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1. How To Format An External Hard Drive For PS4 - RyLi Gaming ...
2. How To Format A Hard Drive (Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, XP)
3. See Full List On Wikihow.com
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So, to format a hard drive for PS4, you’ll first need to launch Disk Utility. Step 1 — Click on the “Search” icon at the top-right corner of the desktop and type “Disk Utility”. Step 2 — Once the. Open File Explorer on your computer for formatting a hard drive for PS4. Right-click the to format external hard drive on PS4 and select Format from the menu that appears. Select exFAT which is also the default system. Don’t forget to check the Quick Format tab or else the process would be too long. Press start and then click on Yes to.

How To Format An External Hard Drive For PS4 - RyLi Gaming ...

What is the best external hard drive for PS4? This post will introduce several external hard drives for PS4, and then display 3 ways to format the external hard drive to enlarge storage when the original storage of PlayStation 4 is not enough. Certainly, you can also upgrade your PS4 hard drive to a larger one with MiniTool Partition Wiazrd.

Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February, 2013, PS4 (PlayStation 4) is an eighth-generation home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment.

This successor places more emphasis on social interaction and integration with other devices and services, including the ability to play games off-console on PlayStation Vita, and the ability to stream gameplay online or to friends.

However, as a game lover, you may find that the storage space of PlayStation 4 is not enough to store more games. To overcome the limited PS4 hard drive size, you may try removing some games from it, but it is not a helpful solution. The more helpful way is to enlarge the storage space by upgrading the PS4 internal hard drive or connecting an external hard drive with this game console.

In this article, I would like to recommend some best external hard drives for PS4 and tell you how format such hard drive to FAT32 with ease. As for upgrading PS4 internal hard drive, you can refer to the following recommended article.

This post shows you how to upgrade your hard drive without reinstalling the program and would not bring any damages to the original data.

Actually, it is incredibly easy to plug the external hard drive into PS4. After adding an external hard drive as the extended storage for PS4, you can download something from PSN or install a new game from a disc, and it will go directly onto the external hard drive.

Suggested Best External Hard Drives for PS4

Which external hard drive is compatible with PS4? There are some suggested best external hard drives for you, namely Toshiba CANVIO Basics, WD Black My Passport Portable External Hard Drive and Seagate Backup Plus Slim Portable Hard Drive External.

Toshiba CANVIO Basics is great value for money, and very durable for everyday use. Choosing it as PS4 external hard drive will double the storage for less money.

WD Black My Passport Portable External Hard Drive is USB 3.0 compatible. What’s more, it only requires a quick reformat the first time its buyers use it. This hard drive also comes in small size and sturdy construction.

Seagate Backup Plus Slim Portable Hard Drive External is relatively inexpensive, for the 5TB is $109.99. If you have some requirements for appearance of external hard drive, it is a good choice to select this HDD featuring appearance of beauty as the PS4 external storage.

Let’s see the following form to know more information about each best external hard drive for PS4.

The best external hard drive for PS4 blends price with performance, and the size of its storage space. For heavy PS4 users, it is highly recommended to select 2TB - 4TB dive, which will give them space to download and store 40-60 games, depending on size. Certainly, you can also pick up a “PS4 external hard drive 8TB” to download more games.

When you get a new external hard drive for PS4, what you need to do is formatting it before connecting it with PS4.

After finishing all the preparatory work, it’s time for you to format the external hard drive for PlayStation 4. And the following content shows detailed tutorials on how to format external hard drive for PS4.

Please note that PS4 external hard drive should be formatted to FAT32, because this file system enjoys a better compatibility than NTFS. (click FAT32 vs NTFS to learn about more information)

Furthermore, it is highly recommended to use the first way to format the external hard drive for PlayStation 4, because the other two ways come in some limits on the size of partition of FAT32 which will be formatted.

Way 1: Format PS4 External Hard Drive via MiniTool Partition Wizard

MiniTool Partition Wizard is a multifunctional tool which can help you manage partitions easily and safely, including formatting disk quickly.

Please follow the steps below to format best external hard drive for PS4 via MiniTool Partition Wizard.

Step 1: Plug the new external hard dive into a computer at first.

Step 2: Download MiniTool Partition Wizard Free by clicking the offered button and launch it to get its main interface.

Step 3: Right-click the partition on the external hard drive you want to format and click Format. Or select the partition on the external hard drive and then choose Format Partition from the left panel directly.

