PS5 External Hard Drives: What To Get, And How To Use Them

A PS5 external hard drive is the absolute easiest way to extend your console's storage, all without tampering with the console itself. This is an option for those who might be too scared to insert an NVMe M.2 SSD into their consoles' ports, for fear that they might break something.

In this article, you will get a few recommendations on which external storage drive to buy for your new PlayStation 5, and what to look for in terms of specs when you're browsing the open market. So without further ado, let's begin!

External Storage Drive Requirements

Before you go out and buy one, however, you need to understand that you can't just pick anything you see. Sony made it a point to only accept drives that fall within their hardware requirements, in order to ensure that they're able to perform well when combined with the console.

Here are the basic hardware requirements for extended USB storage on the PS5, direct from PlayStation.com:

• 250 GB minimum, 8 TB maximum

• SuperSpeed USB 5 Gbps (USB 3.0, USB 3.1 Gen 1, USB 3.2 Gen 1)

• SuperSpeed USB 10 GBps (USB 3.1 Gen 2, USB 3.2 Gen 2, USB 3.2 Gen 1x2)

• SuperSpeed USB 20 Gbps (USB 3.2 Gen 2x2)

• Never, EVER use a USB hub to connect the extended storage as it might not get recognized.

Make sure that the PS5 external hard drive you want to buy fits these specs. Nothing more, nothing less. Anything outside of these requirements will not work well, and you would've wasted your money buying it.

Extended Storage Recommendations

Now, onto the recommendations. Here are a few excellent ones to get you started, courtesy of AndroidCentral:

• Read also: best portable SSD

  Read also: PlayStation 5 console

• Seagate External Drive: This PS5 external hard drive is NOT an SSD, meaning it's not as fast. But you're trading speed for raw storage capacity, and that's not a bad thing at all considering how big games have been these past few years. You can get this model in 2 TB, 5 TB, and 5 TB models.

• WD Black D10 Game Drive 8TB: Storage, storage, storage! With 8 TB of space, you can basically store every single game you own and not worry about running out of space with this thing. You're once again trading speed for storage capacity, but that's what file transferring to your SSD is for! The only drawback here is the price, but you're definitely getting the most bang for your buck if you just want something this big.

Once you have your extended USB storage drive, you need to format it before you can use it. Fortunately, setting up a PS5 external hard drive is also quite simple. Here is a quick video tutorial on how to do it, courtesy of YouTube channel FragThePlanet:

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Written by RJ Pierce