PS4 won't support external hard drives, specs for replacement drives revealed

[Ironman273]

PS4 won't support external hard drives, specs for replacement drives revealed
By Alexa Ray Corriea on Oct 30, 2013 at 1:37p @AlexaRayC
 

 

The PlayStation 4 will not support the use of external hard drives to store downloaded games or other data, Sony confirmed today in a post on the PlayStation Blog.

 

As part of the Ultimate FAQ on the PlayStation Blog, Sony revealed that the ability to hook up external drives to the PS4 is a feature not supported by the console.

 

The FAQ notes that users will be able to swap out and replace the console's stock 500GB hard drive, which is a a 5400 RPM SATA 2 model. Users can swap in new hard drives so long as they comply with those standards, are larger than 160GB and do not exceed a thickness of 9.5mm.

 

In August, Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida confirmed in a tweet that content downloaded on the PS4 could not be saved to an external hard drive.

 

Source: Polygon

[Roger H. Veteran]

hmmm well I guess that's that.

[Blackhearted]

So are they saying a replacement has to be a 5400 rpm drive?

[Lingwo]

So are they saying a replacement has to be a 5400 rpm drive?

 

No, i think they are talking about the drives dimensions and it being SATA2.

[McKay]

I saw people who had put an SSD into their PS3, while it was much faster than the 5400 and even 7200rpm drives, it apparently couldn't run at full speed due to the SATA connection in the PS3 or something, any word on if SSD's would run at full speed on PS4?

[Gotenks98]

So a solid state drive would work? That would be nice for load times thats for sure.

[trooper11]

Well they don't say yes or no to a SSD, but it seems like they are saying its restricted to SATA II speeds and has to be larger than 160GB.

I'm still scratching my head as to why Sony will not support external storage of any kind. They wont even say they are working to add it. They just wont do it.

[firey]

Well they don't say yes or no to a SSD, but it seems like they are saying its restricted to SATA II speeds and has to be larger than 160GB.

I'm still scratching my head as to why Sony will not support external storage of any kind. They wont even say they are working to add it. They just wont do it.

Doesn't make sense to me either.. if you can use a USB stick why not an external HDD.. seems strange to me.  Unless there is some major flaw where having a second drive that could be made bootable would allow the PS4 to boot another OS.. something seems strange.

[trooper11]

Doesn't make sense to me either.. if you can use a USB stick why not an external HDD.. seems strange to me.  Unless there is some major flaw where having a second drive that could be made bootable would allow the PS4 to boot another OS.. something seems strange.

but wait, can you use a usb stick? No where in that FAQ are usb sticks mentioned as being treated differently than external hard drives. We could assume that they could be supported for game saves or something, but considering they don't even support mp3 files anymore, how trustworthy is the assumption that usb drives can be used.

[LittleNeutrino Veteran]

I wonder if this also applies to Video, Photo, and Music files on an attached Flash Drive.

[firey]

but wait, can you use a usb stick? No where in that FAQ are usb sticks mentioned as being treated differently than external hard drives. We could assume that they could be supported for game saves or something, but considering they don't even support mp3 files anymore, how trustworthy is the assumption that usb drives can be used.

Well, considering the PS3 could use USB Sticks for movies, game updates, system updates, etc.. that's what I based it on.

If we can't use USB Sticks at all.. how would anyone without an active internet connection update their systems?  Unless of course your PS4 acts like an OTG device that could be plugged into a PC or the file system accessed remotely?

[Thief000]

 

Win for the Xbox One then. You can take your entire digital collection with you to someone else with another Xbox One on external media once the system update with that feature hits soon after launch.

[firey]

 

Win for the Xbox One then. You can take your entire digital collection with you to someone else with another Xbox One on external media once the system update with that feature hits soon after launch.

Well, here's hoping.  I mean it may not work like that.. there could be hardware specific encryption on each file that prevents you doing that.  Though the main reason Xbox even supports external is because you can't replace the internal.  theoretically you could just take the HDD out of the PS4 and take it to your buddies, take theirs out, put yours in, and there ya go.

[XorpiZ]

Well, considering the PS3 could use USB Sticks for movies, game updates, system updates, etc.. that's what I based it on.

If we can't use USB Sticks at all.. how would anyone without an active internet connection update their systems?  Unless of course your PS4 acts like an OTG device that could be plugged into a PC or the file system accessed remotely?

 

You can transfer the update to a USB-stick, set the PS4 to safe mode and then update it like that. At least according to the official faq.

[firey]

You can transfer the update to a USB-stick, set the PS4 to safe mode and then update it like that. At least according to the official faq.

