Transfer PS4 Games & Game Saved Data to External Storage Hard Drive, Flash Drive, PS Plus Online PS4. By GC On Dec 9, 2020. You'll need an external hard drive or USB pen drive to store your existing data from your PS4. Follow these steps to back up and restore your data: Format the USB storage device. Most gamers will find that, sooner or later, the 500GB hard drive on the PlayStation 4 just isn't big enough. That's why we did an article and video when the system was first released that showed. If games are 50GB a piece, a 500GB hard drive will only hold 10 games. A 2TB external hard drive costs less than $100. That's about the same price as a 1TB laptop drive.
Brithny updated on Nov 25, 2020 to PC Transfer|How-to Articles
Top 2 Ways to Move Games to External Hard Drive
Games often take up a lot of PC space. If you install too many games on your internal drive, you may easily receive a C drive full or not enough space waring. Usually, for most gamers and common users, using an external hard drive is a great way to have more storage space.
You can have all the gaming power without having to work on the inside of your computer. All you need to do is plug in the external hard drives, and move PC games to an external hard drive in two ways. Check all ways for straightforward moving, move games to an external hard drive is an easy thing through PC game mover - EaseUS Todo PCTrans.
| Workable Solutions | Step-by-step Troubleshooting |
|---|---|
| Fix 1. How to Move Games to External Hard Drive with PC Game Mover | (Applies to move games & Platforms in one click) Download EaseUS Todo PCTrans on both PC > Choose transfer mode..Full steps |
| Fix 2. How to Transfer Games to External Hard Drive PC Manually | (Applies to move game one by one)Open Windows Explorer and create a game folder on..Full steps |
Also read:How to Run Application from an External Hard Drive
How to Move Games to External Hard Drive with PC Game Mover
Applies to: transfer all programs to an external hard drive.
Compared with copying and pasting, EaseUS Todo PCTrans is much better. Avoid the time-wasting process, installing games on an external hard drive only takes a few seconds. You can take this professional game mover to change the program install location. This PC game mover tool can 100% solve how to move games to an external hard drive.
Trust EaseUS on data moving, we are ready to solve how to transfer games to the external hard drive on PC for you:
As a data migrating software, this PC transfer tool helps transfer your data, applications, and account settings from one PC to another in one click.
- Transfer applications, Windows accounts from one PC to another
- Transfer or back up data from one PC to another
- Transfer Steam to SSD, or move other games to another drive
- Recover data from a dead/unbootable PC
- Free up C drive space, and clean up junk files
Download this software and directly launch this software to help you move games or apps from PC to an external hard drive.
Step 1. Connect your external hard drive to your computer. Open EaseUS Todo PCTrans and select 'App Migration > Start'.
Step 2. Find and choose the applications (marked as 'Yes') that you want to transfer. You can select multiple apps.
Click the triangle icon and select your external hard drive as the destination to store the apps.
Step 3. Then, click 'Transfer' to move your programs to an external hard drive
Speaking of install games on an external hard drive, some users may want to know what is the difference between playing games on a hard drive and an external hard drive. The fact is the external device doesn't load as fast as the internal hard drive, and if your device is randomly disconnected from the PC, your game data will lose.
If you need a method to recover data from external hard drive, you will get a gut punch.
How to Transfer Games to External Hard Drive PC Manually
Applies to: copy and paste portable programs to an external drive.
Although the copying and pasting worked like a charm sometimes, this method can not make sure 100% program moving than EaseUS Todo PCTrans in transferring games from PC to external hard drive. As there are a variety of games, manually copying to an external disk may miss the necessary components for some specific games.
These methods may not work as well for games installed without a manager like Steam or Origin. Here, I'd like to take Origin/Steam/Blizzard games for example. In the end, we also introduce a general method to move games to an external hard drive in windows 10.
Case 1 - How to Move Origin Games to Another Drive
Step 1. Open Windows Explorer and create a folder on the external hard drive where you'll store your games.
Step 2. Head to your current Origin folder and find the folder for the game you want to move. Copy it to the new location, and delete the old files.
Step 3. Open Origin and head to 'Origin > Application Settings > Installs & Saves'. Under 'Game Library Location', click the 'Change location' button and direct it to the folder on your new hard drive.
Close origin completely, even from the background. This only affects newly-installed games, so your current library will not be affected.
