Have you upgraded your PS4 HDD?

[Phil]

P.T.? The demo? Hmm... interesting. I do have it, but don't think I completed it - got stuck at the end, even with tutorial I wasn't able to proceed. Anything else?

Can someone comfirm that putting back in the old HDD will work if something goes wrong?

 

[goonergaz]

I don't think it will work, I'm not 100% sure but assume it will want to format.

 

[London Geezer]

P.T.? The demo? Hmm... interesting. I do have it, but don't think I completed it - got stuck at the end, even with tutorial I wasn't able to proceed. Anything else?

Can someone comfirm that putting back in the old HDD will work if something goes wrong?

Nothing will go wrong! Just make sure you download the right firmware.

 

[Phil]

Sorry for riding this one out a bit...... but..... after reading this topic; am I correct that I also have to download the firmware from the Sony site (https://www.playstation.com/en-us/support/system-updates/ps4/#newinstallation)?

In other words, simply buying a new harddrive isn't enough - you also at the very least need a USB stick in order to install the firmware? Or is this step only required if you are running an outdated firmware or something?
If a USB stick is required, what filesystem should be on it? FAT?

 

[orangpelupa]

yups, the OS/Firmware need to be reinstalled with the "full firmware" not the "upgrade firmware"

 

[London Geezer]

Sorry for riding this one out a bit...... but..... after reading this topic; am I correct that I also have to download the firmware from the Sony site (https://www.playstation.com/en-us/support/system-updates/ps4/#newinstallation)?

In other words, simply buying a new harddrive isn't enough - you also at the very least need a USB stick in order to install the firmware? Or is this step only required if you are running an outdated firmware or something?
If a USB stick is required, what filesystem should be on it? FAT?

You can put the firmware in the same drive you would use to back up your old HDD. If you're backing it up. Or any external drive really, be it USB or HDD. And yes, it needs to be FAT.

 

[goonergaz]

again, just be sure to get the bigger f/w version of the 2 available - one is an update, the other a full instal

http://ps4firmware.com/

the one you link to is ~230mb the one you want is ~780mb - the link above - select 'recovery'

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Can someone tell me if this houses a 9.5mm hdd? cos this 2TB hdd is much cheaper than the one I posted above?
http://www.amazon.in/Seagate-Backup...ords=Seagate+Backup+Plus+Slim+2TB+STDR2000101

Hopefully, you didn't get it yet.

But one of the reasons that many external 2 TB 2.5" HDDs are cheaper than internal 2 TB 2.5" HDDs is because the external drives have a custom interface. For Seagate this means there is no SATA interface on the HDD. The custom interface in the back is directly soldered onto the PCB of the HDD.

Not a problem if you want to use it with an XBO, but means you can't use it to upgrade the internal drive of a PS4.

Regards,
SB

 

[orangpelupa]

yeah that is the HDD that have samsung thin HDD. It also very easy to disassemble (using credit card, atm card, id card).

 

[DrJay24]

Hopefully, you didn't get it yet.

But one of the reasons that many external 2 TB 2.5" HDDs are cheaper than internal 2 TB 2.5" HDDs is because the external drives have a custom interface.

I don't think agree. The HD I bought for PS4 was cheaper to buy as an external retail than as a internal OEM drive and it was a standard SATA drive once removed. The price differences are likely due to competition and a much larger market for externals despite the extra cables and retail packaging.

There are instructions on how to disassemble that drive to use it for PS4. No custom interface used (I've never even heard of this).

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I don't think agree. The HD I bought for PS4 was cheaper to buy as an external retail than as a internal OEM drive and it was a standard SATA drive once removed. The price differences are likely due to competition and a much larger market for externals despite the extra cables and retail packaging.

There are instructions on how to disassemble that drive to use it for PS4. No custom interface used (I've never even heard of this).

Whoops, it was the WD drive I was thinking of (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236519 )

Cons: the internal HD has usb/sata-controller is on the same PCB as the drive. thus can't be connected to a sata port for data recovery if USB/sata-converter fails. this is not WD Elements specific. it also applies to WD myPassport series which use the same internal harddisk as Elements, i.e., WD10JMVW.

I'd heard about this in relation to Samsung (rebadged Intel drives) drives as well. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152415 )

Cons: No SATA interface. USB 3.0 interface attached directly to the hard disk.

Had this happen with a couple friends of mine that attempted to use external 2.5" drives for their PS4 only to find out they couldn't. They were dirt cheap too, on NewEgg sale they were going for ~75 USD each.

Regards,
SB

 

[Phil]

Thanks for all the help and advices. I went through with it on Friday night. Pretty straight forward as expected:

1.) Back'ed-up all the game saves on USB-stick from all users
2.) Downloaded latest firmware to the USB-stick
3.) Swapped harddrive
4.) Started PS4, installed firmware, started downloading all purchased games and copied game-saves from USB-stick back to system storage.

Worked flawless.

A few things that are highly annoying though and IMO rather weird too:

1.) Game-saves can only be copied back to system storage if the game is installed on the PS4
Annoying since I didn't want to download each and every game I don't play anymore (or don't intend to for a while at least), but because there was no other way of copying over my game-saves, I still had to download those which was an extra 40 GB of data. And with PSN being quite slow and varying between 2Mbps to 20Mbps on average, not something I was keen to do. IMO a bit of idiocity of Sony to limit this for god knows what reason.

