Switching out Harddrives... anyone here do it?

[EricDeLee]

Just curious if any of you have changed out the hard drive for your PS3. I understand that it is fairly easy to do, so I was curious if anyone here have completed this swap and if there are any issues with it?

 

I only have the original 60GB release... ran into my first "not enough space on the HDD" message when I went to load a game. I deleted about 11 GB of stuff, but thought it would be nice to just get a 200GB or something to throw in there.

[moycon]

Hopefully this will help you. I plan on upgrading soon as well.

 

http://www.uuddlrlrba.co.uk/node/133

 

Good luck.

[xg4bx]

theres some detailed walkthroughs on youtube too.

 

it is fairly easy, my only real problem was the main blue screw holding the hdd in. it strips so easy that it seems like its made of butter. i literally had to gouge it out with needle nose pliers.

[cimerians]

I posted how to do it a while back if your familiar with computers otherwise look on youtube.

 

I went from a 60G PS3 to an 160G PS3.

EVERYTHING copies over if you have an external harddrive to save your stuff to and then you can dump the backup to the new hard drive.

 

Fast Instructions:

1. Connect your backup external drive to the PS3. Needs to be at least the same size as your current PS3 hard drive.

2. Backup your stuff (PS3 systems menu under Backup Utility)

3. When done. Remove hard-drive from side of unit.

4. Insert any SATA (serial ATA) Laptop(Notebook) drive into the PS3. Newegg has some good deals.

5. Restore your stuff (same as step 2 above. just do a restore.)

 

Takes a few hours.

Edited August 31, 2009 by cimerians

[Reaperman]

I've got my new 250gig waiting for an external drive enclosure.

 

before I waste any more of my time, anybody know if I can drop the 250gig into the usb drive enclosure, use it for the backup, pull the drive from the enclosure and put it in the system, restore from the backup on it and continue on my merry way--or do I actually have to have an extra 80+ gb hard disk formated in 'idiot format' for this to work?

 

if that's the case I'll probably just take it to play n' trade and pay them to deal with it.

Edited August 31, 2009 by Reaperman

[liveinabin]

I've got my new 250gig waiting for an external drive enclosure.

 

before I waste any more of my time, anybody know if I can drop the 250gig into the usb drive enclosure, use it for the backup, pull the drive from the enclosure and put it in the system, restore from the backup on it and continue on my merry way--or do I actually have to have an extra 80+ gb hard disk formated in 'idiot format' for this to work?

 

if that's the case I'll probably just take it to play n' trade and pay them to deal with it.

 

 

No you can't. The PS3 both backs up and retrieves it's backup data via USB port. You'll need a separate external HD (Windows formatted). If you backed up on your 250Gb and then put it back into the PS3, it'd just get formatted.

[Reaperman]

I've got my new 250gig waiting for an external drive enclosure.

 

before I waste any more of my time, anybody know if I can drop the 250gig into the usb drive enclosure, use it for the backup, pull the drive from the enclosure and put it in the system, restore from the backup on it and continue on my merry way--or do I actually have to have an extra 80+ gb hard disk formated in 'idiot format' for this to work?

 

if that's the case I'll probably just take it to play n' trade and pay them to deal with it.

 

 

No you can't. The PS3 both backs up and retrieves it's backup data via USB port. You'll need a separate external HD (Windows formatted). If you backed up on your 250Gb and then put it back into the PS3, it'd just get formatted.

okay, next question then *lol*

what do you mean by windows formatted?

it sure doesn't take my external drives formatted with standard ntfs, so then I'm going to assume it wants me to wipe all my useful data and format it as a fat(32b?) drive.

 

hell the standard windows format tool doesn't even give me a fat option. maybe it's because fat becomes 'comically bad' as drive size increases.

Edited August 31, 2009 by Reaperman

[cimerians]

I've got my new 250gig waiting for an external drive enclosure.

 

before I waste any more of my time, anybody know if I can drop the 250gig into the usb drive enclosure, use it for the backup, pull the drive from the enclosure and put it in the system, restore from the backup on it and continue on my merry way--or do I actually have to have an extra 80+ gb hard disk formated in 'idiot format' for this to work?

 

if that's the case I'll probably just take it to play n' trade and pay them to deal with it.

 

 

No you can't. The PS3 both backs up and retrieves it's backup data via USB port. You'll need a separate external HD (Windows formatted). If you backed up on your 250Gb and then put it back into the PS3, it'd just get formatted.

okay, next question then *lol*

what do you mean by windows formatted?

it sure doesn't take my external drives formatted with standard ntfs, so then I'm going to assume it wants me to wipe all my useful data and format it as a fat(32b?) drive.

 

hell the standard windows format tool doesn't even give me a fat option. maybe it's because fat becomes 'comically bad' as drive size increases.

 

 

I have a Western digital external drive (My Book). All of them come formatted as FAT32 when you buy them.

 

If not do this:

 

In windows hook up your external NTFS formatted drive.

Open a command prompt.

Type the following and hit enter:

 

format /FS:FAT32 X:

 

Replace the letter X with the letter of your external hard drive in Windows. Windows will go ahead and begin formatting the drive in FAT32. It may take a LOOOOOOONG time.

[Reaperman]

format /FS:FAT32 X:

 

Replace the letter X with the letter of your external hard drive in Windows. Windows will go ahead and begin formatting the drive in FAT32. It may take a LOOOOOOONG time.

it's not as if I don't remember how to do it,

it's more that it's not a good thing to do, and disk management doesn't give me the option, because it knows that's just wrong.

 

Especially since the drive I'd use is mostly full (300gb free or so)

you're not kidding about the LOOOOOOOOONG time either--didn't it take overnight to do 2gig drives with fat32?

