PS4 Hard drive question

[Wildsprite]

only issue with SSD's even still that makes me steer clear of them is simply this. they have a tendancy to just start to die without little to no warnings and if you don't have software to tell you it has started one day you could end up with an unusable system. if this risk sounds ok to you I suggest you do a lot of research and find the drive that is the most reliable of the bunch.

SSHD's are becoming more the norm but you want to research those too. the wrong drive might not even work in your PS4. ofcourse this is the same with regular mechanical hard drives as well.

TL ; DR>>research research research

you might also note depending on the location of the drive and how you keep your PS4 a 7200rpm hdd will improve performance even if only by a little

[Kosmos992k]

only issue with SSD's even still that makes me steer clear of them is simply this. they have a tendancy to just start to die without little to no warnings and if you don't have software to tell you it has started one day you could end up with an unusable system. if this risk sounds ok to you I suggest you do a lot of research and find the drive that is the most reliable of the bunch.

SSHD's are becoming more the norm but you want to research those too. the wrong drive might not even work in your PS4. ofcourse this is the same with regular mechanical hard drives as well.

TL ; DR>>research research research

you might also note depending on the location of the drive and how you keep your PS4 a 7200rpm hdd will improve performance even if only by a little

By the next generation SSDs will be fine, there are new memory technologies that perform better and don't have the aging issue that the memory currently used in SSDs does.

AFAIK the HDD in a PS4 is a standard 2.5 inch SATA device such as the laptop drives. I believe that the only physical restriction is that the drive can't be one of the 'fat' drives that are thicker to accommodate an additional platter like some of the really big 2.5 inch HDDs do.

Specifically the 2.5 inch SATA drive must be no thicker than 9.5mm. Sony's official page contains a disclaimer that not all drives operate and you should check their list of supported drives. IIRC this is down to limitations of the FAT32 standard format, and the ways that different manufacturers overcome it in their drive BIOS and formatting, resulting in some drives not acting the way systems expect. So either the system firmware has to be modified to accommodate, or the drive does, or you get a different drive. So it is wise to check the reviews to ensure that the drive you select works.

I put a 2TB hard drive in my PS4 and called it a day. A SSD is not that much faster and if you want to pay more for less storage by all means buy a SSD.

When buying an HDD pay attention to the on-board cache the drive itself has, the larger the cache the better. A 5400rpm drive with a 64MB cache (WD used to make one) works great, as fast as most 7200rpm drives. If you have a choice of 7200rpm drives and one has a larger cache than the other, it's worth a few extra $ to get the larger cache.

[Wildsprite]

By the next generation SSDs will be fine, there are new memory technologies that perform better and don't have the aging issue that the memory currently used in SSDs does.

if that proves to be true the only thing holding me back at that point will be price.

[Kosmos992k]

if that proves to be true the only thing holding me back at that point will be price.

Indeed.

Actually, in long term testing, the current non volatile memory used in SSDs is not as prone as expected to failure due to the number of read & write cycles as they were once thought to be. Also, 'good' SSDs have sophisticated algorithms to manage the reads and writes to reduce the aging of the memory cells in the drive itself, prolonging life and making things a whole lot more reliable over time. That said, unless you are a heavy user it's normally not a problem with a good SSD.

[Blissa]

I put a 2TB hard drive in my PS4 and called it a day. A SSD is not that much faster and if you want to pay more for less storage by all means buy a SSD.

[Maero]

I actually had purchased what is considered an external hd as it was in a case, however once removed from the case it fit perfectly in my PS4. Now i have the original hd that i could use for other stuff
I sort of wanted to laugh when the Best Buy guy said "you realize" you need an adaptor", i did not say anything but that statement was false, lol

[Reila_Circus]

Whats more important to you, speed or storage? If your building a PC later down the line I'd say save your money and get an SSD for the OS, I would recommend SanDisk or Crucial (just not a Kingston brand.)

However, if you play a lot more games I would just recommend getting a 1 or 2 TB HDD or just sticking to the one you have now since an SSD with a lot of storage isn't really that cheap yet.

From prices I randomly chose from Amazon you can see how much more you get for a 2 TB HDD at the same price than an SSD with less storage.
SSD 250GB = $96.18
SSD 2TB = $716.45
HDD 2TB = $95.88

Anyway, for something that you game on frequently and you play more than just FFXIV, I would recommend getting on HDD thats capable of 7200 RPM for faster loading times. If you just play this game and maybe a couple of others/ don't mind reinstalling some games then I would recommend an SSD.

Personally, I game on a PC I have 1 SSD for the OS, and two HDD's for my games and other storage, I played on both the SSD and HDD and didn't notice much of a difference. The only biggest advantage I think an SSD has is booting the OS and other applications at high speeds, but for gaming I recommend an HDD for the storage.

[Derio]

I have a 2TB SSHD and it is noticeably faster with load times as well as recovery from being in rest mode. Its about a 2-3s difference from the stock harddrive they give you. I paid 140$ for mine but that was at the time the PS4 was launched. They are probably much cheaper by now.

[Viuiji]

Saw this post and wondered why I had never though about upgrading my PS3 HDD before..? I've been doing a little bit of research today and came across this video showing loading time differences between standard PS4 hdd and an SSHD.

If you arr getting a PC anyway, I'd spend the cash there and just live with the PS4 one for now, unless it i some time away until it will be finished.

I play on PS4 all the time and am not really a PC gamer, probably because I don't have a PC lol . I am now seriously considering this purely based on load times (I love my hunts!)

[ruskie]

I got a 1TB SSHD when I bought the PS4 works like a charm, helps with the load times and at the same time allows me to have a large collection of games around.