How to make a backup copy of the PS4 on a USB flash drive

Users who have an online account PS Plus for payment, they can already make a backup of their data and games saved in the SONY cloud, but the bad part is that at the time they stop paying the Plus, they will no longer have access to such data and will remain « lost in time and space ». Jokes aside, both users of PS Plus and those who do not, we can make a backup on a simple USB flash drive, and we will show you how.

What do you need to back up the PS4

We need the PS4 to have at least the operating system version 2.50 It is from this version that SONY enabled the possibility of making a backup to a USB drive. Taking into account that it is a tremendously old version, it is most likely that you have this option already enabled on your PS4, but if not, you will have to update the operating system of the console.

The second thing you will need will be a USB flash drive formatted in FAT32 or exFAT format, and at least 4 GB capacity. The more games we have, the larger the size of the PS4 backup will be, so the larger this unit is, the better.

Before starting with the previous steps, one thing must be taken into account, and we can also make a backup copy of the entire console disk, in which case we will need a large capacity USB hard drive rather since the games installed on the PS4 internal disk will also be copied.

How to make a backup of the PS4

The first step is to make sure you have synchronized all trophies so that later there are no problems. To do this, simply go to the Trophies section, press the OPTIONS button and then “Synchronize with PlayStation Network”.

Now we must enter the USB flash drive in any USB port of the console, and we will access the menu Settings -> System -> Backup and restore. Once we select this option, a wizard will appear asking us to indicate what data we want to copy, and if we decide not to copy the games and applications (as we have explained before, in this case we would need a large capacity hard disk), we must bear in mind that we will have to reinstall them when restoring the backup.

As you can see, in the first capture that you can see below, there are many Gigabytes that we would need, and PS4 itself tells us that there is not enough space. After removing the games, now there is space, and note that the copy still occupies more than 5 GB (the pendrive used in the capture is 16 GB).

On the next screen we can name the backup. Press “create backup” and the console will restart. Once booted again, a progress bar will appear showing us the current status, giving us the option to cancel at any time.

Restore a backup from USB

The reverse process is equally simple. Simply go to Settings -> System -> Backup and restore, and instead of choosing the option to make a backup, we must select «Restore PS4». We will select the file to be restored, the console will restart and the restoration process will begin. It’s that simple.