Support NeoGAF

[Sloane_Ranger]

Not really - I have no issues deleting games and the using a disc to reload them. Cloud saves at 10G is more than I need for save files as well.

Edit: F' - top of page snark. I do understand that some people will wish to keep all of their games on their HDD at all times - this will assuredly cause a problem. I just wonder how many people (outside of Gaffers) really take issue.

 

[Kodros]

It's the patch data that really sucks, if you could delete the 25-40GB disc install but keep the 1-2GB patch data then swapping discs and reinstalling takes a minute or two at best, but when you gotta wait for the patches to redownload it is a major roadblock to just popping in a game disc to play.

You don't have to wait for patches, just play the game. Unless it's an online game where they force you to have the latest of course.

 

[FrontalMonk]

I'm still using the stock 500gb drive on my PS4, but I've had to go in and delete older games that I would still like to go back to several times. I'm thinking of upgrading soon now that I'm actually playing it more, but I can't afford it just yet. maybe after the holidays.

 

[The Hermit]

Multiple 2tera...

I hooked up an old 500gb hdd on The wiiu and its not even 1/5 full, and I also try to keep all my games with me, I hate to delete them and whatsoever.

I though the 22Gb on Xenoblade was insane, I totally forgot how huge Ps4/X1 games are.

 

[Head.spawn]

You don't have to wait for patches, just play the game. Unless it's an online game where they force you to have the latest of course.

Wouldn't save data require a specific patch?

 

[spindashing]

To those that upgraded their PS4 HDDs to a 2TB, I guess this is a good enough place to ask:

Which ones did you buy? I remember a Seagate drive being on sale during Black Friday and while I do feel bad not buying it, I'm still a bit wary about buying Seagate products due to the failure rate information in 2014.

 

[ZOONAMI]

Definitely a problem for OP, but I don't think for most users. I have all 3 systems and it isn't a problem whatsoever, and I don't even have an external for my Wii U. 1tb each in the PS4 and the Xbox, both with no externals.

It definitely isn't the main problem of the gen, even for the 32gb Wii U. I have like 10 physical Wii U games and some digital stuff and I haven't run out of space, or even checked how much space I have left.

 

[family_guy]

I guess so, but I've started to place less value in ownership. I have a huge backlog of games, so I'll be lucky if I ever finish them, let alone have the opportunity to play them a second time, so I'm doing the 3 month Gamefly subscriptions for just about everything now.

 

[ScatheZombie]

To those that upgraded their PS4 HDDs to a 2TB, I guess this is a good enough place to ask:

Which ones did you buy? I remember a Seagate drive being on sale during Black Friday and while I do feel bad not buying it, I'm still a bit wary about buying Seagate products due to the failure rate information in 2014.

The Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB Portable (STDR2000103). It comes in an external enclosure that you have to pry open to get at the actual drive. Got ours for $70 or so.

Just an FYI, the enormous (+30%) failure rates for Seagate drives were limited to a handful of models (notably ST31500341AS and ST3000DM001) - mostly the 3TB ones - which don't fit in the PS4 anyway. Otherwise, Seagate is about the same as everyone else in terms of failure rates (~3%-6% depending on model).

Also, the drive inside the Backup Plus enclosure is actually a Samsung drive - although technically I think they're the same company now anyway.

 

[SalvaPot]

I can't refer you to anything or prove you wrong but that doesn't invalidate my comment but what I can say is developers this gen are working harder then ever since development has more complex so their jobs are very long and methodically done so to imply developers are releasing more games buggy because of patches is just silly since I feel agames come more polished then ever since the market became expensive. I still remember the buggy mess that was drake and the 99 dragons and morrowind and I never got a patch or anything.

So all you have to counter my anecdotal evidence... is more anecdotal evidence? Well then.

 

[LegendofLex]

Since people keep bringing this up: I collect physical games. The data problem is the same since they have to be installed to the hard drive before they can be played.

My experience with PS4 is that the way installs work mean I can play most games off a disc within seconds of popping them in.

Segregating update data from disc installs would be a godsend though.

 

[Dr. Black Jack]

My experience with PS4 is that the way installs work mean I can play most games off a disc within seconds of popping them in.

Segregating update data from disc installs would be a godsend though.

It's fast but it also eats up the most HDD space. There needs to be a better way to manage it.

 

[The Abominable Snowman]

Eh, I don't know anyone who is having game space issues (Besides Wii U). Is this really a huge reported problem or extrapolation?

 

[mikestrife]

The Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB Portable (STDR2000103). It comes in an external enclosure that you have to pry open to get at the actual drive. Got ours for $70 or so.

Just an FYI, the enormous (+30%) failure rates for Seagate drives were limited to a handful of models (notably ST31500341AS and ST3000DM001) - mostly the 3TB ones - which don't fit in the PS4 anyway. Otherwise, Seagate is about the same as everyone else in terms of failure rates (~3%-6% depending on model).

