If you haven't made the upgrade to the PS4 and want to breathe new life into your old console, the best PS4 external hard drives are your best bet. These drives can offer up bigger storage capacities than any existing PS4 model without costing as much as a whole brand-new console. And while the attention might be on Sony's current-gen pixel pusher, that hasn't stopped the number of compatible drives from growing over the years.
Through our own time testing drive to drive, our best PS4 external hard drive pick is the WD My Passport 4TB Portable. It's a pretty compact storage solution that provides a staggering amount of space for your PlayStation 4 games. While it can't keep up with the best external hard drives for gaming out there that use solid-state drives, this option is a more affordable way to expand your older console's library. However, that's not to say you can't use a portable SSD with Sony's last-gen console, and we've got plenty of recommendations to make for all budgets.
We've rounded up our top picks below. and there are quite a few crossovers with the best PS5 external hard drive, though. Therefore, if you plan on graduating to the next generation any time soon, it might be worth having a look at that page. We've tried to include various capacities, cater to different budgets, and give you a mix of the best HDD and SSD options. So without further delay, here are the best PS4 external hard drives.
I grew up gaming on a tight, almost non-existent budget, so making the most of older consoles like the PS4 is something I take pretty seriously. It's why I'm glad so many external drives out there still exist to give your PS4 a little storage boost and help prolong its lifespan, but there's a lot out there. To make picking a new drive for your PS4 easier, I'm here to help recommend what's best for your PlayStation gaming needs and budget.
Recent updates
January 29 - Our hardware team's picks for the best PS4 external hard drives have remained the same, and so for this upgrade, none of the products listed have differed much. Instead, I took this time to include the author section to make it clearer who's now overseeing the products listed as part of this guide. Additionally, I also upgraded the FAQ section to include new images to make it easier to read at a glance and included a reference to the changes in PS4 game support via PS Plus, and how an external hard drive can still be helpful in spite of the changes.
The best PS4 external hard drive overall
The My Passport drive from Western Digital is one of the most reliable, convenient, and versatile HDDs you can buy. Anyone looking for a standard, reasonably priced PS4 external hard drive will be fine with this. It's USB 3.0 compatible, importantly, and only requires a quick reformat the first time you use it. It's small and sturdy too, about the size of a larger smart phone like the iPhoneX or the Galaxy S9 Plus, and the My Passport series is even styled to look a little like the PS4 console itself, so you should be able to slot it right into your set-up. The new aesthetic is arguably even more pleasing and brings further style to a quality HDD.
We'd go for the 4TB version, for several reasons. Right now, you see the biggest savings on the 4TB, and you tend to get better value the bigger the storage capacity. With 4TB, you've easily got space for 50+ AAA games, and loads more indies and smaller downloads from the PS Store. Essentially, this HDD will last you for about 2-3 years before you ever need to manage your storage, and that's with heavy use and loads of games installed on it. Definitely the best PS4 external hard drive today.
The best external SSD for PS4
The WD_Black P40 SSD is the latest in WD's gaming-focused external hard drives, and it's one of the best performers you can get your hands on. It takes the robust design and speedy specs of the P50 and carries both over to a small form factor body that emits some lovely ambient RGB lighting.
Unfortunately, the P40 is one of the more expensive options to go for because it's a recent release from one of the biggest brands in the storage market. For your purchase though, you get the drive itself, a USB-C cable and USB-A adapter, a quick install guide, WD's Windows dashboard, and a 5-year warranty I'd be surprised if you need to use.
Read and write speeds were great in testing. The 2000MB/s speed you see on the box is as good as you'll get in an external hard drive, but in reality, it translates to some great load times and transfer speeds on PS5 and PC. For instance, I had a load of game capture footage stored on my PS5 I had been meaning to move across to my computer for video editing, and even though it was about 30 clips spanning a total of 22GB, the P40 swallowed it up from the PS5 in about a minute. The same was true of games once I formatted the drive for some extra storage. I transferred three games that added up to 18GB, and it moved across in just shy of a minute.
If you can afford it, this is the best external SSD for PS4 you'll find.
The best budget external PS4 hard drive
If you're on the hunt for cheap and cheerful HDD storage, it doesn't get much easier for us than pointing you in the direction of an absolute staple of the market. The Toshiba Canvio Advance is a lovely piece of kit that continues to get updated every year or so: you can find it with a glossy shell, a simple design, and a neat, blue power light on the top. More recently, it sports a fancy Sackboy-esque mesh outer material and comes in loads of colors.
It doesn't require an additional power source and simply plugs into the USB port on your PS4. We try not to lean into this hardware-reviewing trope too much, but this is a product that "just works". It has read and write speeds that are standard for any HDD device and comes with a two-year warranty as standard. If you want to use it for a PC too, it has password protection and automatic file back-up, which are both useful features that elevate this model above our previous budget pick, the Canvio Basics.
You should be able to grab the 1TB version for around $50 / £50, which makes it a genuine bargain too.
The best budget external PS4 SSD
While we are all moving slowly but surely to SSDs becoming the go-to for PS4 external hard drives, they can still be pricey units; an HDD will still offer way better GB to $/£ value, of course. However, there are chinks forming in the prices of SSDs and the Crucial X6 offers a quality, slightly cheaper offering while still giving you that excellent performance and decent capacity.
