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General discussion (archive)ATTN PS3 Owners: Have you upgraded your drive?(14 posts)(14 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted December 29, 2010
If you don't own a PS3, or haven't upgraded your drive personally if you do own one, please hold your replies. I don't want PS3 v XBox crap cluttering up this discussion, and speculation and theories doesn't help me either.

I'm upgrading my 40GB drive (this is an older, MGS4 Edition PS3, not one of the newer Slims. Unfortunately, it's not so old as to be one of those manufactured with an Emotion Engine for PS2 backwards compatibility, or even the myriad flash drive inputs as depicted in many of the earlier PS3 game manuals. I hear tell I would have gotten all that if I sprung to the 80GB edition) to a hefty 500GB drive, and I'd like tips from users who've actually done the upgrade process.

First, what brand drive have you had most success with? I favour Seagate and Western Digital, but I could just as easily do with Samsung.

Second, and more importantly, how do you prepare the drive? I know the drive must be formatted for FAT32, but I've heard that Windows can't format FAT32 partitions larger than 32GB or something like that. Actually, this last statement is corroborated here, in the third paragraph (the first paragraph under the first photo of a Seagate drive).

So, to sum up, please tell me A)The brand of your drive, B) The maximum capacity, and if applicable, the maximum speed (e.g. 5200 or 7200) and cache (6MB, 16MB, etc), and C) How exactly you format such large quantities of space as FAT32.
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Posted December 29, 2010
Can't help there (just got my PS3 a month or so ago. Love it :p), but you might want to actually go take a look at some of the "shady" sites (ie. warez sites). If anyone has experience with using aftermarket drives to mod the hell out of their PS3s, it is going to be those people.
Posted December 29, 2010
The PS3 accepts any regular 2.5" SATA drive. Note 2.5, not 3.5. I would recommend an established manufacturer, my personal preference is Western Digital. Also make sure to get a 7200 RPM drive, the default drive is 5400. Helps a bit with those limited installs many games have as well as saves. You should get at least 250GB, preferably more if you're a heavy PSN / HD movie user. I myself have a 320GB 7200RPM WD drive at the moment.

Then, back up the contents of your current drive to an external drive. There's a backup utility under Settings > System settings. The external drive must be FAT32, and if you have more than 32GB of content to backup you need to back it up separately across several partitions since Windows does not recognize FAT32 partitions over 32GB as you've already pointed out. If you're not fussed about the contents of your current drive this can be skipped since the system sottware and PSN login details are handled separately and don't need to be backed up.

Next, change the drive. The users manual has details on how. It's exactly like changing the drive on a laptop. If you have one of the older, larger versions of the console you will need to remove the plastic plate covering the hard drive slot with a screwdriver and some careful prying and nudging. The drive slides in place to the left and is secured with a metal lever and a small blue screw, you'll see all this when removing the current drive.

When you refire the system, it will automatically prompt you to format the new drive. Simply wait for it to finish, and your system is up and running again. It automatically divides the drive into suitable partitions, there is no need to preformat it.

Next, you should update the software to the newest version via the software update option in the settings menu, and see about restoring some of your old save games or w/e from backup if you have any.

Also note that changing the drive does not void your warranty.
Post edited December 29, 2010 by stonebro
Posted December 29, 2010
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Gundato: Can't help there (just got my PS3 a month or so ago. Love it :p), but you might want to actually go take a look at some of the "shady" sites (ie. warez sites). If anyone has experience with using aftermarket drives to mod the hell out of their PS3s, it is going to be those people.
I agree with this. However, WD Caviar Black or Seagate Barracuda are equally "okay" (no consumer level drives are good these days, sadly). If you have media make sure it's backed up somewhere else and occasionally copy your game saves to a USB stick and you should be okay.

EDIT: WD drives are loud as hell, keep that in mind if you go with one, the noise might piss you off.
Post edited December 29, 2010 by orcishgamer
Posted December 29, 2010
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stonebro: The PS3 accepts any regular 2.5" SATA drive. Note 2.5, not 3.5. I would recommend an established manufacturer, my personal preference is Western Digital. Also make sure to get a 7200 RPM drive, the default drive is 5400. Helps a bit with those limited installs many games have as well as saves. You should get at least 250GB, preferably more if you're a heavy PSN / HD movie user. I myself have a 320GB 7200RPM WD drive at the moment.

