Hardware Question about swapping PS5 external hard drives

[grcd]

First of all, I know that you can only have one external hard drive active at any one time. This is clear and consistent with PS4.

However, on PS4 there is an option under Settings -> Devices -> USB Storage Devices that allows you to 'choose' from an external hard drive connected to the PS4. That way all you have to do is disconnect a hard drive from the relevant option and choose any of the other drives connected to the system.

To my surprise, I cannot find an equivalent option on the PS5. If I connect three external drives to the relevant ports (USB-C front, USB 3.1 at the back), the system will (seemingly randomly) pick one of the three and recognize it as an external drive. To get the PS5 to 'see' another drive, I not only have to disconnected it from the relevant software/system option, but also physically reach and remove all the devices but the one I want the PS5 to be connected to. It is needlessly arbitrary and surprisingly a huge backwards step over the previous implementation.

Is there something I am missing? Has this option be relocated to another menu option or described in another way? I searched through all relevant menu options but could not find it. As someone who has a vast library of PS4 games, some from PS Plus and some purchased, it is imperative that I am able to have all drives connected. I understand that only one drive will be 'accessible' at any one time, and that's consistent with PS4. But being forced to physically unplug a drive, and plug another - this is not consistent. This is in fact hugely inconvenient and I am so surprised Sony would go to such lengths to make the user experience even worse when it comes to external drives, knowing full well that the 685GB of internal memory is simply insufficient. Why not simply keep things at least on par with PS4?

Please tell me there is a way to do this that I am overlooking!

 

[lolcatzuru]

First of all, I know that you can only have one external hard drive active at any one time. This is clear and consistent with PS4.

However, on PS4 there is an option under Settings -> Devices -> USB Storage Devices that allows you to 'choose' from an external hard drive connected to the PS4. That way all you have to do is disconnect a hard drive from the relevant option and choose any of the other drives connected to the system.

To my surprise, I cannot find an equivalent option on the PS5. If I connect three external drives to the relevant ports (USB-C front, USB 3.1 at the back), the system will (seemingly randomly) pick one of the three and recognize it as an external drive. To get the PS5 to 'see' another drive, I not only have to disconnected it from the relevant software/system option, but also physically reach and remove all the devices but the one I want the PS5 to be connected to. It is needlessly arbitrary and surprisingly a huge backwards step over the previous implementation.

Is there something I am missing? Has this option be relocated to another menu option or described in another way? I searched through all relevant menu options but could not find it. As someone who has a vast library of PS4 games, some from PS Plus and some purchased, it is imperative that I am able to have all drives connected. I understand that only one drive will be 'accessible' at any one time, and that's consistent with PS4. But being forced to physically unplug a drive, and plug another - this is not consistent. This is in fact hugely inconvenient and I am so surprised Sony would go to such lengths to make the user experience even worse when it comes to external drives, knowing full well that the 685GB of internal memory is simply insufficient. Why not simply keep things at least on par with PS4?

Please tell me there is a way to do this that I am overlooking!

im not sure what you are missing, but i can tell you, that its under storage options, the only thing i can think of is maybe your drive either doesnt work or too out of date?

 

[BlackZero500]

knowing full well that the 685GB of internal memory is simply insufficient. Why not simply keep things at least on par with PS4?

Because there was an HDD in the Ps4 that costs about 50 bucks now for one TB and the same size as an High Speed m.2 SSD costs about 4 times the price. Thats why.

To your Problem:
I cannot reproduce the problem because i have only one External Drive but i think you could do it like this. Use something like that: USB HUB and attach all your drives to it. switch on the one you want. when you wanna change detach it through the ps5 menu and then switch of that usb port and then switch on the other usb port. that should work. BUT i did not find ANY switchable usb hub with USB 3.1 Gen2 so you would be limited to 5 gbps on your Drives. Alternately you could use External SSD Cases with switches and do basically the same.

 

[Deleted member 114266]

Because there was an HDD in the Ps4 that costs about 50 bucks now for one TB and the same size as an High Speed m.2 SSD costs about 4 times the price. Thats why.

What does that have to do with swapping between external drives? Also, the PS5 has an expansion slot so you can put a new m.2 NVME drive in to expand it. While with the PS4 you just replaced the entire drive.