PS4: No external storage, no DLNA support, no mp3 playback support. X1: Does all of the above.

[Jas00555]

To me, the lack of external hard drive support is a deal breaker. Between Ryse, Forza, dead rising, CoD, and assassins creed is almost 150gb... And that's just launch titles! I can kiss my storage goodbye when Fallout 5 comes out, not to mention 2 more Halos, Titanfall 1 & 2. If I'm keeping this thing for about 7 years, I'm gonna need way more than 500gb. I realize that Sony may include support, but I'm not buying a console on "what ifs". That's just my preference.

 

[Keith Wallace]

Sony lets you swap the HDD out, don't forget that. It'll probably be cheaper to go that route than the external route, and I'm REALLY curious to see if people can put SSDs in the PS4 (it'd be killer). Microsoft's also using a 500-GB HDD, and they aren't making it swappable, meaning you have to pay a stupid premium to upgrade the internal drive when it fills up, which sucks. On top of that, even if SSDs aren't possible in the PS4, you could get a 7200-RPM drive in there, while the included one for the PS4 (and likely the One) is only a 5400-RPM drive.

 

[Coreldan]

I was planning to eventually get just a 7200RPM external, but I think it'll take a while before my HDD fills up anyways, depends on what can and can't you do with imported videos etc.

I dunno, personally though I'm a bit more interested at the support for external drive. That way I have access to all my stuff at the same time, instead of going "damn, now that game is on the other HDD". One could argue though that you could just get a bigger HDD to the PS4 right out of the gate, but that's still gonna cost a good amount of money too, although I guess it's a bit cheaper than a similar size external.

Although then there's the question of transfer speeds. USB3 is fast, but I doubt it can match a swapped "internal" HDD on the PS4, although don't think that's gonna be a problem.

 

[Keith Wallace]

IDK what version of SATA they use for the drives, but USB 3.0 is 5 Gb/sec. That means 8 seconds for 5 GB, at peak speeds (we'll see what we get for speed on the console), for about a minute for a full game transfer? That sounds optimistic, haha. I think the big question is if you can play from an external HDD, or if it requires a transfer to the internal to play.

 

[ncxcstud]

There is always the option (as there currently is) that you can delete games and redownload/install them as you wish. I'm still rocking a 20GB original hard drive on my xbox 360 and though I do have a 16GB flash drive connected to it, it has been 'doable' to get what I want - almost when I want it - on that hard drive.

Getting to have a 500GB hard drive will be awesome for me. Plus, the external drive support will be really cool too.

The thing I want to know with the PS3, is that yes, you can hot swap the drives, but with no external drive support are you starting 'fresh' each time having to re-download everything that was on the first drive? I'm assuming they have some sort of cloud support for saved games right? Because if there isn't a way for you to get your save file from one drive to another.......that'd suck...

 

[Keith Wallace]

I know they said you have 1 GB of cloud saving, but I'm sure that doesn't last too long with new saves. The other thing is that they said no external drives, but they also said that USB drives could be used to install updates to the console, so maybe it's just that you can't install dames to an external HDD or you can't PLAY games from an external HDD, we'll have to wait and see.

The problem with re-downloading is that games are 30 GB and larger now, in most cases (EA's stuff and Dead Rising being the main exceptions). Re-downloading Ryse (which is 47 GB) would suuuuuuuuuuuck,

 

[Bee Mon]

I have multiple devices and I don't want to spend my time copying or synchronizing my videos and music across them. I put all my media files on a 1TB WD My Passport so external HDD support or DLNA will be important to me. So if PS4 or XB1 does not provide either then sorry I'll keep my XB360 as my media player and turn to the PC for all my gaming needs. No more consoles for me. I've had it with people telling me what I cannot do with a device that I paid for, not because it's not possible but they just don't want you to.

 

[Keith Wallace]

Well, not once have they said that the Xbox One can't do those things (they openly said they COULD, in fact), so calm down. I personally just use my phone for music though, because it allows me to change tracks and albums without stopping what I'm doing in the game, which is nice.

 

[peachy001]

At he risk of looking like a complete imbecile, I have a question surrounding the DLNA business. I currently town my PC on (no need to log in) and then use the xbox to stream movies from a shared folder. I tried playing around with the media centre thing, but to no avail. Can anyone tell me what the difference is?

 

[jkidd01]

Sony lets you swap the HDD out

Microsoft's also using a 500-GB HDD, and they aren't making it swappable

Source?

 

[Coreldan]

Source?

For example PS4s FAQ confirms that it's a 500GB HDD that can be swapped with no support for externals.

I'm not sure if theres any one source that confirms the Xbox One part, but it's common knowledge for a long time now that it's also 500GB, can't be swapped but X1 will eventually support external HDDs (but not at launch).

 

[Keith Wallace]

Source?

[h=5]Will users be able to replace PS4?s stock 500GB hard drive? What hard drive sizes are supported?[/h] PS4 owners will be able to replace PS4?s standard hard drive. PS4?s hard drive is used to store downloaded game and video content, game save files, gameplay movies and images, and more.

PS4: The Ultimate FAQ – North America – PlayStation.Blog

As for the Xbox One, I know this is old, but didn't find an official Microsoft source quickly-enough to care:

Xbox One has non-replaceable hard drive, external storage is supported

Whether this means we can't replace a One's HDD AT ALL, or if it means it's 360-like, and means massive overpayment for additional storage, we will see. We also don't know WHEN external HDD support will arrive, nor do we know if it allows for playing games over USB, or if they must be transferred, then played.

 

[jkidd01]

PS4: The Ultimate FAQ – North America – PlayStation.Blog

As for the Xbox One, I know this is old, but didn't find an official Microsoft source quickly-enough to care:

Xbox One has non-replaceable hard drive, external storage is supported

Whether this means we can't replace a One's HDD AT ALL, or if it means it's 360-like, and means massive overpayment for additional storage, we will see. We also don't know WHEN external HDD support will arrive, nor do we know if it allows for playing games over USB, or if they must be transferred, then played.

Thanks for the sources, I hadn't heard that the Xbox HDD would be non-user serviceable. I figured it'd be similar to the Xbox 360 Slim.

Your source link actually confirms, though not explicitly, that games can be played off the usb hard drives (I assume it would need to meet minimum speed requirements).

Penello confirmed that the USB 3.0 port is there for external storage, which can be used for everything the internal storage can be used for.

So that's good at least. Now we just need to know when support is coming.

 

[Rem97]

Does anyone know if the Xbox One supports miracast?

 

[Keith Wallace]

Yes, it does.

 

[Rem97]

Yes, it does.

Great! Thanks for the reply.