News & Rumours: Playstation 4/ Orbis *spin*

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On the topic of backup tool - is it something that you really need in order to swap out the HDD? I'm toying around with the idea of getting a 1TB SSD, but prices haven't dropped enough yet, so I'm thinking of just getting a standard 1TB 2.5". From my understanding, the most important data are the save-files, which theoretically in combination with a Plus account are synched to an online storage. Anything else can be redownloaded. Purchased games can be redownloaded and any update-files will happen automatically once the games are installed again. What benefit does the backup feature bringt? Security? Or simply the ability to save time and internet bandwidth of not having to redownload all games again?

PS: I actually think the copying of 400GB+ over any USB device will take quite a considerable amount of time. I'll make a guess and say you'll be likely seeing ~20MB+/sec if you're lucky (160-200mbps), which means roughly 6 hours of copying. PSN bandwidth is less than that for sure, but not all games download this much data. My newly bought BF: Hardline has something like a 6GB file until you can start playing, anything beyond that is probably downloaded as you use/play? (Which again brings me back to why the hell does BF4 require 60GB of data?? :devilish:)
 
You need to be aware not all saves will be on the cloud due to the 1GB limit (if you have exceeded that limit).

The other thing is not to forget about other user data that might be on the system! Also, don't forget any screen shots or game footgae you may have recorded.

Finally, make sure you backup to USB3 or be ready for real pain!

I certainly think the backup tool will make the whole process a lot easier - likely a simple 'one touch solution'
 
Phil said:
On the topic of backup tool - is it something that you really need in order to swap out the HDD? I'm toying around with the idea of getting a 1TB SSD, but prices haven't dropped enough yet, so I'm thinking of just getting a standard 1TB 2.5". From my understanding, the most important data are the save-files, which theoretically in combination with a Plus account are synched to an online storage. Anything else can be redownloaded. Purchased games can be redownloaded and any update-files will happen automatically once the games are installed again. What benefit does the backup feature bringt? Security? Or simply the ability to save time and internet bandwidth of not having to redownload all games again?

PS: I actually think the copying of 400GB+ over any USB device will take quite a considerable amount of time. I'll make a guess and say you'll be likely seeing ~20MB+/sec if you're lucky (160-200mbps), which means roughly 6 hours of copying. PSN bandwidth is less than that for sure, but not all games download this much data. My newly bought BF: Hardline has something like a 6GB file until you can start playing, anything beyond that is probably downloaded as you use/play? (Which again brings me back to why the hell does BF4 require 60GB of data?? :devilish:)
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It's definitely not needed, but it will certainly make it easier for me.
 
yeah, I made the right choice to upgrade early on before I had too many games on the HDD - when I got my 20th anniversary machine it was a real pain but I can't complain too much :D
 
PS4 Firmware 2.5 is out tomorrow (March 26th). A few of the key features (check the link for more details);

  • Suspend/Resume* — Supported by nearly all of your PS4 games, you can jump in and out of your games with just the press of the PS button. Quickly switch from Rest Mode to powered-up so you can pick up where you left off.
  • Back-Up and Restore HDD to USB — Back-up and restore your hard disc drive data associated with users on your PS4, including settings, saved data, screenshots and video clips as well as games, patches and download data, to and from an external USB drive.
  • Remote Play and Share Play — For games that support 60 fps, users will be able to automatically enjoy those games with 60 fps for both Remote Play and Share Play** on supported devices.
  • Automatic Installation for System Software Updates — Enable automatic installation for future system software updates.
*Suspend/Resume is not fully supported by some software titles.
**A sufficiently robust wi-fi connection is required.
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An update for the PSV will also be out tomorrow which will enable the Remote Play improvements.
 
ooh, finally that backup restore :) good, I do want to upgrade my HDD as soon as I can afford a 2TB one.
 
goonergaz said:
You need to be aware not all saves will be on the cloud due to the 1GB limit (if you have exceeded that limit).

The other thing is not to forget about other user data that might be on the system! Also, don't forget any screen shots or game footgae you may have recorded.

Finally, make sure you backup to USB3 or be ready for real pain!

I certainly think the backup tool will make the whole process a lot easier - likely a simple 'one touch solution'
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Thanks, you are right. I forgot that there was even a function to save screenshots or videos to the local harddrive. I guess I've never used them (nor will I), so I didn't really think about them. I also wasn't aware of the 1GB limit. Are users informed if this limit is reached? From what I can tell, the whole interface on cloud saving is very basic and minimalistic. Given that there are limits, I would expect some kind of options on what game-saves are synched and which aren't, so that perhaps users can define themselves which are important and which less so. Since I have just deleted some games off my harddrive, I would also imagine that this has no bearing on the game-saves that were backed-up to the cloud. What a mess, really.
 
TBH it is a mess (and even more so for someone like me who has kids with profiles on the PS4!).

First things first check how much space you have used up in game saves, if it's under 1GB you'll probably be fine - but then make sure everything is backed up to the cloud...the issue being it's largely a click per save - yep, you need to manually select saves not games! This is why the backup solution is ideal!

You can check the notifications for any failed backups (to the cloud) - this will highlight that you are probably at your limit. The other thing to do is prune the saves you no longer need (I often have multiple saves in case I need to go back further, when I migrated the last time I just left those behind).

If you can afford it get a 500GB+ USB3 external HDD and just do the backup lol
 
orangpelupa said:
record a 15 minute video. it will be around 700 MB but will take 35 minutes to hours to finish copying to USB flash disk*.
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Just hit this myself trying to transfer a 130MB game video to a flash drive. Around the 80MB mark the transfer suddenly dropped in speed massively and currently says 12 minutes for the last 40 MB (it keeps going up in its estimate).

Some older Linux distros had this exact behaviour with USB drives, not sure about FreeBSD though. I wonder if Sony is using an older open source library that happens to be buggy?

Whatever the source, it sucks.
 
I guess robust as in low enough latency that makes 60fps usable. And any dropped packets are lost at this requirement, there's no time for retransmission, so reliable connection goes beyond just raw bandwidth.
 
deathindustrial said:
Just hit this myself trying to transfer a 130MB game video to a flash drive. Around the 80MB mark the transfer suddenly dropped in speed massively and currently says 12 minutes for the last 40 MB (it keeps going up in its estimate).

Some older Linux distros had this exact behaviour with USB drives, not sure about FreeBSD though. I wonder if Sony is using an older open source library that happens to be buggy?

Whatever the source, it sucks.
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That particular behaviour exists in distros currently. It has to do with the way in which the USB device is mounted. It looks as though the handler shifts as much data as can be buffered and then waits on that before sending any more data which causes the write speed to fall off a cliff. You can get around it by remounting the device with different parameters which allows you access at full speed but also means that you could, potentially, face data corruption if you remove the device too early. Though why BSD would have the same issue is perplexing.
 
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