Also, the drive inside the Backup Plus enclosure is actually a Samsung drive - although technically I think they're the same company now anyway.

I got these for my ps4 (opened and swapped hdds with my ps4) and xbox one (using as external), they're a great price and have been good. Sadly I don't think 2TB will be near enough for this gen.

 

[GreenTornadoX]

Imagine third world with slow internet connections!

Or data caps! Imagine having AT&T dsl and wanting to re-download 4 games.. oops you just blew your data cap and need to pay $10 per 50gb after 150!

Spoiler

DSLExtreme sounds like a good option for me.. no caps!

 

[Gurrry]

my wiiu hard drive has about 7 gbs of it corrupt due to monster hunter and I have zero way of fixing it other than sending it in.

im gonna buy an external HD, but i need one for xb1 too. i hope i can partition it to be half wiiu and half xbox but i seriously doubt it.

until consoles give us an ample amount of space on the internal drive, the all digital future cant truly happen

 

[ncslamm]

I'm not really concerned about space anymore. I just installed one of those 2TB Seagates yesterday in my PS4 and with over 20 games installed I still have over 1TB left.

 

[ryseing]

You don't have to wait for patches, just play the game. Unless it's an online game where they force you to have the latest of course.

But then you have something like The Witcher where it's unplayable without the patches.

Literally. Couldn't play my copy on PS4 until that menu screen bug was patched a week after launch.

 

[kikonawa]

you have 40 x 50GB disk installs??

 

[bounchfx]

nope, it's all gonna be streaming and on cloud baby. store what you can, stream the rest. it's the future.

 

[IzzyF3]

I would delete the disc install data but you can't on the PS4, which is my main console. You have to delete EVERYTHING that's not save data every goddamn time. There's no way to preserve DLC and updates separately, which was never a problem with the 360/PS3.

This is my problem as well. It was the most painful thing to delete The Evil Within because of the huge update files. I wanted to play it again after the black bars were removed through a patch, but I realize I just couldn't. I had new games to play and the game took more than 60 gigs.

I originally thought the 2.5 hdds were a viable option for PS4, but maxing out at 2 TB is not enough. I wish Sony would just let you use external drives. I didn't care before, but I seriously need all the room I can get.

 

[Coda]

I still have the stock 500 gb hard drive in my PS4. It definitely is a burden after awhile trying to keep it under capacity. Maybe eventually I will get a higher capacity hard drive but for now I usually have a couple games I barely play anymore so I just delete them when I need to make some room. Not ideal but you do what you gotta do.

 

[BreakAtmo]

you have 40 x 50GB disk installs??

One thing - once you take into account the space taken by the OS and the fact that HDD manufacturers fuck with the definitons of 'terabyte' to screw customers out of space, the actual amount of usable space on a '2TB' drive is about 1.77TB. You also have to consider the games with 300MB save files and such. But yes, that's still a lot of space, and given how few games are actually 50GB it's not a big worry. Most large games now are more around 30-35GB since real-time cutscenes have become more popular. Although many of them will then get DLC...

 

[Palculator]

My PS4's HDD is barely 15% full, yet the framerate's rubbish already. So no.

 

[hesido]

My PS4's HDD is barely 15% full, yet the framerate's rubbish already. So no.

What?

 

[TheYanger]

What?

Implying the gpu/cpu are more in dire need than storage space. Yeah I had to read it twice too.

Also 15% is absurd, most people do in fact keep more than one game installed.

I think the thing all of the 'uninstall when done lol' comments miss, is that it's not trivial to just uninstall and reinstall a game on these systems, you end up downloading tons of horseshit (or dealing with install times on xbox) and plenty of games don't let you even play until they're completely installed (GTA for instance). It's not like you just pop the disc in and roll.

 

[King_Moc]

I really don't see how potentially being able to store 40 50GB blurays isn't enough. I only have 500GB and have had no problems

 

[Slayven]

I'm hoping Sony provides support for external drives. Seems like a pretty simple fix.

Really is a major failing of Sony's not to.

 

[rogue74]

Please excuse this possibly ignorant question:

How is the performance of external hard drives compared to internal ones? Wouldn't USB HDD be slower than an internal one? Would game performance suffer?

 

[TheYanger]

Please excuse this possibly ignorant question:

How is the performance of external hard drives compared to internal ones? Wouldn't USB HDD be slower than an internal one? Would game performance suffer?

They're faster. Both consoles default drives are slow as fuck.

 

[bomblord1]

Looks like there's at least 1 way the wiiU has an advantage this gen. No mandatory data installs and support for large external drives.

 

[Dr. Black Jack]

you have 40 x 50GB disk installs??

