Why Does PS4 Copying Update Files Take So Long?

What is copying on PlayStation 4 and why is it so slow?

[Jin_Sakai]

This is one thing I hate about PS4. That and the loud PS4 Pro cooling fan.

[BrettAwesome]

I cleaned mine. It made a huge difference

[MrVux000]

I cleaned mine, changed the thermal paste and added new thermal tape to the RAM and it still sounds like a jet engine.

It really comes down to what games you are running.

[BrettAwesome]

Well, min was insufferable until I cleaned it. Now it's noticably more quiet no matter what I play

[P_Bomb]

I’ve had my Pro for approx 3 months now. Still quiet as a mouse, knock on wood. Only spins up really when I first stick a disc in.

My OG was overheating and loud. Had to be opened up to get the dust off the grill and a fresh round of thermal paste. It would shut itself off from the heat. Since the fix, so far so good. Although I’ve quietly retired it to the kids’ room anyways.

[Kornholic]

Cleaning the fans makes a minimal difference that is barely noticeable.

[sampsonon]

same here. also added thermal paste and it runs smooth without the jet sound.
only time i gets loud is if it's a graphically intensive game. but only a few, and not all the time.

[Mithan]

I keep hearing that, mine is not loud at all. Launch day ps4 pro.

[andibandit]

I have 2 ps4s, one of them is like a turbine, despite cleaning and rinsing off old thermal paste and applying new.

[MajorLazer]

Modern Warfare and GT Sport are hefty 100GB+ files so copying takes an eternity for me when updating.

[ssmilloy36]

at the end of the cycle...... why ask this question now? move on much?

[xxShadow-Shockxx]

Mine was crazy loud to where people were hearing it over my mic, it was in my entertainment center, i moved it to the top of my entertainment center where it is now in the open and now its very quiet, so id recommend giving it as much ventilation as possible

[ramiuk1]

sometimes my ps4 pro fan is so loud i cant hear tv or talk on mic......it seems to do it more in menus which i find odd even when its been cleaned it still does it.
playing rocket league i used to think it was gonna take off ,infact never did it until rocket league and it does it alot since

[DafunkyRebel]

Especially when I’m playing days gone, that shit sounded like it was helicopter taking refugees out of Saigon

[Majin-vegeta]

Putting the ps4 in rest mode speeds up the process

[Jin_Sakai]

You shouldn’t have to use rest mode to download games faster or speed up copying. Hopefully all these issues will be eliminated with PS5.

[Mithan]

You actually got down voted for that, which proves again that the internet is stupid.

What people disagree with you? They think you SHOULD have to put the console on rest mode to do this? Omg.

[ziggurcat]

One thing I wish it wouldn't do is wipe out your folders when you go through the database rebuilding process.

[SierraGuy]

This just happened to me yesterday after update 1.11 Modern Warfare...shows map packs "installed" but they were wiped.

Had to redownload 30-40GB.

PS...restoring licenses does nothing.

Just read on Reddit if you rebuild w external drive plugged in it may backup your app.db file to external storage causing the issue. 😥

[ziggurcat]

"Just read on Reddit if you rebuild w external drive plugged in it may backup your app.db file to external storage causing the issue."

That would explain it, then. I think next time, I will unplug the external HDD before running that rebuild process.

[TheGamez100]

Steam does the same doesnt it? When you first download a game, it will reserve space in your drive and then wont download for awhile because its probably doing the same thing copying files. Then later on itll download normally. Always happens to me for huge downloads. It is quite long and annoying on ps4 though.

[bluebenjamin]

Its a lot better than ps3 updates plus the fact that it can update while you are in game is phenomenal so glad some of the Xbox 360 features carried over to Ps4 to improve the system as a whole

[UltraNova]

Err? You mean a PC feature that was implemented first on the 360 and then to PS consoles right?

[bluebenjamin]

No that’s not what I mean I was talking about consoles but I understand your pain

[UltraNova]

Oh oh the pain...

[P_Bomb]

Disc installs seem to take longer than they used to as well. I distinctly remember counting them in seconds. Now, not so much.

