Upon opening up my 2TB upgrade kit, I was a little bit taken aback – the included USB 3.0 drive enclosure was rather cheaply constructed and the flash drive was about as simple as they come. The real value in this kit, however, isn’t found in the packed-in extras.
Try researching hard drives that are compatible with the PlayStation 4 and you’ll quickly find a lot of contradictory (or even incorrect) information. The Samsung/Seagate drive included with this kit just works. Period. Add to that an instruction leaflet which is actually correct and up-to-date (the same can’t be said for Sony’s own website) and my review of this kit becomes a whole lot more favorable.
While the amount paid for this kit (over buying a standalone hard drive) seems like quite a premium for a cheap drive enclosure, a cheaper thumb drive and a miniature Phillips head driver, the real value in this kit is the research and knowledge that when into putting it all together. Sony’s made upgrading the system hard drive far more difficult this console generation. OWC makes the headache a lot more bearable.
One final note – if the hard drive you’re replacing is already chock-full of games and other media, you’ll want to have a spare 500GB – 1TB USB 3.0 drive on hand to transfer your data to. Otherwise, you’ll have to reinstall all your games a la carte, a process which could take you hours (or possibly days, depending on the speed of your internet connection).