Three years ago (almost to the day), I upgraded my PS4 from the launch version to the special edition Destiny: The Taken King version. In addition, I took that opportunity to install a 2TB hard drive in the new system so not only would my console look lovely, but would hold a lovely amount of games, too.

All that is easy enough, but I’d wanted to find a way to keep P.T. in the process.

Through the kindness of strangers on the internet, I found a way to do it and was thrilled. I was also quite proud of myself for pulling it off, as messing with technology freaks me out. I don’t do well with change, even if that change is an upgrade in tech.

Over the past several months, the aforementioned Taken King PS4 had been progressively performing worse and worse; the fan grew ever louder and more frequent, the system ran impossibly slow at times, and certain games ran far more poorly than they seemed to on my partner’s system. We’d been discussing replacing it with a PS4 Pro, but there’s apparently a Pro shortage out there, and the closest one I’d found through GameStop was around 90 miles away. I figured there was time, but my current system was getting worse and worse and I didn’t want to wait until it was too late.

Last Friday, I happened to be at the store getting groceries and I saw the limited edition Spider-Man pro and, even though I’m not a huge Spider-Man fan (I don’t hate him by any means, I just have no feelings one way or another about him), I went for it anyway.

Fast forward to Monday night.

I’d been putting off switching systems out all weekend, so, on Monday night, I decided to just go for it. I found out you could transfer one PS4’s data to another one, and that’s exactly what I did.

P.T. 3.0! I still have it, two systems later! It was the first game I booted up once the new system was up and running. I knew so long as I had it, I’d be a very happy camper.

When I got this 1TB Pro, I knew I’d want to use an additional drive, but I didn’t want to take this system apart like the last one to install a new drive. My solution was a 4TB external drive, and I was mighty nervous about how that would actually work. Would the external drive run too hot when I was playing games accessed on it? Would an external drive perform as well as the internal one? How would all this work when I downloaded a new game?

I forced myself to just install it last night. By default now, when I download any game, it goes directly to the external drive. Interestingly, all game saves go directly to the internal drive. I decided to redownload around 100 games last night while I went to sleep, and everything went just fine. I’m still paranoid about using an external drive, but I honestly don’t know why. Now, instead of simply having 2TB to access, I have 5TB, total! Holy hard drive space!

All in all I’m pleased and grateful. I got to keep P.T.; my number one priority. I got all my information transferred successfully. I have a significant amount of my games redownloaded. I have a ton of hard drive space. And, most importantly, I have a system that seems to not only function faster and quieter, but more efficiently, too.

WHEEEEEEEEE!!!

Perhaps in three more years, I will upgrade to yet another system. Who can say?

With that I ask: what is the most technologically advanced thing you have done for your love of video games? Was it simple or did it require research?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have several disc based games I need to reinstall. I kind of like this part! It’s reminding me about all the amazing games I’ve been wanting to play.