Step 4: Select FAT32 as the file system of the partition on the external hard drive and click OK to confirm these changes.

Step 5: Click Apply after going back the main interface of MiniTool Partition Wizard Free to execute all changes.

Way 2: Format PS4 External Hard Drive via Disk Management

How To Format A Hard Drive (Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, XP)

Disk Management built in Windows is also a good utility to help you format disk. To format an external hard drive for PS4, please refer to the follwoing steps.

Step 1: Connect the external hard drive with Windows computer.

Step 2: Press Windows and R on the keyboard simultaneously to get the following picture. And then input diskmgmt.msc and then click OK.

Step 3: Get the interface of Disk Management and select the partition on the external hard drive you want to format.

Step 4: Right-click the partition on the disk and then click Format.

Step 5: Select File System FAT32 in the new pop-up window for the external hard drive and click OK.

Way 3: Format PS4 External Hard Drive via CMD

Ypou can alos use Command Prompt built in Windows to format a hard disk, but this way is not so convinient as the two former ways as you need to type some commands.

Step 1: Connect the external hard drive for PlayStation 4 with Windows computer in advance.

Step 2: Press Windows and R on keyboard simultaneously to access the Run window.

Step 3: Input cmd and click OK to get a black pop-up window.

Step 4: Input diskpart in the black pop-up window in the black window and click Enteron keyboard. And click Yes.

Step 5: Then you shhould input the following commands and click Enter on keyboard after each inputing.

• select disk# (# refers to the number of the disk you want to format)
• list partition
• select partition # ( # refers to the partition number)
• format fs=fat32

Step 6: After inputinga all mentioned commands, you should wait for some seconds until the external hard drive has been formatted to FAT32.

It is extremely possible that the second and third way fail to format external hard drive for PS4, because you can't format a partition with FAT32 file system in Windows unless you employ third-party software, like MiniTool Partition Wizard. Therefore, the first way is the best choice when you plan to format one external hard drive for PS4.

This article aims to fix the issue when the Command Prompt keeps popping up on Windows 10. If you encounter this issue, find the solutions in this article.

Have you get a formatted FAT32 PlayStation 4 external hard drive successfully by following the above ways? If the two answers are both Yes, you can connect the hard drive with their PS4 right now.

Please note that you should make sure that the console is powered off before you remove the PS4 external hard drive. Otherwise, data loss or corruption may occur. To safely remove the external storage, you should follow the path: Settings > Devices > USB Storage Devices > Stop Using This Extended Storage.

We Want Your Voice

Hope that PS4 owners can enjoy a better game experience after knowing how to format the best external hard drive for PS4. If there is any problem or question, you can contact us via [email protected] or leave a message below this article.

Best External Hard Drive for PS4 FAQ

To back up PS4 to external hard drive, you should make sure that the FAT or exFAT-formatted external storage has at least double the storage space the PS4 hard drive has. If you do not have enough space, you can choose not to back up the application data (download or reinstall them when you restore the data on the system with the backup you’re creating).

Here is the simple tutorial on backing up PS4 to external hard drive.

1. Sync your Trophies first by clicking Trophies > OPTIONS > Sync Trophies With PSN (the reason is that these files are not included in the backup data).
2. Connect the external storage device.
3. Follow the path: Settings > System > Back Up and Restore > Back Up > confirm which data you would like to back up > customize the name of the backup > Back up > X > safely remove the external storage.

The answer is Yes. When you use the external SSD as an externed storage where you store games and applications and run them from there, you will enjoy a much higher level of speed that classical external hard drivers cannot offer.

See Full List On Wikihow.com

To learn about more differences between SSD vs HDD vs SSHD, please click here.

Yes, you can transfer a game from one PS4 to another. But there is something important you should pay attention to.

• Transferring data from a PS4 system to another will erase any data from the PS4 system you are transferring the data.
• You should make sure the latest system software installed on both PS4 systems. To update PS4 system software, refer to the tutorial.
• Besides the games you can transfer, you can also transfer all existing users and settings and saved data (screenshots and video clips).
• Do not power off any PS4 during data transferring.

To get the detailed tutorial on transferring data from one PS4 to another, please read the post.

'Format', a word which is connected with 'all data clear' and which is different from what it is called so on Windows, has another name on Mac, 'erase'. Of course, there are different occasions where people want to get their external hard drives erased.