Then, back up the contents of your current drive to an external drive. There's a backup utility under Settings > System settings. The external drive must be FAT32, and if you have more than 32GB of content to backup you need to back it up separately across several partitions since Windows does not recognize FAT32 partitions over 32GB as you've already pointed out. If you're not fussed about the contents of your current drive this can be skipped since the system sottware and PSN login details are handled separately and don't need to be backed up.

Next, change the drive. The users manual has details on how. It's exactly like changing the drive on a laptop. If you have one of the older, larger versions of the console you will need to remove the plastic plate covering the hard drive slot with a screwdriver and some careful prying and nudging. The drive slides in place to the left and is secured with a metal lever and a small blue screw, you'll see all this when removing the current drive.

When you refire the system, it will automatically prompt you to format the new drive. Simply wait for it to finish, and your system is up and running again. It automatically divides the drive into suitable partitions, there is no need to preformat it.

Next, you should update the software to the newest version via the software update option in the settings menu, and see about restoring some of your old save games or w/e from backup if you have any.

Also note that changing the drive does not void your warranty.
I know how to change the drive and run the backup utility, and I'm aware I need a laptop-size drive, I read the instructions on the Gamespot article I hyperlinked to in my op post. What I'm concerned about is the initial preformatting of a 500GB drive to FAT32. I can uninstall most of the stuff that I have on physical discs, and probably reduce the total amount of content (saved games, PSN Games, PAIN stuff) to just under 30GB, and so might be able to get all of it on one partition. It's just I've never formatted such a large drive in FAT32 on Windows before. Does it automatically make sixteen partitions as it's formatting? Or do I have to precreate all those partitions before I format it?

@orcishgamer, I've got aftermarket cooling solutions on the damn thing that would drown out any HD activity. Noise is secondary to reliability.
Posted December 29, 2010
You don't need to format the 500 GB drive, the PS3 will do that for you once you hook it up.

The best way to do it is back up to a flash drive or external hard drive ( I used my 60 GB Ipod)
put in the new drive, it will prompt you to format, say yes, then restore the backup...done.
Posted December 29, 2010
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Tool: You don't need to format the 500 GB drive, the PS3 will do that for you once you hook it up.

The best way to do it is back up to a flash drive or external hard drive ( I used my 60 GB Ipod)
put in the new drive, it will prompt you to format, say yes, then restore the backup...done.
So, it's like the Windows Easy Transfer tool? Shunt all content to a temporary source, and then plug in the new drive and then the PS3 will prompt me to restore all content from the source I shifted it to?
Posted December 29, 2010
Sort of. It will ask you to format, after that is done you will have to go into settings and choose restore, then just follow the prompts from there.
Posted December 30, 2010
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predcon: So, it's like the Windows Easy Transfer tool? Shunt all content to a temporary source, and then plug in the new drive and then the PS3 will prompt me to restore all content from the source I shifted it to?
I answered all of this already, but here goes:

When you restart with a nonformatted drive in the PS3 it will prompt you to format it. Partitioning is handled automatically from there on, that's why you shouldn't preformat the drive in any way.

After reformatting the system will revert to the version of the OS it came with when you got the box. Then you need to redownload the newest version first by using the update tool in the settings (or have the OS installable from a flash drive, but this is way more tedious, and I assume you can download the latest via the PS3 instead).

Then you can use the backup utility again to restore what you have previously backed up from the old drive.
Posted December 30, 2010
I upgraded my 40gb fat PS3 to a 7200 250gb WD drive. It was one of those cheap OEM/Refurbished drives from Fry's that I paid $35 for. The guy at Fry's tried to talk me out of it saying that it would overheat my PS3 and ruin it, but so far, absolutely no problems going on 7-8 months now. I opened the side, pulled the old drive out, and put the new one in. Be warned, it does take some effort to get the drive all the way in. I first closed it and noticed it was a little tight, then the PS3 refused to boot saying it had no HDD. I reseated the drive and the door closed much easier, and it started the reformatting of the HDD on its own. The only thing I did was transfer save games via a flash drive. All other data, like game installs, I deleted.

