When the PS4 system software 4.50 went live, it brought with it a long awaited request from many PlayStation 4 gamers. For those who like to keep their collection of games at close range you can now download and store PS4 games and apps onto an external HDD. The useful functionality is a relief for desperate PS4 owners who wanted to free up some space on their machine.
Format your external HDD
Now, there is some stuff you need to get through to make your HDD compatible for your PS4.
You need to format it first, and you can do so by going to the Settings menu on your PS4 home screen. Then in the menu you have to find the USB Storage Devices option and select your external HDD, then choose ‘Format as extended storage’. Of course, before doing this action, which erases all of your current data on the HDD, check if you have some stuff on it you would regret losing.
Also, before you go on formatting all of your HDD’s, a very important thing to note is that when you format your HDD to the PS4 specific format, you can only use it for PS4 apps and games. Once you go PS4, you can’t go back. You won’t be able to store any of the video clips, data, pictures or any other media without formatting it back to its previous stage.
When you’ve formatted the HDD, a green light will appear next to its name, letting you know that it is active and ready for storage. The HDD will be automatically set as the default download location as long as you keep it plugged in. If in some case you want to change between HDD’s and the PS4 storage option, you again go on the Settings menu and this time choose the ‘Storage’ option. The same goes for when you want to move games and apps to different places, you just press the ‘Move’ option and select the target destination.
Downloading PS4 games and Apps to an external HDD
When in use and plugged in, the games on the external HDD will show just as normal on your PS4 Home Screen, with the most recently played games appearing first on the list. If the HDD is not plugged in, the games will still appear in this fashion, but with a ‘!’ next to them, to highlight that they can’t be played until you hook your external storage back on.
A big thing to mention is that you shouldn’t remove your USB storage device when your PS4 is switched on without properly disconnecting it. To remove the connected HDD, you only have to go to the Quick menu by holding the PS button on your controller, and choose ‘Sound/Devices’ then ‘Stop using extended storage’. After this, a message will pop up and say that it’s safe to disconnect the device.
No more heavy choices of which game to keep and which to delete when the newest games come out. With this update you will be able to keep up to 8TB of data in sync with your PS4, and this is surely a welcome addition from PlayStation that will please all their fans.
Article source: PlayStation EU Blog
