Hacking Using 2 HDDs with App2USB

[snoofly]

Has anyone tried this successfully?

I gave it a go as a test but found when connecting the second usb whilst the first was connected, ftp was showing inconsistency in which physical mount point was which drive. Obviously this is key for the app.db symlink references to find the correct file. I made sure to take a DB_SG backup before attempting any of this in case.

I setup my first drive as the leftmost of the 2 front-facing usb ports on my Pro. Any drive when connected alone appears to be mounted as usb0 whatever port it's plugged to. No problems.

So I plugged my second into the right socket. It mounted as usb0, and my original drive as usb1. OK I thought, so PS4 Pro mounts and assigns numbers for the drives from right to left.

Power down, swap the ports, run ftp again, same drive mounted to same number! Eh? Maybe it's a timing issue as to which drive secures port0 dependent on how fast the disk spins up to get recognised from boot? So solution maybe to plug second drive in after ps4 is booted up and from there on we're good? What about coming out of sleep mode, could that affect?

Anyway, that's as far as my test got. Just wondered if anyone else had tried it out.

 

[jakkal]

You can't
Unless he writes a version that checks usb1 instead of 0

 

[snoofly]

You can't
Unless he writes a version that checks usb1 instead of 0

Indeed. Just found that out.
Did some more testing with Terraria after fixing new drive to port1.
App2USB copies USB0 as you say however oddly, /user/app/CUSA00740/app.json file referenced mnt/usb1 (I was going to manually edit it but it was already set).
Terraria still didn't load after yanking the usb0 drive so suspect it is in the app.db setup.
Basically, yes I think App2USB will need an update for this to work.

Wait - the source code is available for this right, so I'm sure a simple edit and recompile to make a usb1 friendly payload wouldn't be too far a stretch..

Edit2: Seems simple enough. A quick browse of the source
https://github.com/stooged/AppToUsb-50X/blob/master/AppToUsb/source/main.c
shows hardcoded reference in a few places to usb0.
Hopefully just need to alter to usb1, probably use MODE_MOVE specific list to ignore everything that was setup on the first drive
and should be good.

 

[aytug25]

When I'm using app2usb I'm using usb0 port, but after restart my ps4 can I run games from external hdd from usb1 port, so I wonder maybe we can run app2usb on only usb0 but after games moved to hdd can we use 2 hdd same time ?

 

[snoofly]

When I'm using app2usb I'm using usb0 port, but after restart my ps4 can I run games from external hdd from usb1 port, so I wonder maybe we can run app2usb on only usb0 but after games moved to hdd can we use 2 hdd same time ?

From my testing, if you only have one drive connected, it will always get recognised as usb0 port so maybe that is why you are seeing this behaviour.
What I'm trying to determine is what is needed to have 2 drives connected at the same time.
For that I think we need to recompile a USB1 specific App2USB payload in order to set up the second drive.

 

[jakkal]

From my testing, if you only have one drive connected, it will always get recognised as usb0 port so maybe that is why you are seeing this behaviour.
What I'm trying to determine is what is needed to have 2 drives connected at the same time.
For that I think we need to recompile a USB1 specific App2USB payload in order to set up the second drive.

I already stated that.
Also The ps4 won't be able to load games from both drives at the same time

It's either one or the other not both

 

[godreborn]

I'd strongly urge against 2 external hdds. if one of them fails, you're going to be pissed. this happened to me with the ps3 and 360; since then, I haven't downloaded anything. make a backup of the drive that you're using to prevent this headache.

 

[Mo Poge]

I'd strongly urge against 2 external hdds. if one of them fails, you're going to be pissed. this happened to me with the ps3 and 360; since then, I haven't downloaded anything. make a backup of the drive that you're using to prevent this headache.

I don't understand the logic here. If I only had 1 drive (instead of 2) and it failed, I'd still be pissed.

If I have 2 drives and 1 of them fails, then I'd still have 1 drive filled with games that I can play = less pissed, perhaps?

Anyways, I like your recommendation of having backups of your important drives, no matter how many you have.

 

[godreborn]

I don't understand the logic here. If I only had 1 drive (instead of 2) and it failed, I'd still be pissed.

If I have 2 drives and 1 of them fails, then I'd still have 1 drive filled with games that I can play = less pissed, perhaps?

Anyways, I like your recommendation of having backups of your important drives, no matter how many you have.

I suppose, but I had all of my retail games on one hdd, and all of my digital ones on another. I lost about 500 games apiece with the ps3 and the 360. my suggestion is to have one hdd, then make the second one a backup hdd. that's what I'm thinking. now, I feel like it's better just to download and play a handful of games at a time rather than being a collector just in case something were to happen. thus far, I've made a backup of all of my ps4 games and kept the fake signed pkgs just in case I had to format the hdd to get rid of a banned account.

 

[snoofly]

I already stated that.
Also The ps4 won't be able to load games from both drives at the same time

It's either one or the other not both

Do you have source on that?
I know that you have to go to Devices and unmount a drive to use the other if they are formatted as extended storage, but for
exfat formatted drives, ftp sees both at the same time so I’d assume a symlink to either drive would resolve fine.
I’ve searched on this exact point but found nothing on it.

 

[jakkal]

Do you have source on that?
I know that you have to go to Devices and unmount a drive to use the other if they are formatted as extended storage, but for
exfat formatted drives, ftp sees both at the same time so I’d assume a symlink to either drive would resolve fine.
I’ve searched on this exact point but found nothing on it.

i tried it myself
it loaded the games on one external and didnt load the games on the other

but one thing you can do ...i think...is to manually edit the mount point in the symlink to point to USB1

 

[snoofly]

i tried it myself
it loaded the games on one external and didnt load the games on the other

but one thing you can do ...i think...is to manually edit the mount point in the symlink to point to USB1

i tried it myself
it loaded the games on one external and didnt load the games on the other

but one thing you can do ...i think...is to manually edit the mount point in the symlink to point to USB1

Check my other thread on this:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/payload-building.506460/
Got it working after editing and recompiling the payload.