PS3 HDD Upgrade Tutorial(now includes PS3 Slim!)

  • Thread starter nick09
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kart racer
You need the drivers on your new HHD.Go to the playstation home page,click on support, then look for the updates (small box on the right)download the update to your pc,transfer to flash stick and when promted install to your new hard drive.:)
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I'll give that a shot thanks!

EDIT
No good!
The update isn't written on the hard drive, when I tried to update it said it had the newest firmware & no update was needed.
 
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When you say you formatted the 320G, what did you format it with?

If the word Vista appears in your response, there's your problem ;)
 
kart racer
You need the drivers on your new HHD.Go to the playstation home page,click on support, then look for the updates (small box on the right)download the update to your pc,transfer to flash stick and when promted install to your new hard drive.:)
Click to expand...

letdown427
When you say you formatted the 320G, what did you format it with?

If the word Vista appears in your response, there's your problem ;)
Click to expand...

No I formatted the 320G in the PS3.
 
Going back to the 'guide' I offered earlier;

Perform a backup onto the new hard disk in the caddy. <- On this bit, I probably should have made it clear, you'll want to have the new hard disk (320GB) formatted as FAT32 aswell, so that the PS3 can see it. To format it, use the fat32format program mentioned earlier

Plug the caddy into your PC, and you'll probably be able to see how it's laid out on there (there's probably a PS3 folder, just copy all of that to your PC)

Once you've got that copied across, install the new HD into the PS3, and format it.

Put the old PS3 HD into the caddy, and plug that into your PC.

Format the old PS3 HD (you'll need to use Disk Manager assuming you're on Windows), and copy back the PS3 folder with the backup in.

Restore from the old PS3 HD that's now in the caddy.

You'll want to use a program called fat32format to format the old PS3 HD and the new one before backing up to it.

Hope that helps again :)
 
Thanks for the help but I found out what was wrong.
The hard drive enclosure (Info Safe Model # SAT2510U2) was the problem, it wouldn't work with the PS3 at all, I got a different external hard drive (Toshiba HDDR160E03X) & it recognized it immediately & it's backing up now.
The moral of the story is if your hard drive or enclosure needs drivers it's probably not going to work with a PS3.

I'm backing up the original 60G now & will restore it to the new 320G when it's finished.


Thanks again for the suggestions guys!
 
nick09
Good thing to hear bro.👍

Enjoy your gaming on your new HDD.
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It's nice having all that extra room, I didn't have to delete anything off the hard drive before I downloaded the Resistance 2 beta!
 
I'd advice to let the PS3 cool down before changing the drives, otherwise the 4 screws will be enlarged from heat and you'll have problems removing them. I damaged two of the screws that way. Also if you look at the HDD case from the blue screw side, the upper left screw I just cut out with the metal part of the case that it sat on. Now my HDD is connected with 3 screws instead of 4. By the way it is a Seagate Momentus 160GB 7200 rpm drive, and changed the remaining 3 screws with new ones, which are more durable, although slightly bigger. Also I don't see any increase in speed with this faster drive.
P.S. About the backup, you don't need a big external drive for it. I've done it with a 1GB flash stick. I didn't have anything downloaded from the net, and I figured I could re-install the game data from the discs, so I only needed to back up the game saves.
 
Though you can restore the whole PS3 system only once and save time doing so. Giving the PS3 time to cool down is a good idea too, though if you are careful you can do it right away.
 
Well written tutorial. 👍

The official instructions that come with each PS3 and online, (page 16) are actually quite good as well, and include diagrams.

I also posted pics last year when I swapped HDDs for the first time:

Digital-Nitrate
The new HDD drive has been working great, but I decided to test out swapping the drives such that I would be able to store games on both drives in the event the new 160GB driver ever got full, and sure enough it works great. The PS3 has no trouble despite the different drives having different copy-protected content. 👍

BTW: Although the process of swapping HDDs is very quick and easy, and the User Manual (page 16) does a very good job instructing exactly how to do this, I thought I'd document the process with pics (click on any to enlarge):






BTW: It may vary from one PS3 to another, but the five screws (the blue one that locks the HDD case in place, and the four screws that lock the HDD to the HDD case), were tightened with a great deal of torque! Combined with having to use a very small Philips screwdriver (as seen in the photo, I used the "No.0" screwdriver), it made it next to impossible to get enough grip on the screwdriver in order to break the initial pressure.

This can be a tricky situation, as it is easy to thread the drive, especially if you use too large of a screwdriver head. Just to be safe, I had my wife hold the HDD case upright, and then I used pliers attached to the hand of the No.0 Philips, and this gave me all the added leverage I needed, and was able to release the pressure on each of the five screws. Once they "popped", they all came out very easily.

So that you don't have to ever deal with that again, just be sure to only lightly tighten them . In fact, I just lightly tighten them until right when they resist. These are not moving parts, so there is no need to have any of thse screws locked tightly.

Any way, there you have it. Swapping HDD drives is extremely easy and fast. It takes me less than two minutes from start to finish.

