Adding a brand new hard drive to your PS3 is easy, and won't cost you a lot of money. Because you're free to use your own hard drives, you can throw in something much larger than 80GB in your PS3. You may want to, especially with DivX support on the horizon. Getting a speedier 7200rpm drive may also give you surprising speed boosts, especially when playing games stored on the hard drive.
So, how simple is replacing a hard drive? As this video shows, it's almost too easy. Watch as this PS3 gets a brand new hard drive makeover.
[Thanks, Chris!]
Reader Comments (37)
Posted: Nov 28th 2007 3:38PM (Unverified) said
It's also worth noting you can also use usb storage.
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Posted: Nov 28th 2007 4:24PM (Unverified) said
Thats the easiest way to go for media, like music, photos, and videos, but for the PS3's boot drive, you have to have a hard drive. So for more capacity for PSN titles and things of that nature, you need to upgrade your PS3's hard drive.
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Posted: Nov 28th 2007 4:13PM kentuckyfried said
What are the ps3 hard drive requirements? IDE or SATA?
I've been meaning to look these up but I keep forgetting.
Also, what are the requirements for external hard drives? I've plugged my Mac-formatted iPod into it before with no results. Somebody offhand mentioned that I need to have it formatted in FAT32. This is true?
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I've been meaning to look these up but I keep forgetting.
Also, what are the requirements for external hard drives? I've plugged my Mac-formatted iPod into it before with no results. Somebody offhand mentioned that I need to have it formatted in FAT32. This is true?
Posted: Nov 28th 2007 3:44PM (Unverified) said
Does adding your own hard drive potentially void your warranty though?
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Posted: Nov 28th 2007 3:52PM (Unverified) said
Nope (unless you do something silly like open the wrong thing)
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Posted: Nov 28th 2007 10:23PM (Unverified) said
Don't listen to autopsy15, replacing your HDD will never void warranty unless you damage something yourself. Also, how does storage space have anything to do with voiding warranty? I myself have over 2 TB connected to my PS3 with external HDDs for media purposes, and replaced the internal 60GB HDD with 250GB.
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Posted: Nov 28th 2007 3:52PM SuperGayParade said
what! you mean I don't have to pay for an overpriced proprietary hard drive?!
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Posted: Nov 28th 2007 3:53PM (Unverified) said
I believe it uses sata. From what I’ve read it does need to be FAT32.
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Posted: Nov 28th 2007 4:13PM kentuckyfried said
Ok. I'll have to stop procrastinating playing COD4 and check... =D
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Posted: Nov 28th 2007 4:09PM phizzyphizzy said
Copy it all to a USB drive before removing it... And then you'll still lose some stuff.
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Posted: Nov 28th 2007 9:02PM (Unverified) said
Youll need to back it all up. I believe that the PS3 has a backup utility in the system menu exactly for this purpose, but from memory you need an external hdd to backup onto.
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Posted: Nov 29th 2007 9:11AM (Unverified) said
You won't lose anything if you use the PS3's built-in back up utility.
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Posted: Nov 28th 2007 4:13PM kentuckyfried said
Posted: Nov 28th 2007 4:02PM (Unverified) said
I don't know the exact drive in the PS3, but I remember the specs being something like SATA 2.5" 5400rpm, 8MB cache. Google it for more details.
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Posted: Nov 28th 2007 5:01PM (Unverified) said
It's pointless for the boot drive. The best thing in my opinion is a solid state hard drive. They're shipping some Dells with them now. Solid state drive on the inside with a USB external hard drive to hold all your 'stuff', that way you get speed + cooler running + capacity. It's the trifecta of PS3 storage.
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Posted: Nov 28th 2007 10:49PM linebeginstoblur said
I haven't seen any 500 GB of this type. I think the best I've seen is 250 GB. I thought that was a little disappointing, but oh well.
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Posted: Nov 28th 2007 4:13PM kentuckyfried said
http://www.us.playstation.com/Support/PS3/Manuals
The Safety and Support manual states indeed that only Serial ATA (SATA) is supported. Parallel ATA (a.k.a. IDE) is not.
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The Safety and Support manual states indeed that only Serial ATA (SATA) is supported. Parallel ATA (a.k.a. IDE) is not.
Posted: Nov 28th 2007 4:41PM (Unverified) said
hello, i jus have a small question, does the interface have to be ATA-100 or SATA-150 thank you
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Posted: Nov 28th 2007 5:14PM (Unverified) said
Saeed, can you read? His post says IDE is not supported. The drives are SATA ONLY.
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Posted: Nov 28th 2007 5:59PM (Unverified) said
oh right sorry i never knew ATA was the Same as IDE
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Posted: Nov 28th 2007 4:13PM kentuckyfried said
No RPM setting listed for the hard drive, though. 7200 rpm doesn't appear to have hurt anybody though (including people upgrading hard drives in macbooks).
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Posted: Nov 28th 2007 4:16PM moo083 said
Yup. I upgraded mine from the 60 GB it came with to the 100 GB 7200 RPM drive from my Macbook Pro (which now has a 250 GB, sacraficed speed for space). I have had it this way for months and no issues. Its nice knowing that, at least for now, I have plenty of space.
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Posted: Nov 28th 2007 4:38PM (Unverified) said
ok heers something we all knew about a year about >.< ...news that slow?
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Posted: Nov 28th 2007 6:11PM (Unverified) said
Real-time hard-drive change!
I can't wait to upgrade mine.. I have an external HDD, just not the money to get a new HDD for the PS3. It'll be awesome using it to its full capability as a media player.
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I can't wait to upgrade mine.. I have an external HDD, just not the money to get a new HDD for the PS3. It'll be awesome using it to its full capability as a media player.
Posted: Nov 28th 2007 6:45PM (Unverified) said
Would this mean you would lose your user account on your ps3 though which would mean you lose all your ranks on games ,etc because there stored to your user account, which would be on the old drive you take out and you cant exactly transfer user accounts onto the new drive.
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Posted: Nov 28th 2007 7:30PM Autopsy15 said
Your PSN account isn't stored on the HDD. It's stored in Sony's servers. So, if you bought a new HDD you would still have all your ranks for your games and account. You just wouldn't have any of your game saves from singleplayer mode unless you stored them externally.
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Posted: Nov 28th 2007 6:52PM (Unverified) said
When I upgraded I just copied all my saves to a digital camera via USB. Things like online info, system info and even that wallpaper you have are saved somewhere else so they are there when you put in your new hard drive.
Also be very careful. The screws strip very easily.
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Also be very careful. The screws strip very easily.
Posted: Nov 28th 2007 8:56PM (Unverified) said
The PS3 also has a built in back up function, that backs up EVERYTHING on the internal hard drive. Connect it to an external hard drive, create back up image onto the external, change internal hard drives, restore the back up from the external drive. Its THAT easy. And you can't really mess up your PS3 since the OS is stored as firmware.
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Posted: Nov 29th 2007 1:37AM (Unverified) said
What about HDD games like Warhawk, which only let's the account that downloaded the game play it. Will swapping the HDD mess it up?
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Posted: Nov 29th 2007 4:45AM (Unverified) said
No. Warhawk still work if you back it up, or re-download it after upgrading. I have tried.
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Posted: Nov 29th 2007 3:20PM (Unverified) said
does this mean you have to pay everything all over again when you replace the hard drive witout using the backup?
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Posted: Dec 1st 2007 10:08PM (Unverified) said
This is the first thing I did when I purchased my 60GB PS3. I put in a 120 SATA drive from an old laptop I had. The PS3 will format the drive for you, so you don't have to do it ahead of time.
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