What is the biggest external hard drive PS4 supports?

PS4 w/ External Hard Drives Resting On Top
(Image credit: Android Central)

Best answer: The biggest external hard drive that the PS4 supports can be up to 8TB, which is the console's maximum external storage capacity. Seagate has the perfect HDD for the job.

Why do I even need more storage?

Games are bigger than they've ever been, whether in terms of the sheer size of their worlds, or the amount of content packed into them. This holds doubly true for the amount of space they take up on your hard drive.

At the beginning of the generation, Sony and Microsoft quickly found out that 500GB just wasn't enough to include in their systems' internal storage. Fast forward to today, and your standard PlayStation 4 console holds up to 1TB of storage, minus a small percentage that's dedicated to running the console itself. You'd be surprised at how quickly the internal hard-disk drive (HDD) fills up. If you do so without breaking a sweat, it's time to upgrade to an external HDD.

Why should I purchase an 8TB HDD?

According to PlayStation Support, "You can use only one device for extended storage at a time. Even if you have connected two devices that are formatted for use as extended storage, only one can be active as extended storage."

What this means is the PS4, unfortunately, doesn't support the use of multiple external hard drives simultaneously. Since it's not ideal to swap between multiple hard drives unless you need to, it's best to pick up the largest drive possible. You are already going to be spending close to $100 if you shell out for a 4TB external HDD. For just a little more, you can pick up an 8TB so you won't need to worry about losing money on several purchases.

At this point, if you find that 8TB is still not enough space for your games, you can use more than one external hard drive and flip between them.

Two great options 

Both Seagate options represent some of the best choices for your PlayStation 4, but of course, there are a myriad of other options out there if you're looking for extra space on your PlayStation 4. However, both Seagate options act as choices that will essentially make it so you never have to swap out new hard drives again, as 8 and 2TB respectively are both incredible sizes. 

Better yet, both hard drives will also work with the PS5, although they won't be able to act as powerfully as the new solid state drives that the PS5 supports. 

Jennifer Locke
Games Editor - PlayStation, Android, VR

Jennifer Locke has been playing video games nearly her entire life. You can find her posting pictures of her dog and obsessing over PlayStation and Xbox, Star Wars, and other geeky things.

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