Do PS4 external hard drives work on PS5? What you need to know

The PlayStation 5 might arrive with what appears like a wealth of storage, but with increasing sizes for games, looks can be deceiving. 

The PS5 console comes with 825GB of solid-state storage on the SSD drive, although only 667.2GB of that total is free storage for games. 

But are there any options to expand this? And will your previous external hard drive work on PS5? Here’s everything you need to know. 

• Read more: PS5 consoles won’t be available in stores at launch

Will my external hard drive for PS4 work on PS5?

The PlayStation 5 has some awkward hard drive kinks at launch (Picture: Sony)

You can use any external hard drive you're using for PlayStation 4 on your PS5, although there’s some complications on what you can store on it.

On PS5 from launch, you’ll only be able to store PS4 games on external hard drives - with all PS5 titles restricted to being downloaded to the 667.2GB of internal storage. 

This even applies if you have an external SSD drive, although the ability to move PS5 titles onto an external drive will arrive in a future update. 

In a blog post running down the PS5 features, it explains how players can’t transfer PS5 games to a USB drive although “explorations for allowing players to store (but not play) PS5 games on a USB drive in a future update are underway”. 

It’s unclear when this update will arrive however, so for the time being you’ll likely have to do a lot of shifting around as more PS5 games release. 

• Read more: PlayStation 5 user interface officially revealed

Can I expand the PS5’s storage?

The PS5 launch will be online only (Picture: Sony) 

At launch, it’s currently not possible to expand the storage of the PS5 outside of storing PS4 titles as outlined above. 

There is an expansion port on the console however which will enable players to add M.2. SSD storage, but it won’t be functional at launch. 

This functionality is set to arrive after the system has launched in a software update, although it’s unclear how soon this update will arrive. 

It’s important to note, you’ll have to purchase an M.2 SSD drive if you want to store PS5 games externally when the update does arrive - so you’ll likely want to purchase one at some point if your space is clogged up already. 

Sony’s PlayStation 5 launches on 12th November in the US and 19th November in the UK.