Best Storage Drives for PS4

When the PS4 was released, its swappable storage design caused quite a stir – all you need to do is purchase a new hard drive and replace your existing one with it, or format it as extended storage.

Choosing an external hard drive for your PS4 really depends on what you’re looking for. While mostly it’s about storage capacity, you might also want a reliable drive, a more portable drive, or a fast drive. It’s up to you whether you want to replace your existing PS4 hard drive with your new one, or to use it as further storage in addition to your built-in drive. We’ve tested four drives – three hard disk drives (HDDs) and one solid-state drive (SSD).

WD My Passport 4TB Portable Hard Drive
This hard drive from Western Digital’s MY Passport range is one of the most reliable and versatile hard drives on our list. USB 3.0 compatible, this hard drive is reasonably priced and incredibly small, around the size of a large smartphone like the iPhone 11. The 4TB model offers the best cost per gigabyte, and will allow space for around 50 PS4 games, along with many more smaller downloads. You can buy this external hard drive for around £82.

Seagate Expansion 6TB Hard Drive
This slim and compact external hard drive comes in capacities from 2TB upwards, but the 6TB model represents the best value for money. You’ll be able to store around 80-100 PS4 games on this portable HDD, and it’ll only cost around £110. The downside is that while you’re getting 6TB of storage – enough to last you several years – it is a mechanical hard disk drive, so it won’t be as fast as a lower capacity solid-state drive (SSD).

Toshiba 1TB Canvio Advance
This external hard drive is the budget pick on our list, but it performs just as well as the other hard drives we’ve looked at, for a fraction of the price. At around £48, this 1TB hard drive is perfect if you don’t want to store a large number of games, but again, if you’re after a speedy drive, an SSD might be better for you.

WD My Passport 1TB Solid-State Drive
The rise of the solid-state drive (SSD) has been well documented, and this type of storage is also becoming more and more prevalent in gaming consoles like the PS4. In fact, Sony’s upcoming PS5 console is widely believed to feature a high capacity SSD. With faster read and write speeds, using this SSD in your PS4 will cut load times and boost the speeds of your transfers. This SSD from WD is much more affordable than some of its competitors, at around £179.

PS4 Storage