Step 4. Return to 'My Game Library' and click the 'Download' button to re-install the game.
Instead of re-downloading the game, Origin will detect the existing files there and make any necessary minor changes. When it's done, you should be able to play the game as usual.
Case 2 - How to Move Steam Games to External Hard Drive
Step 1. Connect your external hard drive to your PC. Open Windows Explorer and create a new folder on the external hard drive.
Step 2. Open Steam, then click Steam >Settings >Downloads >Steam Library Folders >Add Library Folder > Choose the folder on the external hard drive.
Step 3. Open Library, choose the game you want to move, right-click it and select Properties.
Step 4. Choose the Local Files tab > Move Install Folder
The steps only suit to move a game each time. If you want to move more than one game or get a better method, you can read how to move steam game to another drive.
Case 3 - How to Move Blizzard Games to Another Drive
The manual solution for moving Blizzard games to an external hard drive relates to uninstall and reinstall. It will spend more time in the redownloading process. We also provide more than one fix about moving Blizzard games to another drive.
Step 1. Open the Blizzard Battle.net desktop app, select the icon for the game you want to uninstall, select Options >Uninstall Game.
Ps4 External Hard Drive Repair
Step 2. In the Blizzard Battle.net desktop app, choose Install >Choose Change under Install Location section. Then select Start Install.
Case 4 - How to Transfer Games to External Hard Drive PC (General)
Case 4 applies to move games on all game platforms to an external hard drive. In general, no matter what games you install, you will find the default game location store in C:Program FilesWindows Apps.
Step 1. Connect external hard drive on your computer.
Step 2. Follow the default path to copy and paste your games to another drive.
Even though the method is workable, you can not copy some hidden files to the destination, which causes your games to fail in play. So why not try the reliable one to copy with transferring games from pc to external hard drive? Way back to use EaseUS Todo PCTrans.
People Also Ask
In addition to game moving, most users are interested in the following questions:
1. Can I use an external hard drive for gaming?
Yes, you can. The best external hard drives are extremely easy to use. All you need to do is plug them in. Besides, an external hard drive can be a great way to install games on multiple computers. Generally speaking, no file formatting is needed to use an external hard drive for gaming.
2. Can I move other apps to an external hard drive?
EaseUS Todo PCTrans supports moving a lot of programs to an external hard drive, including moving Microsoft Office, Adobe, Google Chrome, and more.
3. Is SSD or HDD better for gaming?
An SSD is much better for gaming than an HDD is. But SSD is not without fault. SSDs are not that good as long-term storage solutions, both because of their shorter life-span and because high-capacity SSD prices are bordering on ludicrous.
4. Can you run apps from external hard drive Mac?
Yes, Macs don't care where programs are launched from - there is no especially blessed location, so you can run them off an external drive.
Summary :
With the support to offline (and online) games is increasing, PS4 and PS4 Pro appeal to more users. Yet, the capacity of PS4 becomes insufficient; people need more space to store games they are fond of. So, an external hard drive is required. But how can you add external hard drive to PS4 to get extra space? Please find answers here.
In the past, it’s impossible to add external drive to PS4 or PS4 Pro; but now, installing external hard drive becomes urgent for people who would like to enjoy more games on their PlayStation 4.
You’d better turn to the MiniTool Software when you need to do the following things:
- Solve a range of device problems.
- Improve the performance of a PC or removable device.
- Recover lost data from a hard drive or flash memory.
- Backup drives and files regularly.
Sony Now Allows You to Add External Drive to PS4
PlayStation 4.5 system software update:
Sony adds many new features to its PS4 consoles through the newest major system software update: version 4.50.
- Experience the slicker and faster user interface tools.
- Enjoy the 3D Blu-ray movies in stereoscopic 3D through PS VR headset.
- Set users’ screenshots in game as the custom wallpapers.
- Send users’ best gameplay moments to the PlayStation Activity Feed directly.
New Support for PS4 External Storage
What’s more exciting? It’s definitely the support for PS4 external storage. What does this mean? It means that you can use Seagate game drive for PS4 or the PS4 USB flash drive to greatly increase the storage of your PS4 for games and apps. It hands over the power to you for rearranging your schedule to make more free time for games. There’re a lot of games waiting for you to conquer!
