Low on HDD Space & Changing Internal Drive

[Daggers21]

Thanks.

I wonder why my 40GB is so slow compared to my old 60GB. It just doesn't make sense. I'm out of space now so I need to upgrade anyway, but I want to be sure I'm not spending any extra money for features that I won't even be able to use.

I deciding between the WD 320GB Scorpio Blue 5400 or 7200. It's $15 difference between the two.

whichever is better

[triggap]

So I spent the afternoon upgrading my 40gb to a new WD 250GB Scorpio Blue 5400 that I got from Best Buy.

Would've been a faster process but then I had some problems with the screws and stuff so yeah..

'Course now I'm just gonna be spending most of the night updating, downloading, and installing games.. Oh well.. Should be an easier process whenever I wanna go through this again since I bought an HDD enclosure for the 40gb so backing up will be easier later as my flash drive could only let me back up so much.

Easy process, just bad luck hitting a somewhat tech-dumb dude lol

[darth_crayon]

over the weekend i bought a 40 gig ps3 from a friend so i figured today id swap in a bigger one.wow i didn't think it was really gonna be all that hard to do(ive worked on pc's before) but man that was easy and i didn't even strip any of the screws(pure luck).honestly i think it was thanks to this thread(i actually read the how to before i even went out and bought the hard drive) so a big thanks are in order to whoever originally posted then how-to along with everyone who posted in this thread many of your questions answered mine.now just have to wait for the system update to finish.

sorry for the double post but now i just thought of a question. now that ive put a bigger hard drive in i have a 40 gig hard drive with now real use. on the first page of this thread it says you can buy a casing for your hard drive to make it external. what i would like to know from anyone who has done this is there a particular one that's better than another or just one that most prefer?

Don't be sorry, use the edit button instead lol. Comatosed

[[DT]]

I'd just hit up any of the decent online shops like NewEgg or MWave. Most of the cases are about the same - you'll want an SATA interface for the drive and for the exterior interface probably USB (which will give you the most flexibility - it'll connect to the PS3 and a PC).

It's a great way to get some use out of the old drive for ~$10-20!

OK, I figured I'd find one for you so you'd have a reference - this is a generic brand (Vantec) like most enclosures. Internal SATA interface and an external USB 2.0/1.1, comes with a passthrough cable, aluminum construction, good reviews, $17.99;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817392015

I'm sure about your location (that's a US retailer).

Please don't double post, use the edit feature instead. Comatosed.

[darth_crayon]

I'd just hit up any of the decent online shops like NewEgg or MWave. Most of the cases are about the same - you'll want an SATA interface for the drive and for the exterior interface probably USB (which will give you the most flexibility - it'll connect to the PS3 and a PC).

It's a great way to get some use out of the old drive for ~$10-20!

OK, I figured I'd find one for you so you'd have a reference - this is a generic brand (Vantec) like most enclosures. Internal SATA interface and an external USB 2.0/1.1, comes with a passthrough cable, aluminum construction, good reviews, $17.99;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817392015

I'm sure about your location (that's a US retailer).

Please don't double post, use the edit feature instead. Comatosed.

im sorry about the double post i did try to edit but i must not have done it right(or cause im still really new) i wouldn't let me. thanks for pointing me in the right direction i have seen these for the 3.5(desktop hardrives) but i havent seen these for the 2.5(laptop/ps3)hard drives honestly i didnt think they made them.sorry i didn't fill out my profile properly im also in the us ill go and fix that now

[jesse1715]

What is the best 500 gig hard drive for the ps3? thanks

[Yip-Man]

I have a WD 500gb, 5400, touch wood, works really well, no probs

[josh1234]

yeh if you have just the memory for the PS3 then just put stuff on a memory stick or delete some stuff

[molendie]

Just wanted to share my experience I had last night. I have a 40gb older PS3 and bought a new 250gb WD HD. Ironically, the easiest part for me was the blue screw lol. The case screws were actually more tricky and the physical installation went on without issue.

Prior to removal, I made a backup of my stuff (which took forever). My first issue was once I turned on the PS3 with the new drive in, I got the error about needing the firmware 3.00 or higher or whatever it said so I went and got that off Playstations site and put it on my external HD which was easy, but another chunk of time.

Following this, I attempted a restore and after about an hour it gave an error that the backup file was corrupt or something along those lines. I put the old drive back in and copied over all my saves to my external drive so I would at least have those and then put the new drive back in AGAIN and when it booted up I found all my saves, settings, and game data were there even though they hadn't been after it said my restore failed. Very odd considering I had double checked the save and data folders and they were empty.

Anyways, I found that the game data was corrupt so I will have to reinstall those as I go but the saves appear to be fine. I had no problems redownloading all our Rock Band songs and such which reminds me, that's really dumb that they don't let you copy over Rock Band saves.

So, finally at 2am I had everything reinstalled and working correctly and went to bed while about 20 demos downloaded. MOHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Thank God because we had so much Home crap, Rock Band crap, and game data that I literally could only have 1 damn demo downloaded at a time. I finally can breathe! lol.

Thanks for the guide and everyone's advice here. I really appreciate it.

[KJ-97]

So I need to ask is there a HDD that will work that is bigger then 500GB? I found a few 1TB but they weren't 2.5 so I didn't think it would work.... Plus I looked at my 160GB and I don't have a clip just a blue screw... Also I don't have a external hard drive and don't really want to buy one so is there any other way do back up all my stuff? Any help would be great....

