Do It Yourself: More Storage For Your PlayStation 3
Table of contents
- 1. Turning The PlayStation Into A Media Repository
- 2. Sony’s PlayStation 3 Slim
- 3. To Do List For Your Hard Drive Upgrade
The latest PlayStation 3 Slim offers up to 250 GB of storage on its built-in hard drive. But enthusiasts are better off paying Sony less for a cheaper model and upgrading immediately to a larger hard drive. We show you how in four simple steps.
Sony’s PlayStation 3 (PS3) has been available since 2006, but today's models retain only the core feature set from the original. The latest PlayStation 3 Slim is, well, slimmer than the first revision, and it's available with 120 GB and 250 GB capacities for $349 and $429, respectively. Whether or not you’re a gamer, you can’t ignore the console as an all-around multimedia box that also serves as a Blu-ray player. Today, we're looking at what it takes to replace the built-in hard drive with a larger storage option, so that you can turn your PS3 into a respectable data repository.
Sony has already sold more than 30 million PlayStation 3 units, making it one of the dominant products on the console market. It competes with Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii, trailing those two in overall sales, according to VGChartz.com. The console right for you depends on a few different factors.
First of all, there's a chance that a game you like is only available on one console. If so, your choice is already made. Otherwise, we can generalize about the three options. Nintendo's Wii just aims at fun. It doesn’t support HD video, digital audio, or similar media-slanted technologies. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 bridges the PC and gaming console worlds by interfacing with Windows Media Center on a conventional PC. And the PlayStation 3 comes with a Blu-ray player, on top of its slightly-superior hardware. From a purely technical standpoint, PS3 is the way to go.
The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 qualify as media servers, but we’ll only focus on the Sony product in this article. As mentioned, the current rendition comes with either a 120 GB or 250 GB hard drive. This is sufficient for most users, but if you want to really store all your pictures and video, especially high-def content, then you’ll probably run out of storage capacity rather quickly. Luckily, the PlayStation 3 Slim can be upgraded with a larger hard drive, and we exchanged the built-in 250 GB disk with a new 640 GB drive.
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Thats a lot of drama for a toy.
Thats a lot of drama for a toy.
This entire site can be described by that statement (albeit thats a pretty negative way of looking at it). I'm guessing you're new here?
You forgot something very important.
The USB backup drive must be formatted as FAT32 or the PS3 won't recognize it. If you're using an external hard drive, you'll need to re-format it.
me: This article could have been better if a couple of HDD's were benchmarked in Linux.
voices: ... Linux support was dropped ...
me: curse you sony!!!
Those screws for the HDD cage are really SOFT! Whats it made of clay? I could crush them with a pair of pliers!
If the PS3 is "one of the dominant products on the console market" yet is trailing the 360 and the Wii in sales, how exactly is it dominant?
Good article anyways - I'd like to see a 360 version.
Oh!!! I have a completely unrelated Question!!!
I'm using play tv to record stuff, and I want to be able to copy some of the files off of the ps3 so I can put them on my file server and other members of my family can play them from their rooms.
it allows me to do this, you transfer the file from play tv to the ps3 system menu, and its in the video section just like any other video, and from there you can copy it off, i've been using an external hdd. BUT! external USB drives have to be FAT formatted, so you can only have files a maximum of 4 gig! so... how do I copy recordings bigger than 4 gig off of my ps3?
If the PS3 is "one of the dominant products on the console market" yet is trailing the 360 and the Wii in sales, how exactly is it dominant?Good article anyways - I'd like to see a 360 version.
people usually come back to toms articles long after they've been posted. maybe they are just future proofing
also, here is the 360 version:
Do It Yourself: More Storage For Your Xbox 360:
Go down to your local games retailer, buy the ridiculously priced Microsoft branded proprietary hard drive.
(or... maybe you could just buy an external hard drive and leave it plugged in all the time, I don't have a 360 so I don't know what limitations there are with this.)
Be sure to use pliers to loosen the screws before using a screwdriver or they will almost certainly strip.
Good article anyways - I'd like to see a 360 version.
That's a pretty good way to get banned (unless you're getting the same model as what's inside MS are selling).
Please explain why most 750GB and 1TB drives won't work? Are they too hot or do they require too much power?
So is the above
Hmm, I just upgraded my old 40Gb PS3 with a 250Gb drive and I never bothered or needed to do any of that stupid firmware backup/restore stuff.
Just switched the drives over, turned the console on and that was that.
Is the PS3 Slim even more crippled that I thought and doesn't have any kind of built in firmware/OS that stays in the console when the HDD is replaced?
I don't really see the point, as I have a router with a usb port and share a 1tb drive over dlna on the 360 or the ps3. I have the fat version(3.15
)I see this whole article as a advertisement for sony. Go to "that game store" and get a used fat for 50 more than a new one and just throw in a drive, all that backup stuff not needed that way 
. You will get all the features that the slim has, and alot more. Is there a reason why their stock price has slid since 3.21 firmware came out? 
I want to see someone upgrade their PS3 with an SSD. TAKE THAT LOAD TIMES. My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, Prepare to DIE!!
This is news? I did this 3 years ago. If you're gonna backup your old hard drive you need third party software to create a FAT32 partition big enough to back up your stuff. Data transfer takes forever. Backing up 40 gigs of stuff takes 3 hours and transferring it back takes another 3 hours. If you're doing this, make sure you don't plan on playing any games for the whole day. I used a WD Black when I first got my PS3, it died within a week. Then I used a 320GB Seagate and it was been running good for 3 years+ now. 320GB is more than enough space. My content is only taking up like 80GB.
Not that it's a bad article but there's already literally hundreds of such articles on websites, including PlayStation.com
Next week you might write an article to let us know there's an oil spill because I think it's been covered less than this topic.
Next week x360 HDD upgrade guide? Isn't that hard either, but it requires a WD scorpio.
I want to see someone upgrade their PS3 with an SSD. TAKE THAT LOAD TIMES. My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, Prepare to DIE!!
it's been done. Minimal speed increases, not worth the effort.
I want to see someone upgrade their PS3 with an SSD. TAKE THAT LOAD TIMES. My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, Prepare to DIE!!
There ya go.