When there are bad sectors which don't store the data of bootstrap procedure, but of some important private files, people expect for formatting and backing up to make these files accessible again; when people's hard disks can no longer write in further, they expect for erasing disk to pave way for new items to write; when there are file system errors in people's hard disks resulting from frequent hot swapping, they expect for formatting to give rebirth to these dying disks and make them in use again.

Then how to format a external hard drive on Mac? Here are two methods for those people who urgently need to erase a external hard drive.

Part 1: Two methods to format external hard drive on Mac

Method I: Format an external hard drive through 'Disk Utility' (newbie friendly)

Step 1: Connect the external hard drive with your Mac, and the computer will mount your external hard drive. Click here when external hard drive does't mount on Mac.

Step 2: Launchpad → Other → Disk Utility, and click the Disk Utility.

Step 3: Choose your target external hard drive or volume, click Erase on the top. If you find there's something wrong to read your external hard drive, then you can turn to external hard drive does't show up in Disk Utility for help.

Step 4: Edit the disk name, select a format and a scheme.

There are 10 formats (file systems) you can select in macOS 10.13 or above:

And 3 kinds of Scheme you can choose:

• GUID Partition Map: for all Intel-based Mac computers.

• Master Boot Record: for Windows partitions that will be formatted as MS-DOS (FAT) or ExFAT.

• Apple Partition Map: for compatibility with old PowerPC-based Mac computers.

Step 4: Click Erase to format your target disk.

Note: As for our example to erase a whole external hard drive, the original physical volume 'X' and 'Y' will have been deleted and a new volume 'Untitled' will have been established. At that time, there will be an icon of your new-established volume on the desktop.

Step 5: Click Done, and congratulations that you have finished all the steps.

Steps to format a volume are 99% the same as that of a external hard drive.

The most distinguishing difference of formatting between a volume and a external hard drive is that: if a external hard drive gets formatted, then all the volumes inside the external hard drive, which means all the data, will be deleted. Compared with that, if a volume gets formatted, only the one that gets formatted will be deleted, and that's to say, only the data of the formatted volume will be deleted.

Method II: Format an external hard drive through 'Terminal'

Step 1: Launchpad → Other → Terminal, and click Terminal.

Step 2: Input 'diskutil list', press Enter to list out all your disks.

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Step 3: Input the 'erase' command: diskutil erasedisk + new file system + new disk name + identifier.

For example: to format the whole disk 2 to hfs+, then the operating command is:

To format a single volume to hfs+, like disk2s1, then the operating command is:

Note:

1. There's no limitation of uppercase or lower case.

2. HFS+ can be replaced by other file system formats, and here provide some references like APFS, JHFS+, FAT32 and ExFAT.

3. 'TD' is the name that I give to the new disk and it can be replaced by any word you like.

4. 'disk 2' is the IDENTIFIER, or rather, the target disk that I want to format.

Well done! Finished erasing on disk2! Now I believe you have master another method to format your external hard drive. Take a try!

Well, if you find that you can't format your disk due to the loss of some fatal meta files, you are bound to stop to recover your data and the iBoysoft Data Recovery can help you find the lost meta files.

Part 2: Understand external hard drive, container, volume and partition on Mac

If you newly switch from Windows PC to Mac, you may get confused with external hard drive, partition, container, and volume in Disk Utility. Here are the differences.

External hard drive: external hard drive is the hardware component like HDD and SSD that you used to store the data. In Mac Disk Utility, it shows in the first line of the whole disk directory (e.g. disk2).

Partition: different from Windows, the partition is more like an operation to divide the entire, large, uncultivated, lonely, and original disk space. When you partition your external hard drive, the partition map is created when the external hard drive is erased and the partition map defines how and what the partitions should be. But on Mac, a partition can't be in effect unless it has been activated, i.e. being formatted with a file system. A partition with a file system will be called a volume on Mac.

Container: Only the APFS has the Container where volumes share space with each other, which meanwhile implies that if one of the volumes is up to the entire partition capacity, there will be no space left for the other volumes to use in this partition. The Container is a special kind of partition on mac.

Volume: on Mac, any partition that is formatted with a file system before storing data is called a volume (e.g. disk2s1). Any available partition can divide its capacity into numerous volumes in a very easy-going way on mac while their names are editable. For an APFS external hard drive, APFS volume is a third-level unit of the storage device.

Ending

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