PS4 3.5″ HDD add-on ‘slower than stock drive’ – Report

PS4 3.5″ HDD add-on ‘slower than stock drive’ – Report
David Scammell Updated on by

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A new third-party accessory that allows PS4 users to replace their internal hard drive with a bigger, faster 3.5″ HDD apparently makes load and install times slower.

IGN put Nyko’s Data Bank to the test yesterday, replacing the console’s internal 500GB 5400RPM hard drive with a 2TB 7200RPM Seagate hard drive, but found that load times and installations actually increased when using the replacement drive.

According to the site, the install time of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare more than doubled with Nyko’s add-on, jumping from 37.82 to 78.59 seconds. Load times suffered, too, jumping from 49.78 to 56.37 seconds.

Likewise, Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition’s load time increased by 6 seconds to 26 seconds, with marginal increases to Bloodborne’s install and load times reported, too.

“Even though the hard drive I used in the Data Bank is rated at a faster speed than the stock drive (7200RPM vs. 5400RPM), its interface seems to slows it down enough for the stock drive to retain a tiny edge over it,” the site’s reporter says. “In practice, the difference in installation and load time shouldn’t affect your experience too much, but it’s still a little disappointing.”

The Nyko Data Bank has been designed to allow PS4 users to easily upgrade their storage space with larger, cheaper 3.5″ drives. Officially, PS4 only supports 2.5″ drives.

The Data Bank may still be useful to those looking to increase their storage space beyond 2TB, however, with 3TB and 4TB 3.5″ HDDs more readily available than their 2.5″ equivalents.

A UK release date for the accessory has yet to be confirmed.

Source: ign.com