[UltraNova]

Do you recall games back when they were 10-20gb each? Cause now they start at 50gb...

[bluebenjamin]

Yeah I remember and not only that isnt it strange that we had 4K PC games during the 7th gen that didnt take up as much space as these 8th gen games its like the 8th gen consoles require larger files and it affected the way the games are made for PC or something

[P_Bomb]

I’m not just talking about 13.7GB games like The Last Guardian. Old monsters seemed to have copied faster too. My 49GB of Death Stranding 2019 is the same as my Nier Automata and HZD from 2017, less than my 55GB of Nioh. Had 62GB of Uncharted 4 back in 2016. Until Dawn 2015 was 46GB.

Maybe because my OG PS4 HDD was always full? Dunno. I’ve since switched to a terabyte Pro, an external HDD, and have bought more digital than physical lately. Just an observation.

[dumahim]

The game probably wasn't installed in seconds, but probably was able to install enough of the game to let you start playing while it was installing the rest. That feature seems to be less common today as it was in the past.

[rainslacker]

Not all games support the quick launch feature, and those can take a while to install. Quick launch only installs enough to get you started and the rest installs while you play

Death stranding didnt support quick launch...although I have no idea why since the starting area would be a good split point

[BrettAwesome]

Defragmenting sectors takes time

[l33t_haxx0r]

pretty stupid I had 11gig cod update, installed in a few mins. next one was a 2.5gig update and took over an hour to install. i have 8tb external drive with plenty of space. whats the point in fast internet if this shit takes 10 times longer

[BlackDoomAx]

It's to annoy people so that when ps5 will go out everybody will praise it for its speed.

[boing1]

I have zero problems with speed, I can do other things in this time. What I hate though, is that it needs at least twice the storage to download and update. I have 50gb free and I can't download and install anything beyond 25gb. Frustrating.

[Master of Unlocking]

I don't know who designed the software running the PS4, but the least I can say is that it's not top-notch work. At this point I think I've probably experienced even more CE-36329-3 errors in 3 years using my PS4 PRO than the total number of BSODs I've had using Windows in 20 years. I even once turned the thing on only to discover that my main account had disappeared completely, along with the save files. This is in addition to all those underwhelming firmware updates, the lack of fundamental crowd-pleasers like support for audio CDs, some problems on the hardware-side of things (damn drifting joysticks!)... Yeah, if you weren't to take the games library into account, the product called PS4 (Pro at least in my case) in itself can hardly be viewed as the work of professionals, IMHO.

[ProjectVulcan]

Takes forever. I turn on PS4 to have a quick game of Gran Turismo and instead I'm sat watching an update download and copy for over an hour.

So much for console ease and speed of use these days, I just end up playing on my PC, it's faster to use!

[dumahim]

Put it in standby mode and let it update automatically overnight.

[PressPlayBros]

That and the UI just keeps gettin slower and slower. Why the hell did I buy a Pro, it feels slower than my standard PS4 ever was lol. (I could be imagining that but it really feels like it)

[Mister_G]

Nothing wrong with copying like this as long as it happens overnight, which it does mostly. Still have to wait every now and then.

[SPEAKxTHExTRUTH]

It’s very annoying that’s for sure

[moomoo319]

Also the bottlenecked download speeds. My PS4 defaults to a few mbps at most 20 - 30. My xbox downloads at almost 200mbps, and doesnt have to copy after its done. Can sony just do better like damn.

[Shikoku]

Cause the Jaguar cpus are trash

[Stanjara]

I make my downloads overnight in rest mode. No problem with waiting while I sleep.

[Profchaos]

It has really only become an issue in the past year for me I play rdr2 and modern warfare which are both over the 100gb mark so each time they have an update I need to have 150 GB free to install the update.

I think Sony didn't envision games growing this large given that 25 to 35 GB was a common size when the ps4 launched

[sampsonon]

i have ultra high speeds. never had a problem.

[sampsonon]

6 yrs later and people are complaining about nothing.

[LucidIllusion]

Very fxcking annoying indeed.

[shauzy]

"Install a faster HARD DRIVE, we recommend an SSD"

[william_cade]

It's Kojima's fault.