I thought the load times were more cpu bound than io

I dunno about the PS4 configuration as much, but in XBone land this is definitely not the case. Aside from 5400RPM drives being crap, it uses SATA II internally instead of SATA III. The result is that the USB 3.0 bus you can use to attach an external drive is actually faster than the internal bus, so if you put a 7200RPM drive in an enclosure and use that for an external storage drive, you wind up with MUCH better load times off of that than the internal drive.

I am not aware of any single spinning drive that can saturate SATA II. That's 375MB/sec. SSDs certainly can. I'm not seeing how you'd see any speedup on a hard drive by going external. 15k RPM disks don't even crack 250MB/sec.

I thought the load times were more cpu bound than io

I dunno about the PS4 configuration as much, but in XBone land this is definitely not the case. Aside from 5400RPM drives being crap, it uses SATA II internally instead of SATA III. The result is that the USB 3.0 bus you can use to attach an external drive is actually faster than the internal bus, so if you put a 7200RPM drive in an enclosure and use that for an external storage drive, you wind up with MUCH better load times off of that than the internal drive.

I did not know this, but 7200RPM drives are not officially supported (because of increased power draw I am guessing). Mine has been working fine so far and the consensus is that you'll be okay. Load times are noticeably better!

Really? I'm impressed by this. I thought the load times were more cpu bound than io (for some reason, I don't know why, it's counter intuitive, I know). I'd love to be able to improve my loadtimes with a HDD upgrade. Do you have any #'s on load time improvements?

I wonder what would happen if you tried to put an SSD in there?

SSD doesn't really improve things as much as Hybrid drives do, and they are the best option, since they have far more space for much less price.

I don't know... SSD prices are getting pretty good

Indeed. But I'm still sold on more space, since the difference isn't mind-blowing:

I did not know this, but 7200RPM drives are not officially supported (because of increased power draw I am guessing). Mine has been working fine so far and the consensus is that you'll be okay. Load times are noticeably better!

Really? I'm impressed by this. I thought the load times were more cpu bound than io (for some reason, I don't know why, it's counter intuitive, I know). I'd love to be able to improve my loadtimes with a HDD upgrade. Do you have any #'s on load time improvements?

I wonder what would happen if you tried to put an SSD in there?

SSD doesn't really improve things as much as Hybrid drives do, and they are the best option, since they have far more space for much less price.

I don't know... SSD prices are getting pretty good

Anyway, the one small hangup I had was that if you are replacing your HD you need to install the PS software fresh. The instructions on Sony's website linked to an update that was around 300 megs. This won't work.

If you read the page rather than clicking on the update download button., it clearly tells you that if you're performing a fresh install (a new drive), you need to download the entire 800mb Software, and it links you to it (it's on the same page, just below the 300mb info, but the link is right below the Download button).

It's even underlined and highlighted, man...

Wrong. I ready exactly that, and it took me to the 300MB download. It is not clear. The link anchor DOES NOT WORK IN SAFARI, so clicking it took me to the page top, with the download button that had the 300MB version. It's supposed to direct you lower on the page but did not, and I was confused because I thought I was downloading the full install.

Do you want to perform a fresh install? Yes I do. I clicked that. It did not activate the anchor, and took me to a new page which had a download button at the top, for the 300MB version. Given that the file names are identical, it was confusing.

Anyway, the one small hangup I had was that if you are replacing your HD you need to install the PS software fresh. The instructions on Sony's website linked to an update that was around 300 megs. This won't work.

If you read the page rather than clicking on the update download button., it clearly tells you that if you're performing a fresh install (a new drive), you need to download the entire 800mb Software, and it links you to it (it's on the same page, just below the 300mb info, but the link is right below the Download button).

It's even underlined and highlighted, man...

I did not know this, but 7200RPM drives are not officially supported (because of increased power draw I am guessing). Mine has been working fine so far and the consensus is that you'll be okay. Load times are noticeably better!

Really? I'm impressed by this. I thought the load times were more cpu bound than io (for some reason, I don't know why, it's counter intuitive, I know). I'd love to be able to improve my loadtimes with a HDD upgrade. Do you have any #'s on load time improvements?

No. It's all subjective. Not like I used a stopwatch, but Nathan Drake collection starts up faster. It's not gonna blow your mind but it's nice.