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[rothbart]

I know people used SATA extension cables on the PS3 to hook up thicker than normal hard drives outside the PS3's disk tray compartment and even larger 3.5" hard drives (when powered separately.) I would love to see a base or a stand with the same footprint as the PS4 that holds a 3.5" hard drive, a power support for said hard drive, and a SATA extension cable that routes from the base into the PS4 drive bay (I think you'd want this to be as short as possible to avoid any issues) and suddenly you can use higher capacity hard drives.

The largest capacity 2.5" 9.5mm hard drive I could find was HGST's Travelstar 5K1500 1.5TB drive. If you bump up to a 3.5" hard drive of normal size, it REALLY opens the world of higher capacity drives up. Heck, HGST just announced the Ultrastar He6 6TB hard drive. While I'm sure it'll launch at a crazy high price, it will drive down the price of other moderately high capacity drives... and at 30GB-40GB per AAA game, who wouldn't want (what could almost seem like) limitless storage capacity? I mean going from the stock 500GB to a 1TB (or even a 1.5TB drive) seems like a stop-gap measure for someone wanting to go all digital this generation.

I'd definitely be down for a stable accessory that would let me use a 3.5" HD with my PS4. Thoughts?

EDIT: Would a mod please edit the thread title to put a space between "enabling" and "stand"? Thanks.

 

[Lexxon]

Hmm. I imagine all it would take is something similar to a current 3.5" SATA HDD dock, except that there is also an extra cable (extension) that would plug into the SATA connector inside the PS4.

I almost wonder if you could get something like this, but instead of the e-sata port, it's a SATA plug-in from a standard cable.

EDIT: Looks like there were adapters for the PS3 to make the SATA port into an e-SATA, which you can then use with a dock such as the one I linked, or something more enclosed, like a Seagate external, etc etc. that has eSata.

 

[SwiftDeath]

While what you suggest is certainly possible, it can't possibly have the same exact footprint

But if you mean general footprint then yes I could see that

Wonder if we could hook up a Raid configuration?

 

[rothbart]

I'm betting if there aren't any logistic gotchas, this will be something that some enterprising company makes happen. If it works in a stable manner, they could make some money by just offering a correctly formed hunk of plastic, a generic power supply, and an adapter cable (all fairly inexpensive items) and charging $70-$100.

Even if Sony caves and allows games to be installed on USB 3 drives, it still wouldn't address the generally higher latencies of accessing data over a USB 3 connection compared to the latencies encountered from a SATA II connection to the "internal" hard drive.

I just think the capacity of hard drives 9.5mm or thinner won't keep pace with larger form factor drives and gamers will naturally want to always have enough space for their digital purchases.

 

[rothbart]

While what you suggest is certainly possible, it can't possibly have the same exact footprint

When I said "footprint", I meant "not using any more area on your entertainment center shelf, but be maybe 1.5 inches taller". Or just a little more shelf space if you plan on orienting your PS4 vertically.

Something like this (pardon this mock-up, I'm using tools available at work):

 

[SwiftDeath]

When I said "footprint", I meant "not using any more area on your entertainment center shelf, but be maybe 1.5 inches taller". Or just a little more shelf space if you plan on orienting your PS4 vertically.

Something like this (pardon this mock-up, I'm using tools available at work):

That's actually a pretty cool mark up and exactly what I was thinking

You could lay at least 2 3.5" hard drives in there so some type of Raid options would be nice if possible

 

[Bowler]

When I said "footprint", I meant "not using any more area on your entertainment center shelf, but be maybe 1.5 inches taller". Or just a little more shelf space if you plan on orienting your PS4 vertically.

Something like this (pardon this mock-up, I'm using tools available at work):

Id buy that

 

[Caayn]

When I said "footprint", I meant "not using any more area on your entertainment center shelf, but be maybe 1.5 inches taller". Or just a little more shelf space if you plan on orienting your PS4 vertically.

Something like this (pardon this mock-up, I'm using tools available at work):

Nice mock-up. You should be able to fit 2 maybe 3 3.5" disk in there. Maybe even have some sort of RAID support built-in. I'd buy that.

 

[Metfanant]

id be interested if the price was right

 

[nico1982]

Looks like this is the more recent thread about PS4 HDD upgrades.

Anyway, Samsung just announced the Spinpoint M9T 2TB HDD the first 9.5 mm 2.5" drive of this capacity (via techreport.com). Hopefully other manufacturers will follow suit soon.

 

[EvB]

Would the PS4 melt if you got an external raid tower and put 4 SSDs in it?

 

[neobiz]

Would the PS4 melt if you got an external raid tower and put 4 SSDs in it?

No but my wallet would.

 

[Mr_Antimatter]

The idea is sound, and honestly, i'd like to see it.