PlayStation 4 games already now take up a chunk of space in your hard drive with around 50GB installs per game. If you are one of those gamers who downloads games from PSN for your PlayStation 4 rather than getting the retail disc of the same, your 500GB PS4 HDD will get filled up sooner than you think.
An upgrade to a bigger faster hard drive is but an obvious option. But unlike its competition, PlayStation 4’s 2.5-inch hard drive is completely replaceable.
Sony did give the liberty to gamers to replace hard drives in PlayStation 3 and the company has kept this legacy of user-friendliness with PlayStation 4 too.
The procedure is quite easy and will require only few minutes to implement successfully. PlayStation Gang teaches you exactly how you can do it below –
Tools Needed for the Job:
- A 2.5-inch hard drive which is equal to a notebook drive and shouldn’t be thicker than 9.5 millimeters and minimum space in hard drive should be 160GB.
- USB flash drive with minimum 1GB space
- A Philips-head screwdriver
- A PC with Internet connection
Procedure
Unplug and lay down the console horizontally. Remove the glossy black cover with slight pressure, it should slide off and snap out easily. Search and remove a screw with PlayStation button logos- circle, square, triangle and X.
Pull out the hard-drive tray and unscrew the four screws to detach the hard drive. Replace it with the new hard drive and make sure the SATA ports are towards the open side of the tray. Now replace the 4 screws in the tray and inject it back into the console. Also replace the screw with PlayStation button logos.
To put the glossy black cover back, insert it from the top and click it back into position.
Software update:
Start your computer and download the latest software update of PlayStation 4 from Sony’s official PlayStation website. The software update file will be around 800mb or higher in size. Also format your USB flash drive by connecting it to your computer. Then open “Computer” icon in Windows and right-click the USB drive. Select Format, choose “FAT 32” and click the start button. FAT 32 is the format which is recognized by PlayStation 4.
Now create a new folder named as “PS4”. Inside it, create another new folder named in all caps as “UPDATE” and copy-paste the update file from your computer to this folder.
Console Process
Now simply connect the USB flash drive with PS4. Also connect the power cord, HDMI cord and the Dualshock 4 controller with the console. Now hold the power button for 7 seconds to switch on the console in Safe mode.
When asked, press the PlayStation button, then highlight the “Initialize PS4 (Reinstall System Software)” option and press X button. This will result in the installation of the update file.
Finally the console will restart the way it did for the first time. Then you can sign in to PlayStation Network and download your games.
If you have upgraded your PS4 hard drive or if you found that a model of HDD or SSD works fine with your PS4, do write below in the comment section and help others too. Also check out the article on how you can pause downloads on PS4.