External hard drive PS4

[wmackay79]

Hi I just bought I 1 TB Toshiba USB 3.0 external hard drive in hopes of being able to add more storage to my PS4 which is out of storage now. I plugged in the hard drive to the ps4 and it said "the USB storage device cannot be used. The file system is not supported." Why does this hard drive not work and what hard drive can I get to add more storage on my ps4. Plz help. Thx!

 

[PCBuilderProbs]

I believe this means you need to reformat the hard drive. Some people on the PS4 forums said reformatting to FAT32 should work (apparently NTFS, the standard of most USB mass storage units isn't supported on PS4)

EDIT: Found this on the PS4 forums, worth a shot.

"I got a Western Digital Passport 1TB external USB 3 drive. I first removed all partitions from it, then created a simple volume in Windows Disk Management. Then formatted it with exFAT as suggested here and by others. Disconnected from pc and plugged into PS4. The device was then instantly recognized and now i use it to backup my PS4. As suggested here, you may want to try any old usb flash drive as an alternative just in case what you are using may not be compatible with the PS4 for some reason.

Good luck."

 

[wmackay79]

ok so I just reformatted but the only options for my drive are exfat and ntfs so will I have to get a drive with fat32? And if so how can I know that it will format to fat32?

 

[wmackay79]

Ok I'm really not to sure how to do this and I don't want to backup my stuff I just want to add more storage to download more games.

 

[wmackay79]

So I formatted it to exfat and plugged it in and the drive turned on and I didn't get an error message but nothing happened. So what can I do to make this be recognized in my ps4

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, wmackay79!

@PCBuilderProbs is right. You need to format the external HDD in exFAT or FAT32 in order to be able to use it on the PS4. Usually the supported file system formats must be listed somewhere in the PS4 manual, so you can refer to that if you haven't already.
I'm not sure why exactly the exFAT file system did not work for you, but I'd definitely try re-formatting it without any additional partitioning. I'd also give the FAT32 a try. My recommendation would be to check this tutorial from our KB and follow the steps there, depending on your OS: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=kOTm1S

Hope it helps you! Let us know how it goes!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[JaxAxRho]

So I know this is a little old, but I wanted to tag along onto this discussion because I am also looking for external storage, but for an XboxOne.
I was looking for any recommendations or if there were any formatting requirements for the XboxOne? I looked online and I couldn't find specifics on storage format.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, JaxAxRho!

I think that the Xbox One console actually supports both NTFS & FAT32 file systems. I believe they've integrated this NTFS compatibility in one of the console updates last year. ( http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/system/offline-system-update-diagnostic-tool#h1 )

P.S. You'd be more likely to get even more responses and help, if you create your own thread in the future.

Hope I helped, though!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[JaxAxRho]

Awesome, thanks. I figured this would be a good place to start and if I needed more help I could create my own thread.
Thanks again, I'm all set.

 

[thuccubuth]

Okay, a little late here, but I do have an actual answer. So when you plug in your new HDD a message will pop up saying that "the USB storage device cannot be used. The file system is not supported."

Make sure your HDD is formatted to FAT, and even though the PS4 gives you the error message, go ahead and either transfer your save files or backup your current HDD, you'll find that you are still able to transfer files. Pretty much, what I'm saying is"ignore the message, carry on"

 

[Dennis_EG]

ok so I just reformatted but the only options for my drive are exfat and ntfs so will I have to get a drive with fat32? And if so how can I know that it will format to fat32?

I am currently doing just this, I have a new 2TB Seagate 2.5" HDD and Formatted it as mentioned above with ExFat and Fat32 was not available in Windows 10. I then took it downstairs to my PS4 and although I still got the not recognized it still proceeded to Backup to the New HDD. After which I will transfer to my PC reformat the Drive replace the old HDD and insert new HDD. Install new OS that I got from PSN onto USB Drive then restore backup to PS4 and then back to normal. Hopefully this will all work.

At this moment I'm at the Backup PS4 point. Good Luck hope this answers your question.

 

[Brickette]

So I formatted it to exfat and plugged it in and the drive turned on and I didn't get an error message but nothing happened. So what can I do to make this be recognized in my ps4

I had the same problem until I made the drive bootable while formatting. I formatted it as exFAT on a Mac, and I think I just had to check a box to make it bootable. I know there's a quick way to do it on a PC, but I can't remember how.