After you have been playing for too long on PS4, you’ll easily find the speed of PS4 is slower than before. This is probably because it takes too much time to load the games and applications saved in the internal hard drive (system storage). That’s why an external hard drive (extended storage) is necessary.
Equipped with large capacity, the external hard drive also allows you to improve movie experience a lot. You can connect an external hard drive to PS4 to watch movies anytime you want.
It comes a long way to make this happen. Now, the days of storing games in and extracting it out of the meager 500 GB (Gigabyte) internal drive (or larger) in your PS4/PS4 Pro are finally over.
Add External Drive to A PS4 or PS4 Pro - Preparations
For users who have an earlier model PlayStation 4 system, they can save only about 12 to 15 games onto their PlayStation (which usually has a capacity of 500 GB to work with). Though users can upgrade the hard drive inside PS4 to improve capacity and speed, some of them still want more storage on external.
In this case, connecting an HDD to the PlayStation is a good choice. Please don’t worry; it’s not difficult, even easy, to install the external hard drive to your PS4 or PS4 Pro.
You need to know the following things before you start to install an external hard drive.
One: External HDD with USB 3.0 Port & Large Capacity
You need an external HDD that has a USB 3.0 connection and has a minimum capacity of 250 GB (PS4 external hard drive 2TB is the most popular choice). Actually, the PS4 and PS4 Pro both give support to an external hard disk with up to 8 TB of storage.
You can plug in a USB 3.0 external hard drive into your PS4 to get extra storage directly. This allows you to download and install applications to the external drive. In addition, you can make it easy to manage files through the PlayStation settings menu.
Please keep this in mind: you must make sure the USB port works well so that the external hard drive can show up as expected. If you fail to see the external hard drive after connecting it, please read this post to find out the possible reasons and corresponding fixes.
Two: System of PlayStation 4 Should Be Version 4.50 or Later
The system of your PlayStation 4 or PlayStation 4 Pro must be updated to version 4.50 or later. That is simply because Sony added the external HDD support to PS4 when the 4.50 version was released early in 2017.
If you have an older system on your PS4, you’ll need to update it to the latest version before you can add a PS4 hard drive externally.
Three: Format the External Hard Drive to exFAT
Please pay attention to the PS4 external hard drive format: you’ll need to format the external drive which will be used to work with the PS4 or PS4 Pro to the exFAT file system.
Why do you need to format PS4 internal hard drive?
The PS4 internal hard drive format can only be conducted inside the PlayStation. Definitely, the format process must be completed before you can use a new PlayStation. In addition to this, you can also reformat the internal hard drive in the following situations:
- The speed of PS4 is decreasing quickly.
- The performance of the PS4 hard drive is degraded.
- The hard drive crashes due to certain errors.
- There’s a conflict between the applications and games.
- …
Formatting will clear any data on current drive, so you make sure you have backed up all the files you need in advance; otherwise, you’ll need to recover data from the formatted hard drive by following this:
The work to recover files from formatted hard drive is not as difficult as you thought; the key factor is whether you have got a helpful tool.
Four: External HDD Must Be Connected Directly
To work with the PS4 or PS4 Pro properly, the external hard disk must be connected directly to one of the USB ports on the PlayStation. In other words, you cannot connect the external drive to the console through a USB hub. Apart from this, the PlayStation will recognize only one external drive at a time.
Use External Hard Drive on PS4
In this part, I’ll help you understand mainly 4 things:
- How to connect an external hard drive to your PS4
- How to format the external hard disk
- How to copy PS4 games to external hard drive
- How to change the Application Installation Location
How to Connect External HDD to PS4
- Update the system of PlayStation 4 to version 4.50 or later.
- Find an external hard drive with a capacity of no less than 250GB and format it to exFAT.
- Plug in the external HDD to PS4 or PS4 Pro directly (through the USB port on the console instead of a USB hub).
- Set this external hard drive as the default location for all of your downloads and installs.
How to Format External Hard Drive for PS4
You can reformat PS4 external hard drive directly in the console or by using Partition Wizard/Disk Management on computer. Please remember to transfer all the files saved on the external hard drive to another place before disk formatting.
Method 1: format in PS4.
- Connect the external hard drive properly to your PS4.
- Open PS4 and go to Settings.
- Select Devices.
- Select USB Storage Devices.
- Choose the external hard disk you’ve just connected.
