A new internal drive for your PS4 can do great things like give you more space, but is that the only thing you will gain from it?
At the time, the base storage on your PS4 may have seemed too large, but now it’s not nearly enough. You may have filled it up with games over the years (or even months) and are now forced to delete games in order to make room for others.
If so, you may want to consider expanding the PS4 storage by either adding an external hard drive or just upgrading the internal hard drive of your console.
As for the latter option, which is the first thing power users tend to do, let’s examine why you should do it, along with some disadvantages.
Do You Have To Upgrade the PS4 Internal HDD?
So, you might be wondering if you even need to replace the hard drive in your PS4 at all.
If you don’t really game all that much and don’t mind some potential performance issues, you might be fine with your base PS4 hard drive, but upgrading the PS4 stock HDD has more benefits than you may expect.
Actually, the stock hard drive of PS4 is slow compared to modern HDDs, doesn’t have much space, and can sometimes crash. Worse is that, due to its mechanical nature, it will generate errors when it ages and degrades.
If you upgrade your PS4’s internal hard drive, even if you only have a few games on it, you’ll gain some much-appreciated advantages.
There are advantages and disadvantages to using an external hard drive on your PS4 to increase storage; you can choose whether to do so or not. However, if that isn’t your best option, then let’s examine the benefits and drawbacks of upgrading your PS4’s internal hard drive in order to guide your choice.
Benefits Of Upgrading Your PS4’s Internal HDD
Let’s first start by examining some benefits of replacing the internal hard drive in your PS4.
1. Keep everything in one place
Instead of using an external hard drive, you can keep everything in one place by upgrading the internal hard drive in your PS4.
As opposed to an external PS4 hard drive, which is small and simple to lose, your PS4 hard drive won’t be lost this way. You could take it out only to put it back in the wrong place and lose it forever along with all of your valuable game data.
With an internal hard drive, you avoid that hassle and make sure that the only way you can lose your data is if you misplace your PS4, which is unlikely.
2. Better Protection
The internal hard drive in your PS4 is more secure than an external hard drive because it is housed inside your PS4.
Even though it may seem obvious, your PS4’s internal hard drive is safe as long as you keep it in a secure location.
However, even if your PS4 is secure, an external hard drive could sustain damage. To begin with, it is possible to drop it or something on it, splash water on it, or corrode the wires. Not to mention the danger of corrupting your game data if you incorrectly disconnect the external hard drive from your PS4.
3. Noticeably Better Performance With an SSD
The stock storage device used inside the PS4 is a mechanical hard disk drive (HDD). Solid state drives, or SSDs, are increasingly becoming the standard. SSDs are much, much faster than HDDs, and for good reason.
This means that you can start up games, load saves, and transfer data much more quickly when playing video games. In contrast to the PS4 and PS4 Pro, the PS5 has a custom SSD that is blazingly fast.
If you intend to use your PS4 for a long time, consider replacing the internal HDD with an SSD. The difference will be night and day, even though this upgrade might not be very cost-effective.
Just be noted that if you have decided to go for an SSD for your PS4, you’ll only see between 30% to 40% performance improvement due to the limitation of the PS4 hardware that isn’t equipped for the high speed of SSDs.
But speed is NOT the only reason why you want to use an SSD to upgrade your PS4 stock hard drive. Reliability is the top reason before speed.
Reasons Why Not To Upgrade the PS4 Internal HDD
After examining some advantages, let’s look at some drawbacks of replacing the internal hard drive in your PS4.
1. Adding an External HDD is much easier
Adding an external hard drive is more convenient and straightforward than installing an internal storage device inside your PS4.
In contrast to upgrading the internal PS4 hard drive, which requires you to open up a portion of your PS4, external storage on your PS4 is extremely quick and simple to set up and use. Although it’s not particularly challenging, getting more storage in a matter of seconds sounds like a great deal. An external PS4 hard drive will give you exactly that.
2. External Hard Drives Offer Larger Storage
The standard for PS4 internal hard drive replacements is 2TB; and unless you want to go for an SSD that offers up to 8 TB space, if you want to go higher, you’ll need a few accessories and a few do-it-yourself tricks. However, the PS4 is perfectly capable of supporting external hard drives up to 8TB.
It’s obvious that an external hard drive can give you a lot more memory even though both of these choices are much better than the paltry 500GB the base PS4 hard drive offers (although you can buy models with 1TB of base storage as well).
3. An External SSD Is A Great Option for PS4 and PS5
You can use an external SSD on both your PS4 and your PS5, which is one of the reasons SSDs are so great. Additionally, due to the PS5’s backward compatibility with PS4 games, you can use an external SSD to seamlessly play PS4 games on your PS5. What’s not to love about playing games on your PS4 and PS5 with lightning-fast load times?
Unfortunately, if you opt for an SSD to upgrade the PS4 internal HDD, this option is not possible. Additionally, if you’re going to spend a lot of money on an SSD, you might as well ensure that it works with as many consoles as possible.
Whether internal or external, enjoy your new PS4 storage space
Your PS4 will benefit greatly from an upgraded internal hard drive, especially if your current one has reached its capacity. Not having to remove installed games from your PS4 in order to make space is a great feeling, and games now load up much faster than they did in the past.
Your PS4 will appreciate your decision whether to upgrade with an internal or external hard drive.