BE WARNED. ASSASSINS CREED 2 SAVE GAMES WILL NOT TRANSFER OVER. Fortunately I already beat the game, but I still lost all my progress.

Here is a link to the model HDD I purchased. Same brand name and model name, same size, and recommended for PS3's.

Western Digital Scorpio 250 GB
Posted December 30, 2010
avatar
stonebro: The PS3 accepts any regular 2.5" SATA drive. Note 2.5, not 3.5. I would recommend an established manufacturer, my personal preference is Western Digital. Also make sure to get a 7200 RPM drive, the default drive is 5400. Helps a bit with those limited installs many games have as well as saves. You should get at least 250GB, preferably more if you're a heavy PSN / HD movie user. I myself have a 320GB 7200RPM WD drive at the moment.

Then, back up the contents of your current drive to an external drive. There's a backup utility under Settings > System settings. The external drive must be FAT32, and if you have more than 32GB of content to backup you need to back it up separately across several partitions since Windows does not recognize FAT32 partitions over 32GB as you've already pointed out. If you're not fussed about the contents of your current drive this can be skipped since the system sottware and PSN login details are handled separately and don't need to be backed up.

Next, change the drive. The users manual has details on how. It's exactly like changing the drive on a laptop. If you have one of the older, larger versions of the console you will need to remove the plastic plate covering the hard drive slot with a screwdriver and some careful prying and nudging. The drive slides in place to the left and is secured with a metal lever and a small blue screw, you'll see all this when removing the current drive.

When you refire the system, it will automatically prompt you to format the new drive. Simply wait for it to finish, and your system is up and running again. It automatically divides the drive into suitable partitions, there is no need to preformat it.

Next, you should update the software to the newest version via the software update option in the settings menu, and see about restoring some of your old save games or w/e from backup if you have any.

Also note that changing the drive does not void your warranty.
This is an area where a PS3 is miles ahead of the 360. It's one of my biggest pet peeves about the 360 in fact.
Posted December 30, 2010
I won't play Assassin's Creed. I'm sick of stealth games. I've been sick of them since the original Splinter Cell. I got the MGS4 PS3 because I thought MGS4 was the one that didn't weigh in so heavily on stealth gameplay. Turns out the MGS I'm thinking of is one that hasn't been made yet. But it's slated for release on Windows, so I'm probably going to get the PC version, since the PS3's hardware is years old already.
Posted December 30, 2010
Most of the questions have been answered already, I just want to say something about rpm - it is slightly noticeable, but still - noticeable. Bayonetta runs better on my new 500GB WD drive and GT5 installed relatively fast and runs faster than ever.

Just make sure you copy everything with the backup utility because there are (copy protected) saves that can't be copied any other way.
Posted December 30, 2010
EDIT: Just realised that Stonebro has said pretty much exactly the same already!

You can - very easily - upgrade your PS3's internal hard drive by getting a ph1 or ph2 Phillip's head screwdriver and whatever sized 2.5in laptop hard drive you want.

Now, you'll also most likely want to keep your info saved, so you'll need a FAT32 storage device (such as a USB pen or external USB hard drive), to back it up so you can copy back across to the new larger drive.

Plug in the USB backup device and then in the main menu go to: Settings > System Settings > Backup Utility > Backup. Once it's finished, turn off your PS3 and unplug it from the wall.

Unclip the cover with the HDD sticker on it and you'll find a metal caddy inside, kept in with a couple of screws. Lift the tab up and pull the hard drive to the right to move it into position so you can pull it out of the PS3.

Now carefully unscrew the four screws holding the 2.5in hard drive and slide it out of the metal caddy. Slide your replacement hard drive in its place and then screw it in to keep it secure.

Now slide it back into the PS3 and to the left until it's nice and tight, and then put the cover back on the PS3 again. Switch the PS3 back on, let it format itself and then if you need to copy over a hard drive backup, head back into the 'Backup Utility' option and choose 'Restore'. Job done!
Post edited December 30, 2010 by nmillar
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General discussion (archive)ATTN PS3 Owners: Have you upgraded your drive?(14 posts)(14 posts)
(14 posts)