I really don't see how potentially being able to store 40 50GB blurays isn't enough. I only have 500GB and have had no problems

I'm a collector, so I look at the big picture. When I buy a game it's usually for life. Going by my sixth and seventh gen collections I'll end up with around 200-300 retail games on my main system (PS4), plus whatever patches/DLC/digital stuff. It was feasible to do this with past systems but game install sizes have outpaced system storage.

My PS4's HDD is barely 15% full, yet the framerate's rubbish already. So no.

If you're that concerned about framerate then why do you play on a console?

 

[wanderjahr]

Your case sounds like a fringe case. No corporate suits in board rooms are going to be talking about people who stubbornly refuse to delete games from their hard drive.

You gotta change your behavior because you're going to be disappointed when you expect other people to adapt to yours.

 

[Mit-]

Bigger problem will be not having enough monthly data with Comcast to even download 50GB+ games.

 

[Dr. Black Jack]

Your case sounds like a fringe case. No corporate suits in board rooms are going to be talking about people who stubbornly refuse to delete games from their hard drive.

You gotta change your behavior because you're going to be disappointed when you expect other people to adapt to yours.

My point is that, especially with the PS4, system makers need to provide better data management options to make the systems easier to use/maintain. Is that really too much to ask?

Like, being able to delete just disc data and keep patches/DLC should have been part of the PS4 OS from day one. What is the benefit of grouping it all together in the system options? Saving the user one menu screen? It's dumb and wasn't a problem with the seventh gen. Even a 500gb HDD could be somewhat manageable if you could remove disc data by itself.

 

[jroc74]

Implying the gpu/cpu are more in dire need than storage space. Yeah I had to read it twice too.

Also 15% is absurd, most people do in fact keep more than one game installed.

I think the thing all of the 'uninstall when done lol' comments miss, is that it's not trivial to just uninstall and reinstall a game on these systems, you end up downloading tons of horseshit (or dealing with install times on xbox) and plenty of games don't let you even play until they're completely installed (GTA for instance). It's not like you just pop the disc in and roll.

Yup. Or play a game for the first time, initial install is fine, quick. Play through it some, delete the game and try to play it again? Now you have to wait for the entire game to install...depending on how far into the game you made it.

I'm a collector, so I look at the big picture. When I buy a game it's usually for life. Going by my sixth and seventh gen collections I'll end up with around 200-300 retail games on my main system (PS4), plus whatever patches/DLC/digital stuff. It was feasible to do this with past systems but game install sizes have outpaced system storage.

Same here. I am a collector too. Have have over 200 360 games and about half that for PS3.

And forgot going digital for most games....thats alot of re downloading and installing.

Wii U can do it, XBO can do it....PS4 needs to do it too.

 

[MekaDragon]

Please excuse this possibly ignorant question:

How is the performance of external hard drives compared to internal ones? Wouldn't USB HDD be slower than an internal one? Would game performance suffer?

It depends. Internal HDDs are connected by SATA ports, they can be SATA 1 (150 MB/s), 2 (300 MB/s) or 3 (600 MB/s). SATA 3 is the standard nowadays in PC scene. Although PlayStation 4 uses SATA 2, IIRC.

Then, it depends too what connection uses the external HDD. USB 2.0 is 480 Mbits/s (60 MB/s), while USB 3.0 is 5Gbits/s (625 MB/s). Obviously, almost everyone uses USB 3.0 HDDs nowadays.

SATA.
USB.

 

[PumpkinSpice]

Wii U don't install retail games into the HDD. So I don't think it's a joke.

Ok, 32gb is not enough, but you will only use to digital games and dlc, so... It's not a big problem when you can easily plug an external driver.

Yeah I don't understand how it's "a complete joke" and yet has had external hard drive support from day 1. If you want download games, just get a hard drive.

And somehow external hard drive on Xbox One is "the best storage options" despite being the exact same situation, except it forces you to install 10s of GB for every game.

 

[RootCause]

You can delete, and install everything again. Dunno what a collector has to do about anything. You still have your physical copy, ready to be installed. Haven't gotten into any problems so far, and I have 26 retail games. I could see your point if games took like 30 minutes or more, even then it seems like a none issue.

I do agree about separating data. DLC/Install shouldn't be tied together.

 

[jesu]

If got 3.5TB on my X1, 1.6TB of that is free.
146 games installed.
I think when I do run out of space again I'll get deleting.

 

[Dr. Black Jack]

You can delete, and install everything again. Dunno what a collector has to do about anything. You still have your physical copy, ready to be installed. Haven't gotten into any problems so far, and I have 26 retail games. I could see your point if games took like 30 minutes or more, even then it seems like a none issue.

I do agree about separating data. DLC/Install shouldn't be tied together.