Thanks guys

[molendie]

So I need to ask is there a HDD that will work that is bigger then 500GB? I found a few 1TB but they weren't 2.5 so I didn't think it would work.... Plus I looked at my 160GB and I don't have a clip just a blue screw... Also I don't have a external hard drive and don't really want to buy one so is there any other way do back up all my stuff? Any help would be great....

Thanks guys

I was under the impression that the largest available 22.5 SATA is 320gb. Maybe 500gb but I haven't seen any. I know there aren't and 1TB 2.5 SATA's.

I didn't have a "clip" either. Once I took out the blue screw I just kinda lightly jimmied the tray and it slide right out.

The only way I know to backup your PS3 is with an external device.

Good luck!

[Sicarius123]

There are lots of 500gb drives and they are easy to find if you look.

You can use 3.5 drives as there are kits out there that convert the PS3 to E-SATA (that's external sata) so you can keep the drive outside the case. Personally I don't like the idea of having a seperate drive outside the console as my primary drive however.

[Amnoz]

There is no 1TB you can use in the PS3 yet, the closest one so far is...

http://www.nextag.com/Western-Digita...78/prices-html

We just need it to get standard sized.

[KJ-97]

Okay is there a way to back up everything without using a external device like maybe hooking it to my desktop/laptop via usb and loading everything in to a file folder? That is about the only way I could do it I think?

[Redrider]

After many months of indecision I finally upgraded my 60 GB HDD with this unit:
Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD5000BEVT 500GB 5400 RPM 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive

from www.newegg.com

Thanks to this thread the whole process was much easier that it might have been!

Even though I build my own PCs I was extremely skiddish about doing this. This is NOT as hard as you might think and this tread has you covered if something goes sideways.......

First off let me say the blue screw is as challenging as reported. I used a 3.0mm Phillips head screwdriver (from a Jeweler's screwdriver set) and a pair of pliers. While maintaining downward pressure I used the pliers to turn the screwdriver and it provided enough tork to break the screw free and start turning. Next using the little swing out handle I moved the HDD caddy toward the front of the PS3 in order to pull the unit out of the HDD bay. I did notice some very fine dust in the empty HDD bay so I used some compressed air to blow it out. Swapping out the old HDD and replacing it with the new one was a snap, no issues.

The night before I had backed up my old HDD with external USB HDD. The only catch about this is that the PS3 will not recognize a NTFS formatted external HDD so you have to format it for FAT 32 files. I used Norton's Partition Magic 8.0 (unexpected expense) and this actually works out well because I now have a external HDD big enough to back-up both my PC desktop and my PS3 (Western Digital Elements 500GB USB 2.0). I was almost maxed out of space on my old HDD and the system backup only took 1 hour and 20 minutes.

As per feedback from this thread I had a flash drive ready with the files / folders / .PUP file in case my PS3 did not recognize my new HDD as reported by some users.

The big moment comes and I turn on my PS3 with the new HDD for the first time. Everything goes smoothly and the PS3 recognizes my new HDD no issues!!

I navigate to the PS3 XMB Backup Utility and selected the restore option and connected the external HDD that had my backup file on and ran the file. One hour and twenty minutes later it was done. Once the system was done reinstalling my files it restarted my PS3 and all my settings and files were back, only this time my PS3 is showing a 465 GB HDD with 376 GB of free space!

Trust me with all the great games out and coming out you will want the biggest HDD you can get inside your PS3 because space goes a lot faster than you think!!!

[theunknowndeity]

Wow guys all these helpfull hints have convinced me that it's time to upgrade my 80 gig I just have one question when I replace the hard drive will i have to change my psn id or will it remain the same

[Sicarius123]

You can re-use the same PSN ID, I've got my PSN ID set up on a few friends PS3's anyway although I don't have them set to auto login

[theunknowndeity]

Thanks Sicarius123 definitely gonna upgrade it know ill let u all know how it comes out

[HalfOfZero]

Aaaaaah. So you can't actually use Game data on an externall HDD? Interesting. Still might get one after I get my YLOD sorted. Good for the music files! Had about 4x gig of music on it since I got it!!

[theunknowndeity]

One more question when I replace the hard drive is there anything specific I have to do in order to download the downloadable content I used to have for example the extra fighters for UFC or the special blade for infamous

[whosgottheherb]

can anyone tell me if this is usable? imquestioning it because its for desktops...
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Western+...=1142294266836

edit: i cant tell if its 2.5'? thats all i really need 2 know...

[Hedrush]

can anyone tell me if this is usable? imquestioning it because its for desktops...
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Western+...=1142294266836

edit: i cant tell if its 2.5'? thats all i really need 2 know...

No its a 3.5"

[We Are Ninja]

Alright. So I'm beginning the process to swap out my hard drive. I'm copying saves over to a memory stick, but I run into the occasional save file that states that "copying of this saved data is not allowed". For what it's worth, I'm only having this problem with EA games (specifically NFS Shift, NFS Pro Street, Mercenaries 2 and Skate 2... (Thanks alot, EA. I'm prolly the only person on Earth that actually plays Pro Street and I'm not starting over...).

Now a couple of dumb questions:

1.) Does the fact that these files can't be copied mean that I'll have to start these games over?

2.) If I convert my old 60 gig hard drive to an external drive, will I be able to access these files that way?

EDIT: And a 3rd, bonus question:

I've copied all my game saves and all my wallpapers to a flash card and to my PC's hard drive. I didn't have any other pictures, movies, or music... Is there anything else that I should copy or backup before swapping drives?

[Comatosed]

question 1, yes

question 2, no

[We Are Ninja]

^That blows. Hard.