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PS4

Running out of disk space on your PS4 with those monthly PlayStation Plus releases? Maybe those long load times are slowly eating away at your sanity. That tiny, irksome drive that comes standard with the PS4 leads to nothing but heartbreak, just yous do have options at your disposal. It'south easy to bandy out the default hard drive for something much better, but what about all the absurd stuff already on your drive?

Today, we'll walk through the process of backing upwardly your files and how y'all tin upgrade your panel with lilliputian more than than a screwdriver, a new internal drive, and an external backup. And if you're worried well-nigh losing your re-create of P.T., this process volition keep your game installations safe fifty-fifty if you endure a bulldoze failure.

3 Backup and Restore

Begin the backup process

To get the ball rolling, you'll need to plug in your external bulldoze over USB. It needs to be formatted using FAT32 or exFAT, and if y'all want to support a full drive, the external bulldoze should have at least the same capacity as the internal drive.

Launch the Settings app from the PS4'southward principal menu. Select the System option, become downward to Back Upwardly and Restore, so go into the Back Upwardly PS4 sub-bill of fare.

At this point, yous may exist notified that your trophies can't be backed up. Of grade, trophies sync over PSN, so that's not a problem. If y'all're sure that everything is already synced, but select "OK." If you want to brand certain that all of your trophies are properly synced, you should back out, launch the Trophies app, and brand sure that everything is copacetic earlier continuing.

4 Backup PS4

Make up one's mind what gets backed up

Once you lot get to this carte du jour, you'll likely have to wait a few minutes while the total data usage is tallied. Once it's done scrutinizing your drives, you'll see how much infinite is being taken upward by captures, saved data, settings, and installed applications. On the right-hand side, you'll see how much space you'll have left on the external drive after the dorsum up is finished.

See that checkbox side by side to the applications section? Unchecking it volition skip the back up process for your game installations. Since almost all apps and games tin be downloaded once again from PSN at any point, you can skip this function of the support if you'd like. However, it's possible that some titles volition eventually become inaccessible (like P.T.), then you're better off safe than sorry.

Subsequently y'all've chosen what you want to back up, hit the "Side by side" push button.

5 Confirm

Brand the support

From here, yous'll exist able to give the back up a descriptive name. When you're fix to proceed, press the "Back Upward" push. Yous'll be greeted with a screen that says "Preparing to back up," and you'll meet a progress bar. In one case finished, the screen volition go bare, and your PS4 will reboot.

After a modest expect, you lot'll be told that y'all're in the process of backing upwards your data, and that you shouldn't turn off your PS4. This part of the process will most certainly take up the most amount of fourth dimension. Depending on the size of your back up, and the speed of your external drive, it could even have hours to stop.

Once information technology's done backing upwardly your data, the screen will say "Backup complete. The PS4 will restart." Brand sure your controller is on by pressing the "PS" button on your DualShock 4, and then select "OK" on the screen. Once the reboot is finished, you're all set up. Yous tin can use your PS4 equally normal, or follow the rest of this guide to upgrade your drive, and restore your data.

Purchase a replacement drive

If y'all're going to bother swapping out your hard drive, you should definitely pick a replacement that's both faster and higher capacity. When I bought my PS4 at launch, I snagged this 1TB 7200RPM bulldoze from HGST. Information technology'south non the biggest or fastest, but it's a nice step up from the default 500GB 5400RPM bulldoze, and it's quite affordable.

You can get with an SSHD or SSD if you're willing to spend the extra money, just the operation improvements will vary wildly depending on which games you play and how you employ your PS4. Merely make sure you buy a 2.five-inch SATA 2-uniform drive that's 9.5mm thick or smaller, and everything should piece of work out fine.

If you desire to utilize a bigger drive on your PS4, the Nyko Data Bank is an affordable manner to brand that happen. There have been some issues in the past with drives with a chapters over 2TB, but the latest firmware seems to have solved the issue. Your milage may vary.

Open PS4

Open up your PS4

In one case y'all take your drive ready to go, power down your PS4, and unplug everything. Move information technology over to a big open surface, and slide off the shiny role of the PS4's case. Set up it bated.

PS4 Screw

Supercede the bulldoze

With the top of the case off, you'll run into where the drive sits correct away. With a phillips screwdriver, remove the single screw holding the drive in place. Slide out the tray, swap the drives, supersede the tray, and secure the screw. Slap on the case in one case more, and plug everything back in.

Initialize

Initialize

When you boot up the PS4 with a new bulldoze, you'll demand to initialize it. Push button through the menu, and follow the on-screen prompts. If everything goes as planned, the PS4 should kicking to the primary carte once the initialization is finished. Now you tin log into your PSN business relationship again.

7 Start Restore

Navigate to the restore menu

When you're ready to restore from your external drive, launch the Settings app from the PS4 main menu. Go to Arrangement, and then push through to the Back Up and Restore menu. Now, go to Restore PS4.

8 Select Backup

Restore from a fill-in

From here, select which fill-in you desire, and then press the "Restore" button. Depending on the drive and size of the backup, this process could take a very long time to complete. Follow the prompts, don't turn off your PS4 during the process, and have patience. Once everything is finished, everything volition exist back where it belongs.

Mission achieved

Finally, your new hard drive is in place, and you lot take room to keep your library installed. And if you're looking to give your drive a workout, bank check out some of the free-to-play titles available on the PS4. This is the perfect opportunity to expand your horizons without having to uninstall your favorite games.