’s go over each one.
3 Safe Ways to Remove Your PS4’s External USB Device
Stop doing it if you take your external USB device out of your PS4 when you’re finished.
Before manually removing your external USB device from your PS4, you must first disconnect it from the console. You run the danger of damaging every piece of data on your external device if you don’t first disconnect it.
These are all quick, simple, and most importantly, safe solutions. They might only add a few seconds to your day, but they could prevent hundreds of hours of game progress.
Method 1: Go Through Your PS4’s Settings
Stop doing it if you take your external USB device out of your PS4 when you’re finished.
Before manually removing your external USB device from your PS4, you must first disconnect it from the console. You run the danger of damaging every piece of data on your external device if you don’t first disconnect it.
These are all quick, simple, and most importantly, safe solutions. They might only add a few seconds to your day, but they could prevent hundreds of hours of game progress.

This is the simplest method for properly removing the external USB device from your PS4.
Follow this chain to accomplish this: Configuration > Devices > USB Storage Devices (Choose your device) Put an end to using this prolonged storage
You should be able to remove your extended USB device from your PS4 without risk after a short while.
Method 2: Use Your PS4’s Quick Menu

Via your PS4’s Quick Menu, you can remove the external USB device more quickly and safely.
Holding down your controller’s PS button will activate the Quick Menu. Scroll down to Stop Using This Extended Storage after selecting Sound/Devices. Similar to approach one, your PS4 will advise you to wait a short while before disconnecting.
Method 3: Turn Off Your PS4

Turning off your external USB device before disconnecting it from your PS4 is the third method. Once your PS4 has completely shut down, you can remove your external USB device because it will be immediately disconnected.
Make Sure You Have a Good External Hard Drive for Your PS4
You now know three quick, secure ways to unplug your external USB device from your PS4! If you employ any of these techniques, there won’t be any data corruption on your external device, protecting your game data, save data, and other stuff.
Do your study before purchasing a new external hard drive if you use one with your PS4 and discover that it has slowed down or sustained damage. There are excellent external hard drives for your PS4 that may be used for a variety of purposes.
Check out our separate post How to Change Your PS4 Theme
3 Ways to Safely Disconnect Your PS4’s External Storage Device FAQ:
How do I disconnect external storage?
To avoid losing data, it’s important to remove external hardware like hard drives and USB drives safely. Look for the Safely Remove Hardware icon on the taskbar. If you don’t see it, select Show hidden icons . Press and hold (or right-click) the icon and select the hardware you want to remove.
How do I safely remove an external hard drive from my PS4?
Holding down the PS button on your controller will bring up the Quick Menu. Select “Sound/Devices” then “Stop utilising extended storage” to remove the external HDD. Once that’s been completed, a notice stating that it is secure to remove the device from the USB port will appear.
Can you use a flash drive for storage on PS4?
If your PS4™ or PS5™ console’s internal storage doesn’t have enough space to store a game, you can use a compatible USB drive. Drives that support SuperSpeed USB2 with between 250 GB and 8 TB capacity can be used, giving you more space to save your games.