One of the drawbacks PS5 owners currently face is that the internal storage cannot be expanded with drives that offer the same read and write speeds. We'll have to wait for that, so in the meantime, the only option is to continue using standard external USB drives.
Organizing your PS5 storage
Given that native PlayStation 5 games require maximum read speed, they must be installed on the console's internal memory to ensure the best possible performance. With just over 650 GB of free space, the PlayStation 5's internal memory requires some organization on the part of the user, as installing too many games could quickly lead to running out of space.
With games like Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and its installation size of over 100 GB, it's easy to fill the PS5 hard drive with multiple installations, and that's where the user needs to learn how to select and organize installations according to the type of content.
Can I use an external hard drive on my PS5?
If you are running out of space, the first idea you will have had is to install an extra high-capacity hard drive to continue installing games without stopping. This is a possible solution that you can do immediately, however, it will have some limitations that you must take into account.
What can I install on the external hard drive?
The first thing you should know is that games for PS5 or versions optimized for PS5 must always be installed in the main (internal) memory of the console. This drive offers extremely fast load times and reads, and that's exactly what next-gen games take advantage of to be able to load textures quickly and load games almost instantly.
If you choose to download and install a PS5 game to an external storage drive, the game will not start, and will ask you to move it to your PS5's internal memory to run it.
Therefore, the external storage units will only be used to store games as a collection library (you must move them to the internal memory each time you go to run them) or to install PS4 games, which can be run without problems from there.
What external drives can I use?
When connecting an external USB hard drive, you must make sure that it meets the following characteristics:
- That has more than 250 GB capacity (up to 8 TB maximum)
- That it counts if possible with a SuperSpeed ​​connection of 5 Ggps or later (valid USB 3.0, USB 3.1 and USB 3.2)
- Do not connect more than one external unit at the same time
- Not using a USB hub for your connection
Some recommended models that you could buy are the following:
See offer on Amazon See offer on Amazon See offer on AmazonPS4 games are installed on the internal SSD, can I change it?
Knowing that PS4 games can be run from an external drive just fine, what about leaving the internal SSD exclusively for PS5 games and the external drive for PS4 games? That would be an ideal configuration, so we are going to teach you how to configure it so that when you download or install a PS4 game, this title goes directly to the external hard drive without going through the SSD.
In order for PS4 games to automatically download to PS5 extended storage, you will need to do the following:
- Sign in Settings > Storage > Extended storage
- Activate the option Always install PS4 games on extended storage
With this option you will no longer have to worry about PS4 games taking up space on the console's internal SSD. Now we only have to expand the SSD, but for that Sony will have to activate the function and announce the models of disks compatible with the system, so we will have to keep waiting until that happens.
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