So this probably sold me on the PS4, more then many other things: Single screw HDD replacement. SDD here I come (also look at the screw)

I'd be wary of installing SSD's into a console (much like I was with the PS3). If the system wasn't build with solid state in mind it's fairly likely that the OS won't have any level of TRIM support, as a result all that hot SSD performance will go downhill rather rapidly.

That is a dope screw.

PS4 best screws.

Also the single screw HDD replacement thing is cool.

@korwin: Modern SSDs have some degree of internal garbage collection. I think it is likely the OS would also support TRIM, as FreeBSD does also.

True on the internal front, I sincerely doubt the OS will support it. The general rule of working with a Unix base is that you only put in what you need and nothing more, as the standard is still Mechanical drives for these things including a regular TRIM task will only serve to bloat the OS.

Is there any information in that article about how the drives need to be formatted? Can I just pull the HDD out of the box and pop it into my PS4, or do I have to do a little tinkering first?

I want to swap drives on launch day, so I'd like to be as prepared as possible.

@spoonman671: You probably can just swap it. The PS3 did the formatting on its own. I would assume the PS4 will do the same.

It did? I'm pretty sure I had to format to FAT32 when I upgraded my OG 60GB.

https://support.us.playstation.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/362

I guess I wanted to do it the hard way?

That is pretty cool.

You only had to do it for an external drive.

Nice.

Misread thread title, nevermind.

I... kinda want to buy a bag of those screws for general use.

"supports 2.5" drives up to 12.5mm height"

So good.

That's way cooler than the blue screw all PS3s have for the HDD caddy

After the first month with the system, I will buy a new SSHD. I figure within a few days several dozen brands/types/sizes of drives will be put into a PS4. After a month a shake out, we will know what works great and what wasn't worth the effort.

My guess is a Hybrid drive will be the best choice, but I'd rather let some hearty pioneers test it out. At the very least a SSHD will not make the system slower, yet the additional cost will be tiny for a modest speed increase.

My theory with drives for consoles is you don't but the biggest and the best right away. Buy what will be a small improvement for a low cost, and then in two or three years upgrade again. If I fill a 1 TB drive in two years I'd be shocked, but I can see where a 2 TB or 4 TB storage drive might be useful in a few years.

And the best screw award goes to...

With games coming in at 50gb, having a SSD that the system probably won't take advantage of sounds like a completely stupid idea.

They'd have to of thought about people putting in SSDs. I think that's one of the main reasons you can still remove the HDD. Can't wait for all the tech articles showing the performance increases.

@mikey87144: Well. but they might add TRIM support etc. with another patch if it is not in there yet.

@kidavenger: It will always be quieter and cooler. And obviously faster. Its not like the OS would cap that. Garbage collection is a concern though. And you can get 500GB SSDs now.

Buy a $400 ssd for your $400 console, that's smart, and people say PC gaming is expensive...

Ingame loading times are going to be nonexistant /significantly reduced with the 8gb of RAM in both next gen consoles, all you are really looking at reducing is the initial loading of the game into memory.

@ravenlight: I'm glad I'm not the only one who misread the title as "Super easy dick replacement". XD

That's a kick-ass screw. I wish I had offensive amounts of money so I could buy thousands of PS4s and replace every screw in the house with those.

Then resell the PS4s with regular-ass screws I guess. Or give them away to people who can't afford them, depending on how much money I had.

No seriously, that's the coolest screw I've ever seen, and it's really nice that they put such a cute attention to detail.

The OS likely has TRIM this time and large block support. Sony will want to make a solid-state storage version later for their own use (higher performance or lower cost).

To those asking about FAT32 on PS3, early on if you wanted to back up your HDD to an external one you had to format the drive with a FAT32 partition big enough to hold the backup contents. And Windows won't even make one larger than 16GB! Since most of us probably backed up our existing HDD and restored it to the new one when swapping, we were doing that FAT32 partition thing.

Now backups partition the drive for you, so you don't have to worry about it. And if you didn't want to preserve the contents of your HDD, you never had to.

That's awesome. I'll be transporting my 2.5 terrabyte drive to my PS4 I guess.