Anyone Upgraded their PS3 HDD?

Tom84

Tom84

Tom84

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As per title, has anyone ever done it?

Not so long ago I got the dreaded not enough disk space, recently everything has been fine and although I've yet to actually check how much disk space I have free if it needs doing it looks a fairly simple process I was just wondering whether anyone has any horror stories that might put me off doing it?

I've read online about people not being able to do updates and such like following the upgrade? Anything I need to make sure off before I go ahead?

Presumably we are ok to talk about this here?

:)
 
upgraded from 120 to 500 very easy process.
though my job was easy cause as soon as i bought the ps3 slim i just removed the hdd before i even powered it up and replaced it with a 500gig hdd then powered the ps3 and it done the rest

all was required was me to get the latest software and place it on a usb stick and pop it in the ps3 as i booted up...

but if you already have data on your ps3 then you must stick in a usb hdd and copy all data to that first before replaceing the hdd then copy it all back ect.
 
Why would it not be allowed to talk about this? Sony support HDD upgrades and there is no problem with it. I think you are over analyzing it. Take the old one out, new one in...job done. I did it in a few minutes when I did mine with no issues.
 
decmatt said:
PlayTV was the reason for me upgrading to 500gb
Click to expand...
Same here, plus I have all my MP3s and photos on there, which amounts to a fairly chunky wedge of storage needed.
I have a 320GB one in mine and I'm up to about 250GB currently. About 50GB of that is Match of the Day though :D
 
Upgrading the hard drive on the fat and slim PS3s is a doddle, the only consideration to make is the backup of your data, as that can take hours and hours to complete, then just as much time to restore it over!

I originally upgraded my fat 60gig to a 250 WD “blue” something I drive I purchased from OcUK, but had no end of problems with it – the PS3 would often start up in the hidden menu mode, telling me that the file system needed to be repaired, I wasn’t doing anything different but this became a regular issue so I swapped back to the original drive. Odd really, as that WD drive works fine as an external backup drive on my PC…

If you’re going to do a drive swap on the slim model, you will have to reload the firmware from a USB stick, as I don’t think it stores it in an EPROM like the fat model, but other than that the process is pretty straight-forward.

My own 2p on the PS3’s backup – delete everything you can afford to lose, i.e. any downloaded demos, PSN games and game data; this way the backup is only making a copy of the crucial stuff i.e. your savegames.
 
Scort said:
Upgrading the hard drive on the fat and slim PS3s is a doddle, the only consideration to make is the backup of your data, as that can take hours and hours to complete, then just as much time to restore it over!

I originally upgraded my fat 60gig to a 250 WD “blue” something I drive I purchased from OcUK, but had no end of problems with it – the PS3 would often start up in the hidden menu mode, telling me that the file system needed to be repaired, I wasn’t doing anything different but this became a regular issue so I swapped back to the original drive. Odd really, as that WD drive works fine as an external backup drive on my PC…

If you’re going to do a drive swap on the slim model, you will have to reload the firmware from a USB stick, as I don’t think it stores it in an EPROM like the fat model, but other than that the process is pretty straight-forward.

My own 2p on the PS3’s backup – delete everything you can afford to lose, i.e. any downloaded demos, PSN games and game data; this way the backup is only making a copy of the crucial stuff i.e. your savegames.
Click to expand...

Yup i agree with that. My backup of my recent Slim upgrade from 120g to 250g only took 2-3 hrs to backup, but took around 10hrs to restore.

Previosly I just backed up the save games and swapped out, then re-downloaded from account management.. Was a lot quicker but involved a lot more babysitting.

Oh and if you do the backup, you'll think there's something wrong cos the 1st time you run anything its as slow as the molasses. It must re-index everything upon 1st run ? I don't know. Example Fifa10 took about 5mins to start, at first i thought the system had locked itself..
 
The reason behind this thread was because out the corner of my eye I thought I had seen a notification regarding low disk space, I found out how to check it and all was fine and I'd barely touched the 37gb - it was obviously just the PS3 having a moment, well until now!

Having just installed Heavy Rain, it's update and the first downloadable episode and now my PS3 is saying it has less than 500mb, this was after just by coincidence as I was bored waiting for the updates to download I actually did go through a remove a lot of old game saves for games I don't have anymore.

I've got the 40gb version of the PS3 and honestly cant believe that I have used over 36gb of the 37gb is says is available :mad:

Is there anyway of seeing where it claims all the data has gone?
 
Have you deleted the old game data also? Saves and Game data are different. Some games install a lot before you can play them.
 
ZG002 said:
Have you deleted the old game data also? Saves and Game data are different. Some games install a lot before you can play them.
Click to expand...

Yep done both mate

I could go and delete things like Home that I never go on but surely I shouldn't have to? It's a 40gb HDD not a 4gb :p
 
Do you use play tv?, Demos can run into 1gb+ each, Music, Movies? 40gb is nothing these days,

Id look at upgrading that hdd.

Just checked mine and I've used 90gb. I have no movies or music on there. Few demos and games, 1 play tv program
 
As mentioned, look out for the screws on the Phat models. It's so easy to strip the thread as they are really tightly fixed in.
 
ZG002 said:
Do you use play tv?, Demos can run into 1gb+ each, Music, Movies? 40gb is nothing these days,

Id look at upgrading that hdd.

Just checked mine and I've used 90gb. I have no movies or music on there. Few demos and games, 1 play tv program
Click to expand...

That's what got me mate, I've got no demo's no music, no movies, no nothing! Only my game data which I'll admit for games like Bioshock and Bioshock 2 does look to be about 4/5gb each :eek:

I guess it's just accumulated over time, would still be good if there was a way of finding exactly where what disk space has gone where :confused:
 
game data/info

count them all up. :)

See how much they come too

Home takes up like 3gb also
 
I bought a 40gb PS3 on impulse when I saw them on offer for £200 (which was an absolute bargain at the time!) used it for 2-3 days. I could tell that it was something I was going to use quite a lot (which it has been) so bought a 250gb HDD from here for £38. I've never had any problems with it.

There are videos an youtube that show step-by-step guides on how to do it. The only slight problems you might have are, as already mentioned, the tight screws in the HDD cradle and, part way through formatting your new drive, it will probably give a message saying "insert media containing firmware Vx.xx or newer. Luckily I had a USB storage stick lying around so I downloaded it from the PS3 site. Oh and if you have to do this, the update has be placed in the correct folder on the stick, not just in the root.
 
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