Changing Hard Drive

Is it fairly simple changing out the hard drive in the PS3? I currently have a 40g and I'm wanting to switch it out with a 320g.

The entire process is documented in the manual of the PlayStation 3 and countless videos on YouTube and really only involves removing a door, some screws and taking the hard drive out of the caddy it comes in and swapping it out for the new drive. The longer part is just prepping for the switch since you'll have to back up your important data to an external drive of some sort, syncing your trophies for the last time, etc.

Originally Posted by X_Racer1

The entire process is documented in the manual of the PlayStation 3 and countless videos on YouTube and really only involves removing a door, some screws and taking the hard drive out of the caddy it comes in and swapping it out for the new drive. The longer part is just prepping for the switch since you'll have to back up your important data to an external drive of some sort, syncing your trophies for the last time, etc.

Cool man thanks, I'll give it a shot then.

Keep in mind it has to be a 2.5 inch SATA laptop hard drive at 5400RPM, while a 7200RPM hard drive will work, the extra heat generated can damage your PlayStation 3 and you will see almost no improvement in speed.

Originally Posted by X_Racer1

Keep in mind it has to be a 2.5 inch SATA laptop hard drive at 5400RPM, while a 7200RPM hard drive will work, the extra heat generated can damage your PlayStation 3 and you will see almost no improvement in speed.

Yeah I know I already got one pick out with exactly the specs you stated, I just didn't know how difficult it was changing it out. I guess I'm gonna have to borrow my buddies external hard drive to back up everything though.

Thanks for the info. man, I really appreciate it!!

i may upgrade to 500gb :D seems to much, but this month ive had my slim ive used like just under half so by the end of next month maybe into december i'll be full(possibly)

Another question for you guys... I was going to switch out the hard drive but got to thinking should I just buy an external hard drive and will I be able to set up the system to save games directly to the external hard drive. Would that be a easier way to go and is there anything in the manual stating how to set up the system to save to the external hard drive. Sorry in advance if anyone thinks I'm a complete idiot!! LOL!!

What I did just last week. My laptop was done and I just purchased a new 500GB hard drive so i wanted to toss it in my PS3.

Well I dont have an external hard drive and i didnt have money to buy one, so I couldnt just use the backup utilitily. What I did was just take my flash drive and manuely copy and pasted every game save to it. Sucked, I have like 100 game saves lol. The bad thing about this is some devs are stupid and dont let you do this because its locked...Just so happened the only one that did it to me was Killzone (the main file) and NFS Shift, everything else worked.

Then you take the hard drive out, pop in the new one (literlly just pop it in lol) then the PS3 will read its new and format it for you. The cool thing is all your profiles stay etc...So just login to your same profile, and copy and paste the gamesaves back over. You can do it with pretty much everything but Downloaded games, cus they are locked too.

To answer your question if you have, or want to buy, an external hard drive id do it. Its an easier two step process. Plug it in, push back up, switch internal drives, push restore. I personally just used a 4GB USB drive.

However they just updated to allow you to transfer files between two PS3's. Im curious to see how this works...

Can I just use the external hard drive instead of buying a new internal one and just use the external one to save my games too instead of switching out. I guess that is the main question, I really don't won't to fool with changing out the internal one I just don't trust myself I'm scared I'm gonna **** something up in the process.. LOL!! Thanks again.

I dont believe you can run anything off the external. For example a game installs it will install to the internal, download stuff to the internal (unless its a video, it will then give you an option), and gamesaves go to the internal. You can read gamesaves from an external but i dont think it works ingame, has to be internal. Thats due to the stupid "copyright" stuff on everything, its locked to your account.

Honestly though, i was screwing around and its super hard to break anything doing it. Literlly just pop off the side with a flathead, unscrew the one screw, then grab the little handle and pop it out. Its in a little shell so nothing wil harm it. Sony made it so its easy to do this, average people lol. I say just go mess with it right now...Go take it out, see what it looks like, then put it back in. Then when you get a new one, take it out again, unscrew the 4 little screws on the casing, put in the new one, then put it back.

Just some tips
-Dont use a magnetic screwdriver. Magnets will mess up hard drives.
-I did it on carpet, but its probably best not to lol. Static electricity build up could zap the drive.

Other than that there really is no worries at all.

Dustin man thanks a lot brother you have been extremely helpful and I think you have knocked the fear out me so I'm gonna give it a shot!!! :)

Yep no worries. If you need help while your doing it, im online most of the day so just let us know.

BTW (dont know if it was mentioned or you know already) It is a laptop drive, so make sure you get a 2.5inch drive when you buy one. If im not mistaken the original PS3 drives run at 5200 RPM, but I got a 7200RPM drive and it actually helps the ps3 run alot faster. If it sounds confusing dont worry, these things are right on the front of the box when you get it lol.

Cool man I got one picked out already I just need to go buy it. When I'm on here I'm at work so can't do anything here, LOL wish I could cause I'm bored as hell right now. So the 7200RPM works fine I think someone said it will make it run to hot or something like that but I guess that's not true.

RPM means its spinning faster, rotation per minute, so its working hard. In a sense it makes it run hotter, but ive yet to have any issues with it. My fans still dont kick on and it stays cool just fine.

With my luck and I get the 7200RPM my crap will burn up!! LOL!!! JK I'm gonna go this weekend and pick one up and Dustin thanks again man I know I have said that a lot but you have answered all my dumb ass question and didn't get frustrated not once!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok I got the internally hard drive it's a 320g seagate, now am I going to have any trouble when I put this in like I did with my new external hard drive I bought with formatting. The exter. hard drive was formatted at NTFS and I had it changed to fat32 which is what the PS3 wants the same thing isn't going to happen with the internal one I hope.