How To Use A External Hard Drive On Ps4

PS4 and Xbox One won't support external hard drives for now

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Both the PS4 and Xbox One will ship with 500GB hard drives. The PS4's drive is user-upgradable, but the Xbox One's is most certainly not. Even so, both consoles sport USB 3.0 ports, so expanding the storage should be simple, right? Sadly, that's not the case. At least at launch, neither the PS4 or Xbox One will have full support for external hard drives.

Speaking at the recent Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) in Seattle, Microsoft's Larry Hryb (otherwise known as Major Nelson) let it slip that external drive support likely won't make it in time for the November launch. According to Hryb, the team is "working on other things," so this feature is clearly taking a backseat. Likely, this delay is due, in part, to the now-infamous PR nightmare that led to Microsoft making a complete policy reversal. When you have to go back to the drawing board only a few months from the drop-dead ship date, it's no surprise that features start to slip.

Sony Hard Drive Tweet

Meanwhile over at Sony, the PS4 isn't in for very good news either on the same front. This weekend, a Twitter user asked Shuhei Yoshida — the president of Worldwide Studios at Sony Computer Entertainment — if the PS4 would allow users to store downloaded games on an external hard drive. In response, Yoshida simply replied "no." If you thought you could simly buy a cheap 2TB USB 3.0 drive to upgrade your PS4, it looks like you're out of luck. At least you'll have the option of replacing the internal drive without voiding your warranty.

The Wii U, on the other hand, already supports external USB hard drives. In fact, it's something of a requirement if you download more than a few games. The Wii U only ships with a maximum of 32GB of internal flash storage, so that fills up rather quickly. Hopefully, the other next-gen consoles will follow suit sooner rather than later.

Keep in mind, PS4 and Xbox One owners won't have to worry about this for months — maybe even years. The built-in hard drives on the new consoles should hold at least a dozen full-size games. Even if you run out of space, you can always delete a game, and re-download it at a later date for no additional cost. Hell, maybe the internal hard drive could even become vestigial if Sony actually delivers on the promise of Gaikai-powered cloud gaming in 2014.

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