So that means it does support reading external devices.. I wonder if that functionality is just disabled outside of safe mode.  I assume if it is.. someone will figure out how to enable it.. or sony could very easily enable it.

[XorpiZ]

So that means it does support reading external devices.. I wonder if that functionality is just disabled outside of safe mode.  I assume if it is.. someone will figure out how to enable it.. or sony could very easily enable it.

 

I would guess it's disabled for security reasons, but I wouldn't know.

 

And I wouldn't count on Sony for doing the hacking-community a favor after the whole rootkit and "otheros" debacles :-)

[Thief000]

Well, here's hoping.  I mean it may not work like that.. there could be hardware specific encryption on each file that prevents you doing that.  Though the main reason Xbox even supports external is because you can't replace the internal.  theoretically you could just take the HDD out of the PS4 and take it to your buddies, take theirs out, put yours in, and there ya go.

 

I hope so too as it's already possible on the Xbox 360 (with a 32GB limit though, which should be upped or removed) and would really be backwards if it wasn't.

[firey]

I hope so too as it's already possible on the Xbox 360 (with a 32GB limit though, which should be upped or removed) and would really be backwards if it wasn't.

Well, just look at PS4.. no MP3/CD/DLNA/Streaming/External Drive  support.. some of which date back to the PS1.. the others were ALL in ps3.  They went backwards in quite a few areas.

[firey]

I would guess it's disabled for security reasons, but I wouldn't know.

 

And I wouldn't count on Sony for doing the hacking-community a favor after the whole rootkit and "otheros" debacles :-)

That's my assumption.. maybe with the way the OS is designed externals can cause a lot of risk (or maybe the hope is to prevent people from easily modfiying files?).    

And yes.. I wouldn't count on Sony making it easy or allowing access to things that could compromise the system.

[The Evil Overlord]

I use external drives on my ps3 for all my movies, media center was unreliable.

This has annoyed me slightly as I thought the ps4 would slide right into the infrastruture I've built around my ps3.

[trooper11]

Well, considering the PS3 could use USB Sticks for movies, game updates, system updates, etc.. that's what I based it on.

If we can't use USB Sticks at all.. how would anyone without an active internet connection update their systems?  Unless of course your PS4 acts like an OTG device that could be plugged into a PC or the file system accessed remotely?

 

Well since the ps4 won't support mp3 files, that gives the strong impression that they are not interested in supporting media played back from any external device.

As you guys have discussed, it looks like usb sticks could be used to install an update, although Sony says that if you don't have internet and want the update, they will ship you a disc.

 

Well, here's hoping.  I mean it may not work like that.. there could be hardware specific encryption on each file that prevents you doing that.  Though the main reason Xbox even supports external is because you can't replace the internal.  theoretically you could just take the HDD out of the PS4 and take it to your buddies, take theirs out, put yours in, and there ya go.

Well the 360 supported external drives as well, even though you could replace the hard drive, so I don't think that is the main reason support is on the X1.

I think something to keep in mind is that the X1 is running Win 8 and that could mean that we will see the X1 have much more comprehensive pc-like support than the ps4. That would include things like supporting an external storage device, playback support for mp3s, mp4s, cds, etc. I mean heck, the X1 will support hdmi capture at launch as well.

Sony could just not be interested in wasting time on such things. It could come along later, but its frustrating to see them actually give up features that the ps3 had. Maybe Sony feels like they would rather push users into their streaming media services instead of supporting local media playback.

[Prosidius]

Lot of bad news in this FAQ.  PS4 not supporting MP3 and DLNA are huge.  I use my PS3 more to stream content from my PC than for games.  Hope this functionality will get patched in later.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

IIRC didn't Sony disable USB devices on the PS3 after the jailbreak was released? Not surprising they did the same for PS4 now. A big blow to not have the feature at launch for sure, but hopefully they have a fix further down the line.

 

I think they'll probably go down the same route as Microsoft with proprietary OS HDDs ala 360. No doubt with a $$$ price tag just for the lulz :P

[trooper11]

Its interesting to me that MS has been able to support external drives on both the 360 and soon to be X1 and yet Sony is reluctant to offer the same thing with the ps4.

If it is a security measure for Sony, there must be something about their OS that makes that so.

[The Evil Overlord]

Its interesting to me that MS has been able to support external drives on both the 360 and soon to be X1 and yet Sony is reluctant to offer the same thing with the ps4.

If it is a security measure for Sony, there must be something about their OS that makes that so.

good point cfw is an Achilles heel for them