- Click on the Format as Extended Storage button.
- Click on the Next button to continue.
- The system prompt saying This device will be formatted as extended storage will appear. Now, click Format.
- Wait a second and you’ll see This device will be formatted as extended storage. Are you sure you want to continue? Now, click Yes.
- Wait for the formatting process to complete. You can’t remove the disk from PS4 during formatting.
- When you see the prompt message: This device has been formatted as extended storage. You should click on the OK button to finish formatting.
Method 2: format using professional partition manager.
- Get MiniTool Partition Wizard and install it properly on your PC.
- Connect the external hard drive to your PC through a USB interface.
- Launch partition manager.
- Select the external drive for PS4.
- Choose Format Partition feature from the left sidebar.
- Select exFAT from the drop-down list of File System.
- Click on the OK button in Format Partition window.
- Click Apply in the upper left corner.
- Choose Yes to allow changes.
- Wait for the format to complete.
Please note that if the drive is new, you should select the unallocated space on it and select Create Partition from the left sidebar.
Method 3: format the disk with Disk Management.
The steps are simple and basically the same as in method 2.
How to Transfer PS4 Data to External Hard Drive
When the PS4 external hard drive format has been finished, you can finally start to move games and applications to PS4 external storage from system storage.
- Go to PS4 Settings.
- Select Storage from the list.
- Select System Storage where the apps are located right now.
- Choose Applications under System Storage.
- Click on the Options Menu button.
- Choose Move to Extended Storage option.
- Add a checkmark to all the applications you want to move (there are also Select All button and Deselect All button to help you check apps easily).
- Click on the Move button in the lower right corner.
- Choose OK to confirm your selection.
- Wait for the moving process to complete.
Sometimes, you will find the applications you need are lost during the transferring/deleted by mistake/disappeared after drive formatting. On this occasion, you must use a reliable data recovery tool to recover lost files immediately.
How to get the data back from the System Storage of PlayStation:
Step 1: get MiniTool Power Data Recovery and install it properly on your PC.
Step 2: connect your PS4 to PC properly, and then launch the data recovery software.
Step 3: select This PC or Hard Disk Drive from the left sidebar. Ciara goodies mp3 free download mp3.
Step 4: choose the target drive from the right pane and click Scan in the lower right corner.
Step 5: browse and preview the scan result to pick out which files are needed. Then, check them all and click Save. (You’ll see a limit window after clicking Save if you’re using the Trial Edition.)
Step 6: choose another drive as the storage path for the recovered files. Then, click on the OK button to confirm and wait for the recovery to complete.
Please learn how to deal with the problem when you find need files are not showing in the external hard drive by looking at this:
This post tells why files are not showing in external hard drive from 5 aspects and it shows how to unhide files here safely.
How to Install Games on PS4 from USB
Can you install games on external hard drive PS4? Actually, you can set your PlayStation to store games and applications on external storage by changing Application Installation Location.
- Make sure the external hard drive is formatted to exFAT and connected to PS4.
- Also, you need to go to the PlayStation Settings.
- Select Storage under Settings list.
- Click on the Options Menu button at the bottom.
- Choose Extend Storage.
- Select Application Install Location from the pop-up menu.
- Choose Extended Storage from the submenu to confirm.
Since then, you can store the downloaded applications and add-ons to the external storage so as to speed up PS4 speed and improve its performance.
How to Remove Extended Hard Drive from PS4
You can also disconnect the external storage from PS4 when you don’t want it anymore.
Way 1:
- Hold down the PS button to show Quick Menu.
- Choose Sound/Devices from the left sidebar.
- Select Stop Using Extended Storage from the right pane.
- Click Yes to confirm your selection.
Way 2:
- Navigate to PS4 Settings.
- Select Devices.
- Select USB Storage Devices.
- Click on the Stop Using This Extended Storage button.
- Click Yes to confirm.
FYI: PS4 extended storage repair when it becomes dead.
Ps4 External Hard Drive Transfer
If you are stuck in finding ways to recover files from dead external hard drive efficiently, this passage will be very helpful.
Conclusion
Installing External Hard Drive Ps4
That’s all you should notice and learn about how to add external drive to PS4 (or PS4 Pro). After connecting the formatted external drive to your PlayStation, you can make it easy to download new applications or copy old PS4 games from the internal storage of console by changing settings.