 

...and now I'm debating opening the enclosure and hoping it'll take one of my older slightly unreliable drives, or just taking it to play n trade.

play n trade's winning by a long shot.

you'd think a fancy piece of tech with a GigE card could make use of network shares or something useful.

 

edit: actually searching to see if the ntfs convert command went the other way too (it doesn't), I've turned up info that suggests that the xp command line format will only allow formatting partitions up to 32gb anyway. It'd take forever and then error out. a 3rd party tool like partition magic would let me format my drive with large partitions, or hell even convert my ntfs partition saving my data (windows reads/writes large fat partitions, it just doesn't make them). ...or I could just take my ps3 to play n' trade and throw $10 at them *lol*

link

 

edit 2: ooh, okay, how about this: I could format the 250gb fat32 (or not if it is that way now), throw it in my usb enclosure, backup data to it, copy the data to my ntfs drive, install the 250 in my ps3. put the 80 into the housing, format it fat32, copy the backup data from my HD to it and restore the ps3 (with 250gb) from the original 80gb.

god that's complex

Edited August 31, 2009 by Reaperman

[cimerians]

Well its up to you how you want to do it. The format command I listed above worked on my other Fujitsu USB 250G drive (I think its a 300G but I cant remember) so it will work but take a while. FAT is recognizable by most systems thats why drives are FAT formatted. NTFS is mainly a Windows based system so you have to convert your drives to FAT if you want Non-Windows systems to recognize it.

 

I would never really want anything FAT formatted but if I want things to recognize my external drive I have to do it.

 

By the way, the hard drive you put into the PS3 doesnt need any formatting or anything done to it at all. The Ps3 will handle formatting it etc.

 

Anyway let us know what you end up putting in there.

[EricDeLee]

Wow... lots of great replies. Thank you!

I will update this in a month or two I think. I'll look around for a good Hard Drive deal first.

(anything I should watch out for, or possibly NOT buy when it comes to hard drive brands)

[frank_c]

the WD Scorpio Blue drives are getting good reviews at Newegg. i'll probably go to a 500 gig soon.

[DaytonaUSA]

I have a 40 gb White model from Japan, and I recently upgraded to a 500 gb hdd. I know it sounds excessive, but storage space is so cheap, I got that hdd for under 80 bucks.

 

I'd really recommend going up higher if you can. I know 200 sounds like a lot, but you'll fill it up.. trust me.

 

I won't go over the directions, as other members here have already helped you with that, but I will warn you that taking the screws out of the hdd tray is EXTREMELY annoying. I had the right size screwdriver, even tried sizes right above or below, and it was so tightly screwed in place, it was stripping the screw no matter how much downward force I used.

 

I ended up having to grip the screws with pliers and twist them off that way. The one never really came off, and in trying to take it off I twisted the hdd casing. The metal is very flimsy, and I was able to bend it back, but I ordered a new tray anyway just so it would be perfect inside.

 

Just to give you some insight of a major obstacle that I encountered. I hope that helps. Unfortunately, it made a 5 min job take about an hour. Best of luck.

[bdog_147]

Can you stick any sized HD in there? I seem to remember reading way back somewhere that the ps3 can only read up to 250GB. It looks like you can put a much bigger drive in there and I just want to make sure. I might see about getting a bigger drive some day.

[DaytonaUSA]

Can you stick any sized HD in there? I seem to remember reading way back somewhere that the ps3 can only read up to 250GB. It looks like you can put a much bigger drive in there and I just want to make sure. I might see about getting a bigger drive some day.

 

I know you can put a 1TB one in there, so.. virtually, yea, any size . I know 250GB isn't the limit as I'm running a 500GB just fine.

[Reaperman]

I've just confirmed that the default windows command line format utility will not format drives larger than 32gb with fat. of course it doesn't tell you this until about an hour later. Maybe some service pack or version of windows addresses this, but not mine.

 

however don't dispair. CompuApps Swissknife is free and will do it (and really fast). give it a google if anybody finds themselves in a jam.

 

the software does seem a bit crash prone, and I make no promises about it being adware free, though it 'seems' safe-ish.

Edited September 5, 2009 by Reaperman

[moycon]

I've just confirmed that the default windows command line format utility will not format drives larger than 32gb with fat.

 

Is this in regards to ANY version of windows, or just older versions?

[Reaperman]

Is this in regards to ANY version of windows, or just older versions?

I don't plan on testing it on various versions of windows, so I'll limit myself by mentioning that WinXP SP2 (media center edition) is the one I tried and failed on. Xp SP3, vista, server os's or the billion other xp builds might have addressed this--though I can't really believe there's much demand for it. It's my guess that most people who have need of giant fat32 disks generally run other OSes with other ways of making them. I'm damn surprised the PS3 didn't format it for me. Maybe I should have tried harder along that route.

 

in any case the windows command line format utility takes an eternity to format disks compared to the software I had pointed out previously, so it might be worth considering in any case.

Edited September 5, 2009 by Reaperman

[Reaperman]

finished up my HD swap. Pretty simple but it took quite a bit of extra formatting/copying without having an extra fat32 disk around.

Now downloading the crap-ton of demos I've been unable to get at forever. yay.

[EricDeLee]

Wow... looks like hard drives are getting cheaper than I previously thought.

That 500gb one frank_c mentioned was only $99

Not a bad deal.

[JerryTerrifying]

Wow... looks like hard drives are getting cheaper than I previously thought.

That 500gb one frank_c mentioned was only $99

Not a bad deal.

 

I was looking on newegg tonight and saw a 500gb drive for either $80 or $90 bucks. I upgraded my 60gb to 120gb and am thinking of upgrading again to 500gb. But I might not, Ive still got 50gb's left free on my drive.