Format External Hard Drive for PS4 or PS3 within Three Steps

Overview of PS4 and PS3

PlayStation 3 (PS3), a home video game console for game users, is first released by SONY Computer Entertainment in Japan in 2006. PlayStation 4 (PS4), the successor of PS3 owns better hardware settings. You are allowed to play large games, watch videos and listen to music, etc. on PS4. Usually, the PS4 hard drive is 500GB in capacity and you could find out that the capacity is not enough for daily use. At this time, you may want to add an external hard drive for your PS4/PS3 to gain more space.

Why format external hard drive for PS4/PS3?

It is necessary to realize the file system compatible with PS4/PS3 before using external hard drive for PS4/PS3 For PS4, it can support FAT32 and exFAT; for PS3, it can support FAT32 file system. But external hard drive is typically formatted with NTFS file system. Therefore, it is necessary to format the external hard drive for your PS4 or PS3.

As both of FAT32 and exFAT is compatible with PS4, you can have a basic understanding before making a decision to format external hard drive to exFAT or FAT32 for PS4.

To put it simply, FAT32 shows an advantage in compatibility while has limitation in file size and partition size. It doesn’t allow you to save single file larger than 4GB and supports up to 2TB in volume size. exFAT file system makes up the limitation of FAT32 in file size and volume size but it is easier to be corrupted compared with FAT32.

How to format external hard drive for PS4/PS3 on PC?

After realizing the suitable file systems for PS4/PS3 and the properties of them, a detailed guide to format your external hard drive for PS4/PS3 will be presented in the following context.

✔ Format external hard drive to FAT32 for PS4/PS3 on PC

If you need to format external hard drive with FAT32 file system for PS4/PS3, you can ask the help of a third-party partition manager, AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. It allows you to convert external hard drive to FAT32 without formatting and format a large external hard drive to FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, Ext2, Ext3, and Ext4 on PC. It can also be applied to format USB flash drive or SD card. Free download the software and see how it works.

Step 1. Connect the external hard drive to your computer; download, install, and run AOMEI Partition Assistant. In the main interface, right-click the partition on the external hard drive, choose “Format Partition”. 

Step 2. Among listed file systems, choose FAT32 and click “OK”.

Step 3. You’ll return to the main interface. Confirm the pending operation and click “Apply” to perform this operation.

PS.: If your external hard drive is unallocated, you can right-click the unallocated space and choose “Create Partition” to format external hard drive with FAT32 file system.

✔ Format external hard drive to exFAT for PS4 on PC

If you want to format your external hard drive with exFAT file system for PS4, connect your disk to Windows PC well and follow the way that you like listed below.

Format external hard drive to exFAT for PS4 using Disk Management

1. Access Disk Management by pressing Windows + R simultaneously, inputting diskmgmt.msc and hitting “Enter”.

2. Right-click the partition on the external hard drive need formatting and choose “Delete Volume” to delete the partition.

3. Right-click the unallocated disk space and choose “New simple volume” and do as New Simple Volume Wizard prompts.

4. In the Format Partition window, choose exFAT file system. Then, click “Next” and “Finish” to start the operation.

Format external hard drive to exFAT for PS4 using Diskpart utility

1. Run Diskpart as administrator by pressing “Windows + R” keys at the same time and typing “diskpart” and pressing “Enter”.

2. Type the commands as follows and every command shall be followed by hitting “Enter” key.

• list disk

• select disk n

• list partition

• select partition m

• format fs=exfat

PS.: “n” refers to the external hard drive number and "m" is the number of the partition on the hard drive that you want to format.

Wrap things up

From all above, you can know the detailed steps on how to format external hard drive for PS4/PS3 on PC. Obviously, AOMEI Partition Assistant can help you to format external hard drive to exFAT for PS4 or FAT32 for PS4/PS3 within a few steps. 

Besides, it is embedded with many other functions. For example, it can help you to copy disk and migrate OS to SSD. If you want to enjoy more advanced features like recovering lost partition, you can upgrade it to Professional version.