Update March 2015

This project won 2nd place in this Reddit contest about functional 3D printed projects. Thank you very much to ToyBuilder Labs for being the sponsor.

Questions and Answers

• Why not use a bigger 3.5″ drive? They can hold much more and cost much less.
  • I can edit the design anytime I want and 3D print it anytime I want, so I will definitely consider it.
  • But I had a few spare 2.5″ drives laying around.
  • The fake cartridge is a funny idea so I did it for the LULz! (and protects the drives)
  • Please note: 3.5″ drives will require an external 12 volt power supply, while 2.5″ drives only require the 5 volts from the motherboard.
• What parts are needed?
  • #4-40 thread 0.25″ long countersunk machine screws, for holding the hard drives inside the cartridges
  • #4-40 thread 0.5″ long countersunk machine screws, for holding the dock to the cover
  • 0.5″ long nails to hold the SATA connector in place
  • something like this SATA extender, but note that this isn’t the exact same one I used, so you should measure it yourself and edit my files before printing my files
• How did you connect the cable to the motherboard?
  • This was actually pretty hard, I ended up gluing a popsicle stick to the connector first, and then used the stick to poke the connector inside and into the motherboard’s connector.
  • This can be improved by some sort of 3D printed dummy drive, but I got tired and wanted to wrap the project up.
• In the picture of the Ultimaker, why do the plastic look a bit rough?
  • Those are failed prints, I only used them for the picture, specifically because the roughness emphasizes the fact that they are 3D printed.
  • The final good prints are so good that you cannot tell that they are actually 3D printed. The Ultimaker is very high quality.
• Why didn’t you launch the game?
  • I didn’t connect the system to my network, so the PS4 didn’t let me launch them, since they are all digitally downloaded and thus require authorization first
  • Don’t worry, they all work once connected to the internet.
• I’ve seen something similar before…
  • Adding a hard drive to the PS4 using SATA extensions isn’t a new idea at all, somebody already added 6 TB to it, using a 3.5″ drive, but he used a external enclosure and a external 12 volt power supply.
  • I went to CES2015 and saw Nyko’s Data Bank. I want to make it clear that I started my design a long time before Christmas, and was not inspired or influenced by Nyko
• Ask me a question, if it is a popular question, I will answer it here.

You want files? Click Here. I hosted the files on YouMagine, and I provided the STEP file format, which you should be able to open with most 3D modeling software. So if you want to change the design for 3.5″ drives, or chose another cartridge shape, you can!

NOTE: the dimensions of the fake NES cartridge I used are not the same dimensions as genuine NES cartridges, so genuine cartridges will not fit in this project, and the fake cartridges will not fit inside a genuine NES deck.