Because you can swap out these drives, I now effectively have 220GB of HDD space and 660GB of external HD space. 👍


PS: For those that ever plan on taking their PS3 on the road, obviously the original box is ideal, but if you have a lot of accessories, HD's, games, cables, etc... I have found that a standard 8 gallon container (16"x22"x8") is perfect.

Here are a few shots of how I have it set-up for taking my PS3 on the road:



EDIT: Added the PS Eye




As you can see, the container has plenty of room for all but a wheel controller. In the example I gave I have:
  • 20 Movies & Games
  • 2 Controllers
  • Remote Control
  • PlayStation Eye
  • External HD
  • Extra HDD
  • PS2 Memory Card Adapter
  • USB 1GB Flash Memory Stick
  • Bluetooth Headset
  • 1x25' HDMI cable
  • 1x10' HDMI cable
  • Fiber Optic Cable
  • Standard PS AV Cable
  • USB Cable
  • Ethernet Cable
  • Manuals
In addition, the size of the container is slightly larger than the PS3 box, so the box sits nicely and safely on top, for easy transporting. 👍

Most of the stuff I keep in the box, so for the most part, all I have to do to take the PS3 to another room, or on the road is to turn it off and move it or put it in its box. 👍

This is a lot better than having to find and gather up everything each time I move it to another location.
Click to expand...


There are also several threads and posts that have covered this over the last couple years, but it can never hurt to add more.

For future reference though here are just some of the related threads in GTP:


There are also many useful official PS3 sites that are worth knowing about:

Digital-Nitrate
The physical manual is quite good, but the online manuals for the PS3 are even better! In fact, Sony has a direct link to the PS3's system software user guide from every PS3 located at the top of the Network menu bar in the XMB.

I also recommend you bookmark it in your PC's browser, here is the direct link as well as some other useful links:

In addition to all that, Sony also put together a very nice detailed guide to the PS3:

If you have ever had any question about anything to do with the PS3, I'd be very surprised if you couldn't find an answer in a short amount of time among any number of those links. 👍
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In addition, Wiki has several very informative listings regarding the PS3:




Delirious?
http://www.consolesource.com/ecomm/catalog/Xecuter-HDXT-PS3-Hard-Drive-Xtender-p-2593.html

What's your thought on this? Use it with external HDD's.
Click to expand...
I'm sure it works. And this should allow you to then use drives that are 1TB or greater. 👍




Delirious?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...2E16822145228,N82E16822116160,N82E16822148336 Which of these 4 HDD's would you guys recommend me for my PS3?
Click to expand...


Both times that I upgraded my PS3's HDD to larger drives I got Western Digital Scorpio drives 160GB last year, and 320GB back in June. When I switched to the 320GB I used my previous 160GB drive to upgrade my parent's PS3. Both drives have been working flawlessly.

BTW: I see that the 320GB WD Scorpio drive that I bought in June is currently selling for only $75, so you may want to go that route, as there really is no appreciable advantage in using a 7200 RPM 16MB HDD for the PS3. Games are going to load at nearly the same speed, and photos, music, videos all load instantly any way. 👍


Digital-Nitrate
DSCN1224.jpg



The 500GB is for the PS3 (music, photos, and videos) and file sharing on our home network... as a nice bonus the finish on the case is nearly identical to that of the PS3... and it even has a blue light as well. :)

The 320GB internal drive is to replace the current 160GB drive in my PS3. I didn't expect to need a larger drive, but I have well over a hundred games and demos that have already filled the drive, and you'd be amazed how quickly you can eat up space on a hard drive with high bit rate 1080p video. :eek:
Click to expand...



Digital-Nitrate
Yes it's possible, although it's debatable whether or not you would see any significant difference between a 7200rpm laptop drive w/16MB cache and a 5400rpm laptop drive w/8MB cache... especially for use with a PS3.

I personally just replaced my PS3's HDD from the Western Digital WD1600BEVS Scorpio 160GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 1.5Gb/s HDD that I bought last October for only $90 from newegg.com with a Western Digital WD3200BEVT Scorpio 320GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s HDD which I was able to find for only $130 w/Free Shipping from NewEgg.com - as expected, it has performed splendidly. 👍


BTW: There are threads that cover this topic, that you may want to check out and post there for more info on what hard drives people are using and recommending to use with their PS3's:

Click to expand...
 
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Delirious?
So yer saying 5400RPM vs. 7200RPM isn't really much at all?
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The disc will turn 1/3 faster.

If it takes 1 second to find a file on a 5400 RPM drive, it might take .6 seconds with a 7200 RPM drive.

Load times on games are also not directly associated with the disc speed... as they are programs. The disc speed effects how fast the system can find the program to start. Granted, you may see some slightly lower times as the program has to find associated files on the HD.

The one noticeable advantage would be when you copy files to and from the HDD to another drive... in which case it should be slightly faster.
 
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I know there was a thread a while back where someone put in an SSD. I was just wondering what the performance increases where if any when using it with Home. Its slightly annoying waiting from rooms to load up off the HDD (takes about 15 -20 seconds) and I was wondering if its like seemless with an SDD?

Robin.
 
