Seagate punts external PS4 drive at the millions who uninstalled their game libraries to fit Red Dead Redemption 2

Seagate has launched an external disk drive for the PlayStation 4 so gamers can cram more gear into their consoles. Coming in 1TB, 2TB or 4TB variants, the drive attaches to the PS4 via a USB 3.0 cable. The Playstation 4 has a 500GB internal hard drive and read-only optical drive. Seagate said games can take up 40GB each and …

[Andre Carneiro]

Replace it

It’s trivial to replace the internal drive on a PS4 (unlike the XBox), so I personally plonked a 2TB SSHD neatly connected to the SATA bus rather than messing around with external USB crap.

[DrXym]

Re: Replace it

It's trivial to replace the drive. It still requires you have a USB drive at least as big as the one you're replacing.

It's too bad you can't plonk the replacement drive into a cradle, connect the cradle via USB and tell the PS4 to prepare and copy all the data from the existing internal drive to the new one so it could just be swapped in.

[JJKing]

Re: Replace it

And I for one would welcome our new data copying overlords...........oh wait, sorry, the meds haven't started working yet.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Replace it

Unless you have a "Pro" model, USB is much faster thanks to the old SATA2 controller in the non-"Pro" models (same for XBone)... SSD is near worthless in these old models.

Also, the slowest 2.5 hdd I've ever used came in a "Pro" ps4. Not joking, it caps at like 45MB, ridiculous.

[W.S.Gosset]

Re: Replace it

:) 10MB/s is enough to run an old-fashioned broadcast TV station...

[Tomato42]

Re: Replace it

STATA2 is still 300MiB/s I highly doubt that the PS4 can consume data at this rate and given it has to work with rotating rust it definitely won't be too slow

[bish]

Re: Replace it

It doesn't require a spare external drive at all, you can simply format a blank drive and start installing games again. It'll take a while, because PSN download speeds are painful, but it's possible.

[Tigra 07]

92 million PS4s sold, and yet your stock photo is clearly a Playstation 3 controller...Shame! Shame! Shame!

[Ragarath]

Well the article is about the seagate storage more than the playstation so really it should be a drive enclosure.

On the other hand why does it matter if 1 or a bejillion were sold for the picture to be accurate?

[Tigra 07]

"Well the article is about the seagate storage more than the playstation so really it should be a drive enclosure."

It's about a Seagate hard drive for the Playstation 4 (As the title makes clear). I'm surprised with 92 million consoles sold that a stock photo of a PS4 controller: A - Doesn't exist, or B - Wasn't used for another reason.

[oldtaku]

The superior controller

Because the PS3 controller is a better controller, duh. That was the perfect controller, then they stuck that stupid touchpad on the front (which is now relegated to being a big map button for most games), made the 'options' button a pain in the ass to use, and taped that annoying LED glowstick to the back of it.

[Valerion]

What am I missing?

What advantage does this drive have over literally any other external drive?

I think I've got a 2 or 3 3TB drive plugged into my son's PS4. I just bought one and plugged it in and it worked.

[Captain Scarlet]

Re: What am I missing?

It looks a similar shiny to the console shiny or something.

[phuzz]

Re: What am I missing?

Well you get the privilege of giving Seagate extra money, aren't you lucky!

After a quick glance at Newegg, the 1TB version is $5 more than the nearest 'non-gaming' Seagate harddrive, while the 4TB version is an extra $30 for the gaming version.

[emmanuel goldstein]

Re: What am I missing?

A 33 TB drive? WOW!! :)

[JJKing]

Re: What am I missing?

You have forgotten the 91,999,902 numpties out there who do not have a clue on how to do a simple process like that. As soon as you mention the word computer to them, their brain turns to mush irrespective of an IQ of a dead wombat or a Ph.D in rocket science.

[Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse]

Shhhhh.....

It has got a cool blue light aura thingy similar to the PS4s; so just shut up, stop asking questions, and pay the idiot tax...

[Snake]

Re: Shhhhh.....

How about giving them the benefit of the doubt and adding form factor into the equation?

Most external HDD's are rather ugly vertical boxen (unless you admittingly pay extra for a nice design), while the PS4 HDD matches the profile of the unit, making a very nice stack presentation in your media center.

Sometimes that's just worth a bit extra, you know?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Shhhhh.....

Indeed, this is Exactly how apple sell iPhones to similar idiots.

[A.A.Hamilton]

Re: Shhhhh.....

"Indeed, this is Exactly how apple sell iPhones to similar idiots."

How dare you call me a 'similar idiot' ... I am unique.