That's the reason it takes so long, on the PS4 at least. Disc install times are trivial for the most part, but then you have to download huge multi-gb patches that take foooooooooooreeeeeeeeeeeeveeeeeeeeeer with PSN's shitty download times. I have a really good home network set up with my PS4 hardwired/105mb down and it STILL takes all goddamn night for patch downloads.

I wouldn't be so concerned about patches if they hadn't become basic requirements for retail games like they have. Even single player games can be borked and require patches to be kept around.

 

[WaterAstro]

People who want to keep every tv series episodes from DBZ to Game of Thrones will be buying 5x 4 TB HDDs.

I'll just delete them when I'm done. Download them if I ever care to watch it, but they'll end up having the best moments on youtube anyway.

It's even better if you're physical disc. You don't even have to waste the bandwidth downloading game data install.

 

[chrizzz09]

Ehh no problem guys.

Just wait for this one:

Samsung unveils 2.5 inch 16TB SSD

 

[BPoole]

Just buy a 2 or 3TB HDD for less than $100 and you're set.

 

[OneUh8]

You really play 2TB worth of games on the regular? No one does let's be real.

 

[Dr. Black Jack]

Ehh no problem guys.

Just wait for this one:

Samsung unveils 2.5 inch 16TB SSD

We don't have a price for Samsung's 16TB PM1633a, but we can't imagine that it'll be cheaper than £5,000. But hey, you would be the owner of the world's largest drive!

Yeah, no thanks.

Just buy a 2 or 3TB HDD for less than $100 and you're set.

You can only go up to 2tb reliably on a PS4, and a 3tb requires the $40 nyko Data Bank. I am going to upgrade to a 2tb ASAP, probably after Christmas.

You really play 2TB worth of games on the regular? No one does let's be real.

Yes, because I flip between games a lot and my gaming time is fairly limited. I don't want to waste time redownloading stuff that I've already wasted time downloading in the past. The problem with this approach on the PS4 is that the disc data is force installed and you can't delete it separately from the update/DLC data.

 

[jaxpunk]

Sorry OP but there's no way in the world your actively playing 2 TB worth of games. But I imagine it must be terrible to have to download your games on your high speed internet, while claiming to be soooo inconvenienced.

The shit people complain about, wow.


edit: Saw the OPS response of him flipping between games alot. Go ahead and let's see that LIST of games you currently have installed. I threw in a 1tb ssd hybrid and I have a metric shit ton of games installed. Indulge us OP on that list of games thats clearly an issue you have to wrestle with daily.

 

[Dr. Black Jack]

Sorry OP but there's no way in the world your actively playing 2 TB worth of games. But I imagine it must be terrible to have to download your games on your high speed internet, while claiming to be soooo inconvenienced.

The shit people complain about, wow.

Have you had to download patches on the PS4? At best, even with my super privileged high-speed internet, it takes 3-4 hours. That eats up the entire time I have to play the game after work, meaning an entire night of playing the game that I want lost and having to wait until my next free day to play it. It's bad enough to do that once, let alone every goddamn time I want to play the game.

Again, is it really so much to ask for? Sony needs to provide better data management on the PS4. "lol get over yourself" isn't a good counterpoint.

EDIT Off the top of my head, right now I have:

Blops III
Battlefront
Destiny
Until Dawn
Just Cause 3
Bloodborne without DLC
a few random <10gb games like GGXrd, Duscae and EDF 4.1

which eat up a majority of the HDD space. Most of those games are pick-up-and-play, so yes I don't want to waste hours redownloading them just to play for a half hour. Stuff like WWE 2K16 sits on my shelf unplayed because of how much of a pain it would be to juggle data to reinstall it. Putting in a 2tb drive would fix that problem for the short term, but come winter 2016/spring 2017 I'll run into the same damn problem again.

 

[RootCause]

That's the reason it takes so long, on the PS4 at least. Disc install times are trivial for the most part, but then you have to download huge multi-gb patches that take foooooooooooreeeeeeeeeeeeveeeeeeeeeer with PSN's shitty download times. I have a really good home network set up with my PS4 hardwired/105mb down and it STILL takes all goddamn night for patch downloads.

I wouldn't be so concerned about patches if they hadn't become basic requirements for retail games like they have. Even single player games can be borked and require patches to be kept around.

Install times arent affected by patches, or dlc. The two are a separate process. Also, of the hd twins, the ps4 offers the shortest time from installing to play, its been tested many times.

And, yes psn is slow as hell. Allnighter for a patch sounds crazy though, the largest patch ive had is gta5, even then it didnt take an all nighter. I found that the only way to speed it up, is by stpping it from being a background download. And still, it doesnt make use of my full conection. Its a shame for sure. Sony needs to fix that.

 

[RootCause]

Ehh no problem guys.

Just wait for this one:

Samsung unveils 2.5 inch 16TB SSD

Does the ps4 os have trimm?