Demonstrating this clearly is the fact that you can get a 1TB X6 for a similar price of SSDs with less than half of the storage. The Crucial X6 is fantastic for storing and playing PS4 games and will ensure you have the speediest of file transfers, loads, and games at your fingertips. A big benefit is that of getting a PS4 external hard drive that's likely faster than your PS4's internal one, and this will also be a drive that will go incredibly well with the new-gen PS5 console when and if folks upgrade.
The drive's USB-C connection means you'll have to use the adapter that comes with it to plug into your PS4, but you'll just have to be aware of the short cable that might force it into some weird positions. If you like the look of this one, but want an even faster version, you'll want to take a look at the Crucial X8.
The best Samsung external PS4 hard drive
The Samsung T7 Shield is the newest in a long and storied line of high-speed and high-performance drives from the company, with a newly refined focus on being rugged. This is one of the fastest PS4 external hard drives that you can get your hands on right now, with sequential performance of up to 1,050 MB/s read and 1,000 MB/s write respectively. Priced at $159.99 / £134.79 for a 1TB model or $289.99 / £250.99 for 2TB, this is also one of the most expensive, too.
You're paying a premium on the tactile design here, though. While we didn't exactly run drop tests ourselves, we do believe that the Samsung T7 Shield can take a decent beating. If you're in the market for a PS4 external hard drive to throw into your bag without fear of damage, then this is one for you. Samsung itself claims that the hard drive can survive drops of up to 3 meters into the air onto concrete, with their case testing happening four times before they're shipped out.
The best portable PS4 SSD
Crucial by Micron's latest and greatest external SSD is the Crucial X10 Pro, and the brand gives you the choice of either 1TB, 2TB, or 4TB of space in a tiny drive you can easily fit in your pocket. While I was a bit too scared to test its durability properly, it's marketed as being resistant to splashes, dust, and drops. For those reasons, we award it with the best external hard drive for portability.
Its speeds aren't too shabby either. Used with the PS5, I managed to move a hefty 439.5GB from the console to the X10 Pro in 34 mins. While that might seem like a small eternity with today's Gen 5 SSD speeds, just imagine the time it'd take to download that much raw data. Transferring 46GB worth of 2018's God of War from the hard drive to console storage, meanwhile, took only 5 minutes and 16 seconds. The speeds on the box here are 2,100MB/s read, and 2,000MB/s write, so it wouldn't shy away from the absolute best options on the top of this list.
The only problem is, this is meant for professionals, not necessarily gamers. That means its shorts cable is designed for being sat next to a laptop, so sitting it atop a PS4 in an aesthetically pleasing way isn't the easiest. On that "meant-for-professionals" note, it is also fairly pricey thanks to being quite new still. Regardless, this is definitely one of the best PS4 external hard drives on the market if you want a portable solution for gaming, work, or content creation.
The best large external PS4 hard drive
Increase your storage again with this ridiculously well priced 6TB offering from Seagate. It's slick, slim and you can get versions from 2TB upwards - although this 6TB model represents the best value for money. It's a simple plug and play setup on two counts: mains power; and USB 3.0. The latter being excellent for transferring speedily. The price is kept low by the fact this is a standard HDD, so read speeds won't be as fast as the SSD hard drives like the Samsung. If you get a 6TB drive... that'll probably store between 80-100 PS4 games, so you'll never need to worry about space again.
Best PS4 external hard drives: FAQs
Is it worth putting an SSD in the PS4?
Although the process is a bit of a pain with all the data backups, transfers, and DIY, it is definitely worth putting an SSD in the PS4. In terms of performance, an SSD could make your PS4 around 30% faster. You'll also get a massive quality of life boost as well, seeing as whatever SSD you buy will likely have much more capacity than your console's base HDD.
Are PS4 external hard drives worth it?
In short, yes. One of the best PS4 external hard drives will be more than worth it when you take into account how many games you'll be able to store when you use one - especially through services like PS Plus. While as of January 29, Sony announced on their PlayStation blog that PS4 games would "PS4 games will no longer be a key benefit" to the service. Any PS4 games already redeemed won't be affected, so having a plethora of storage is still worthwhile if you have a ton of PS4 games claimed over the years.
With a large capacity PS4 hard drive at your service, it can also save you the fuss of deleting, downloading, and reinstalling other games you don't want to get rid of. Not to mention, they can bring about excellent performance boosts for your console since even an external SSD will bring you faster load times than the HDD you get inside your console.
What kind of external hard drive do I need for a PS4?
There aren't any specific types of external hard drive you'll need to use with the PS4. Any USB 3.0 HDD or SSD will work, and capacity shouldn't be an issue either. Although, it's worth noting that you will need to format whatever drive you get to make it compatible with the PS4's software and storage type. Once you do format a drive to this type, you most likely won't be able to use it for any other purpose, which is a bit of a shame.
If you want to upgrade the storage of your other consoles, check out our guides to the best SSD for PS5, the best Nintendo Switch microSD cards, and the best Xbox Series X hard drive, SSD, and memory card solutions.
