PS4 compatibility - MY PASSPORT ESSENTIAL 500GB BLUE PAN-AM

WD External Drives External Drives for PC
1

I have this external storage device
Serial Number: {removed}
Model Number: WDBACY5000ABL-NESN
Description: MY PASSPORT ESSENTIAL 500GB BLUE PAN-AM

My PS4 does not recognize it as extended storage, does anybody know is this model is compatible?

According to PS4:

  • SuperSpeed USB or faster
    • SuperSpeed USB 5 Gbps (USB 3.0/USB 3.1 Gen1/USB 3.2 Gen1)
    • SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps (USB 3.1 Gen2/USB 3.2 Gen2/USB 3.2 Gen1x2)
    • SuperSpeed USB 20 Gbps (USB 3.2 Gen2x2)
  • 250 GB minimum, 8 TB maximum capacity

So this device should work, I have formatted it to exFAT as required but still nothing

2

Manually Format it as Extended Storage if does not Automatically ask

From Official PlayStation 4 Support

  1. Go to Settings > Devices > USB Storage Devices .

  2. Select the USB storage device to format and choose Format as Extended Storage.

That’s only important if you’re using the drive as a Media Drive for Video/Music etc playback on the PS4.

This is what i do…

I bought a 4TB Elements last week (upgrade from my 2TB) … got it home, plugged it into my PC, deleted the complete Partition Table which also wipes the File System Format … basically the drive is now RAW. aka Un-formatted and Un-partitioned.

Unplugged from my PC, inserted into my PS4 and Automatically it asked if i wanted to format it as extended storage.

3

Yeah, I did it before submitting this topic, and nothing…
However, I formatted it using the WD utility tool and now it works.
Thanks,