Review: Nyko Data Bank for PS4

Let’s face it, a 500 GB hard drive on the current generation of consoles just isn’t enough space. Alot of us early adopters learned that the hard way when some of our most anticipated games would have an install size of up to 50 GB! While the Wii U and Xbox One give users the option to plug in a hard drive via USB, PS4 owners don’t have it so lucky. In their case, it requires buying a 2.5 inch SATA hard drive up to 2 TB and a USB thumb drive to back up files and restore the software. Nyko wants to expand your PS4’s storage capacity even further with their Data Bank.

The box comes with the Data Bank itself, the adapter, and a screwdriver to remove the single screw holding the original hard drive in place. PS4 and 2 TB Western Digital HDD not included.

The Nyko Data Bank allows you to connect a 3.5 MM hard drive of up to 6 TB to your PS4, that is after you transfer all of your wanted save data to a thumb drive of course! The device replaces the left panel of the system where the original hard drive lies underneath; you then take out said hard drive and replace it with the adapter that comes in the box. Then you slide on the device, connect the cable at the bottom to the adapter, and place in the hard drive. It’s a little difficult to get the drive in there because you have to line up the connections and lightly force it until you hear a click. After you cover it up, be sure to plug the power adapter into the PS4’s power supply and then plug it in.

In order to finish the installation, a thumb drive is required to get the PS4 software from the URL in the instruction booklet and then upload it to the system. The problem I faced was that the URL given to me was broken so I searched for it on the PlayStation website. What they offered me was the update file and not the full software, so I had to do a little more searching on their website to find it. It was a minor setback but an inconvenience nonetheless.

Lookswise, I have no problem with it. As long as you get over the fact that it looks like a giant tumor on the left side of your PlayStation, it has a rather sleek design. It also runs as quietly as my PS4 did before I set up the Data Bank.

Now I came across some issues that could be contributing factors on whether or not you decide to purchase the Nyko Data Bank. For one, it’s slow. I reinstalled a couple of games to test out how long it would take, I didn’t notice any major slowdowns in that area mainly because I’m a patient guy. However, my patience does have its limits, and when it takes over a minute for a digital game to finally start up, we have a problem there. Despite my 2 TB Western Digital being 7200RPM, the boot-up time for a digital game varies from 30-60 seconds at best. Thankfully disc-based games don’t run into that problem, but chances are people would want to buy the Data Bank in hopes of purchasing more games digitally.

Nyko has stated that even though the Data Bank supports hard drives up to 6 TB, the PS4’s Rest Mode does not function properly and that they recommend using up to 2 TB drives. If that’s all the hard drive space you want on your system then I would just recommend you buy a 2.5 inch SATA Drive. No need to spend $39.99 on this accessory.

Final Reaction

Even though the Nyko Data Bank is a convenient way to extend the PS4’s storage space 2 TB and above, the slow boot-up times on digital games and the company’s warning on installing larger hard drives is making me want to reconsider using this on my console long-term. However, if you’re a patient gamer who likes their digital games, this might be a worthy investment if a 2 TB just isn’t enough.

Rating: 3/5 Atoms