Robin.
I know there was a thread a while back where someone put in an SSD. I was just wondering what the performance increases where if any when using it with Home. Its slightly annoying waiting from rooms to load up off the HDD (takes about 15 -20 seconds) and I was wondering if its like seemless with an SDD?
Click to expand...

Loading spaces from Home is related to the transfer rate that your ISP gives you, your modem or router and how it is set up, and finally the server traffic on both your node as well as the specific server that you are downloading from. It has absolutely nothing to do with your hard drive. All of these drives can copy data MUCH faster than you can download it off the web.

As I mentioned, the main advantage to a faster drive is for copying REALLY large files or multiple files at one time from one drive to another... which for most people wont even be something they do often if ever. Also, if the drive they are copying files to or from isn't particularly fast, then again, there wont be much if any difference in time.




Delirious?
Also will an enclosure case be necessary?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000PKC102/?tag=gtplanet-20
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Not necessarily, but they can protect the drive, and often come with the necessary power cables.
 
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Digital-Nitrate
Loading spaces from Home is related to the transfer rate that your ISP gives you, your modem or router and how it is set up, server traffic on both your node as well as the specific server that you are downloading from. It has absolutely nothing to do the your hard drive. All of these drives can copy data MUCH faster than you can download it of the web.
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But your net connection only loads the people, not the physical space. The spaces are already saved on the HDD and are loaded from that. I see the HDD light flickering the whole time the bar is loading the space so why is it talking so long? Why can't I not walk seemlessly from one space to another and just have the people load up as I go?

Robin.
 
Robin.
But your net connection only loads the people, not the physical space. The spaces are already saved on the HDD and are loaded from that. I see the HDD light flickering the whole time the bar is loading the space so why is it talking so long? Why can't I not walk seemlessly from one space to another and just have the people load up as I go?
Click to expand...

I get what you are saying. I thought you were talking about downloading space updates and or the current status of a space... people currently in it and such. As far as moving from one space to another, thats part of the program, and while some of that is being read off your hard drive, I imagine quite a lot of it is also being read from data online.
 
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ceiling_fan
While we're at it, would the USB connection bottleneck an external HDD?
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It can, fortunately USB 2.0 is still plenty fast, and so it has no impact on even the most demanding 1080p videos.

In fact, the only thing that can take some time is if you have thousands of files, as we do on both our music and photo drives, then it can take the PS3 a while to find every file and have them listed appropriately when you chose the "Display All" option in the XMB menu in order to see every single file on an external drive.
 
Delirious?
http://www.consolesource.com/ecomm/catalog/Xecuter-HDXT-PS3-Hard-Drive-Xtender-p-2593.html

What's your thought on this? Use it with external HDD's.
Click to expand...

I'll know soon enough, because thanks to your post I decided to try one out and placed an order today for one. 👍


I am still trying to decide what drive to replace my current internal 320GB HDD with.

I am currently leaning towards one of these (price includes tax & shipping):

  • $100 Samsung HD103UJ Spinpoint F1
    • 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 32MB Cache

  • $105 Western Digital WD10EACS Caviar Green
    • 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache

  • $110 Seagate ST31000333AS Barracuda
    • 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 32MB Cache

  • $130 Seagate ST31500341AS Barracuda
    • 1.5TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 32MB Cache
I'm open for suggestions. The best value is certainly the 1.5TB Barracuda drive from Seagate, but I'm tempted to stick with Western Digital as I have a great track record with their drives, and I know they are very quiet drives, which I like. I'm definitely weary of Samsung drives, as I have heard iffy things about them in the past... but a $100 is certainly a great price for a 1TB drive w/32MB cache. 👍
 
External HD, you mean? Those are all 3.5" drives -- won't fit in a PS3 without a hammer.

I've bought a half dozen drives in total from WD, Seagate, and Samsung. When they did fail, warranty replacement was easy. Samsung used to be the most quiet, but technology moves on. Seagates are moving down to a 3-year warranty on new bare drives effective January, so their warranty advantage is disappearing.

Get whatever is cheap and hang onto the receipt. If it's going into a USB enclosure, then the speed difference between the drives doesn't matter as the interface is the bottleneck.
 
So something I have not yet seen covereed is weather to buy a SATA 3.0 interface or th SATA 1.5 interface?
 
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Either one is fine, but the former would be "better", newer, cheaper, and easier to find. Desktop and laptop drives have yet to run into SATA bandwidth limits inside the PS3.
 
Ok I have a 40GB PAL PS3 and tried to upgrade to a 2,5'' 160GB SATA drive today, but when I turn on the PS3 with the new HDD inside it says something like &#8220;system data not found insert storage media containing system software 2.60 or later&#8221;.
What does this mean or rather why is that ? Shouldn't it say &#8220;format HDD&#8221; or something ?
I have the backup data on an connected external usb drive, but it won't read it it seems.
Any suggestions may help. Thanks in advance.


PS: I also tried without the external HDD connected with the same result
 
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Just removed the 40gb harddisk with a 320gb , all went well but those screws were ridicolouse tight, broke all screwdrivers in the house haha.
 

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