SOLVED: VIDEO: How To Upgrade The Hard Drive On a Sony PlayStation 4

UPDATED: March 23 2024

As Sony Playstations age, the interest in upgrading them increases. Slow spinning drives that were included in the PlayStation 4 are easily changed for high speed Solid State Drives (SSD)’s, That can make a substantial difference to both gameplay and load times.

A used PS4 is worth more money with an SSD, So even if you just want to sell it it’s probably a good idea to upgrade it.

We explain what type of hard drives (spinning, Hybrid, SSD) can be used to upgrade your Sony PlayStation 4 and why you would want to use one over the other. We then demonstrate how to backup a PS4, disassemble a PS4, swap disks, install the PS4 operating system on the new disk and then how to restore your backup.

The basic process is:

1. Backup Your Existing Configuration, Profiles and Games
2. Copy the PS4 Operating System Install file to a USB Memory Stick
3. Replace the existing hard drive
4. Load the PS4 Operating System onto the new hard drive
5. Restore your backup to the new drive

We created two versions of the instructions to upgrade the drive on a Sony PS4

The first video is 21 minutes long and explains:

• what the drive options are (spinning, hybrid and SSD) and why you would want to select one over the other
• how to format your disks so the PlayStation can use them
  • the internal disk should be blank or FAT
  • the external USB disk you use for backup MUST be FAT (FAT, FAT32 or exFAT)
  • the USB memory stick you use to load the operating system on the new hard drive MUST be FAT (FAT, FAT32 or exFAT)
• along with other commentary of why you would want to perform the tasks the way we have

The second video is half as long at just 11 minutes and shows all of the key steps but skips some of the detail that people with technical experience will already know:

Here is a gallery of the graphics we used in these PS4 videos: