Advice for Upgrading Ps3 HDD

[Mitho]

My question to you is, is it worth it to go out and buy a new laptop hard drive and install that in place of the current one? OR buy a portable/external hard-drive and add it to my current set up?

If I buy and install a portable, does it exist as extra memory, or as a completely separate drive. I'm not really interested in putting movies/music on my ps3 but I have a lot of games that I just can't delete the save files/game data files.

Pros/Cons?

Cheers.

 

[Xtreme]

Don't quote me, but i don't think an external hdd can be used for game saves/game installs - at least directly putting them on there as you are playing. It's more beneficial for music, pictures and videos.

Buying a internal laptop/notebook 2.5" hdd and installing it is fairly easy, there are a few cautionary moments though, mainly to do with the screw that holds the drive cage in the ps3, as well as the screws holding the hdd into place in the compartment that comes out. Unless you use the right size screwdriver, they can strip easily (thus become very hard to unscrew).

 

[SpaceCow]

You can chuck game saves on a portable hard drive but not game data.

Any 2.5inch hard drive can be substituted into the PS3, depending on what model though you'll want to use a 5600rpm drive rather than a 7200rpm. If its an older model than I'd recommend 5600 becuase the console itself will already generate enough heat and add to it the extra from running a hard drive faster then that = bad things.

Of course 7200rpm drives will load and run games quicker though. The actual process is easy enough. Many FAQ's on the internet (you probably won't even need one unless you are a complete and utter n00b), it generally takes 10-15 minutes.

One last thing, make sure your PS3 has been off for at least 30 mins before trying to take out the hard drive because trying to open the screws while they are warm will increase the chances of stroipping the screws and rendering them useless. Of course you will lose all your save data and game data if you take the drive out so make sure to back up and transfer before doing so.

 

[HBK619]

The portable will only ever exist as an external drive, so it will mean that once you fill up your current PS3 Hard Drive you'll have to delete information as you aren't able to transfer the GAME data (stuff like DLC/patches/install data). However game saves will exist on the portable, but cannot be used as the sole point of use (as in you NEED the PS3 HDD for the original save).

You can do a full Hard Drive copy to a portable external hard drive through the system settings. This will transfer as much transferable data over to the portable hard drive so it exists as a back up of sorts should your PS3 cark it or whatever, but you can't use this as a file keeper to pick and choose want you want to put back. It's a one or all thing.

For me I swapped out my original PS3 Hard Drive about 2+ years ago now and am still more than 100GB away from filling it up with countless PSN games, demo's, game installs, saves, videos, music all on my console. It's well worth the upgrade.

However if you do upgrade to a new Hard Drive you will lose all the current data on your PS3 as the Hard Drive does have to format to the PS3 and once you've replaced it you can't put your old one back in and be fine.

So it might take the investment of getting both a portable hard drive and the laptop hard drive. Transfer your current PS3 data to the portable and then install the new laptop hard drive, then transfer that portable data back and you'll have your PS3 working as it was before only with far more HDD space.

The whole screws thing is a bit of an issue, but I believe if you have a later model PS3 (as in somewhere close to a Slim and after) you'll have no issues since the screws used are FAR less simple to strip.