2.) It was rather difficult to find all games I had purchased off the PSN store. It would be great to have a option where all purchased games are listed. If there is, I couldn't find it.

3.) Game-saves of local users without a PSN account tied to it can not be back'ed-up and restored.
Hugely annoying. I had created a local user for some games because I either wanted to try out a few things with the games without altering my main play through - or in another instance, started playing a playthrough (The Last of Us) a 2nd time with someone and did this using a local user. It would be daft to link them to a PSN account since they are only to be used locally, but that the system prohibits me from actually backing up these saves are rather annoying. No idea why there would be such a limitation in the first place. It's a simple save. Probably because game-saves are linked to PSN user IDs or something. It's still stupid and annoying. Lost a TLoU game-save with ~20 hours of play time on it because of it.

Anyway, despite these 3 annoying points - about 40 hours later, most games are back installed and I still have about 350GB of free space. Yay!

 

[Globalisateur]

Thanks for all the help and advices. I went through with it on Friday night. Pretty straight forward as expected:

1.) Back'ed-up all the game saves on USB-stick from all users
2.) Downloaded latest firmware to the USB-stick
3.) Swapped harddrive
4.) Started PS4, installed firmware, started downloading all purchased games and copied game-saves from USB-stick back to system storage.

Worked flawless.

A few things that are highly annoying though and IMO rather weird too:

1.) Game-saves can only be copied back to system storage if the game is installed on the PS4
Annoying since I didn't want to download each and every game I don't play anymore (or don't intend to for a while at least), but because there was no other way of copying over my game-saves, I still had to download those which was an extra 40 GB of data. And with PSN being quite slow and varying between 2Mbps to 20Mbps on average, not something I was keen to do. IMO a bit of idiocity of Sony to limit this for god knows what reason.

2.) It was rather difficult to find all games I had purchased off the PSN store. It would be great to have a option where all purchased games are listed. If there is, I couldn't find it.

3.) Game-saves of local users without a PSN account tied to it can not be back'ed-up and restored.
Hugely annoying. I had created a local user for some games because I either wanted to try out a few things with the games without altering my main play through - or in another instance, started playing a playthrough (The Last of Us) a 2nd time with someone and did this using a local user. It would be daft to link them to a PSN account since they are only to be used locally, but that the system prohibits me from actually backing up these saves are rather annoying. No idea why there would be such a limitation in the first place. It's a simple save. Probably because game-saves are linked to PSN user IDs or something. It's still stupid and annoying. Lost a TLoU game-save with ~20 hours of play time on it because of it.

Anyway, despite these 3 annoying points - about 40 hours later, most games are back installed and I still have about 350GB of free space. Yay!

Good enough method if you have a fast Internet connection. But what about P.T.?

 

[Phil]

Yeah, I guess I lost it. I actually managed to find it, but despite an option to download it - an error message pops up saying "can not be downloaded". Since I still have the original harddrive, would it still be possible to swap the harddrive and back up the game-data to an extra external harddrive, then reinsert my new harddrive and copy the data over? Or does the PS4 notice that the harddrive has been swapped?

 

[orangpelupa]

thry it phil, im curious

 

[Deleted member 11852]

A bit late I know but if you are a PS+ subscriber then you only need ensure the game saves are already in the cloud, then you can download them manually after the HDD upgrade or just leave them in the cloud. The next time you install (or access) a game with a save in the cloud, the PS4 will retrieve those cloud saves.

 

[Phil]

Thanks! Yeah I knew about that, but after reading on a space limit (1 GB I think?), I didn't want to trust the cloud, especially since I am way over a GB, thanks to game-saves in the high MB range by LBP and DriveClub...

 

[London Geezer]

2.) It was rather difficult to find all games I had purchased off the PSN store. It would be great to have a option where all purchased games are listed. If there is, I couldn't find it.

Pretty sure you can go on Library (on my PS4 it's the very last icon at the end of a very long apps/games bar on the main menu). It will list all games and apps you have, whether they currently reside on the PS4 or need to be downloaded. I think. Pretty sure.

 

[goonergaz]

Yeah there are a few annoying little things which is a real shame - I totally forgot about having to have the game installed to put the saves back, that's really stupid!

As for PT I think the only way to have saved it was to back it up unfortunately - and I don't know if you can just swap the HDDs back, I think you unlikely to be able to

edit, oh and as suggested - you can go to the store and find your downloads

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Thanks! Yeah I knew about that, but after reading on a space limit (1 GB I think?), I didn't want to trust the cloud, especially since I am way over a GB, thanks to game-saves in the high MB range by LBP and DriveClub...

A gig of cloud space ought to be huge but I noticed that the minimum space any single file seems to consume in cloud terms seems to be 10mb, so a 437kb file will appear to consume 10mb of cloud space. Good job, Sony!

I freed a ton of space by deleting a bunch of save game files for games I played for 30 mins and will never play again. I also need to power up my PS3 because I bet there's a ton of PS3 save game files consuming space.