Home Theater Forum - View Single Post - New to Blu? Buy a PS3: the most featured BD hardware available...

Jari K · 08-30-2008, 04:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cees Alons

I don't know if replacing both discs might work (it might), but I'm sure I would do it the other way around to start with: first copy the internal disc to the external USB disc and only then try to swap them.

(NOTE: I haven´t done this yet myself, so all the info below is something that I have read in various forums/sources. Please confirm it yourself before doing anything..)

I believe first you use "Backup Utility" ( PS3™ | Backup Utility ) from PS3. For this you´ll need external, USB-based hard drive (if you have plenty of stuff, that´s - of course you can also use memory sticks and such*). Then you "return" the info from the external hard drive back to PS3 (when you´ve new and bigger HD installed).

*=Data can be backed up on Memory Stick, SD Memory Card, CompactFlash, and USB mass storage devices.

With games saves, I guess it´s good to first move them to memory stick, just in case (before using "Backup Utility"). You can always re-download those photos, videos and MP3s (and also actual games), but if game saves are gone...

I believe you can´t move the actual games (not sure about demos..) with "Backup Utility", so you need download those again (not that big of a deal) from the PS network. Also stuff that has this DRM-protection cannot be moved, IMO.

I also believe that you can´t move your stuff (with "Backup Utility") "straight" to computer. You´ll need external USB hard drive etc.

Few notes: Only 2,5" SATA hard drives (for the laptops) work with PS3.
Some say, that it´s best to choose the one with "5400rpm".
In my country many have chosen Western Digital Scorpio 320GB 2.5" SATA-300 5400rpm 8MB. There are of course others..

When you have the new (bigger) hard drive installed to PS3, you have format it first (I guess "full format" takes some time, so prepare for that). I guess "full format" is recommended. I believe you always have to reformat the HD that you install to PS3 (so say "bye bye" to the info in the "original PS3 HD").

PS3 reserves automatically some space from the hard drive, so with e.g. 320gb HD, you´ll actually have 263/298gb of space left (so don´t worry, if you don´t have exactly 320gb available..).

One video that I found (worth to check, very informal and well made):
Three Speech » How to change a PlayStation 3 hard disc…

Quote:

Originally Posted by CraigF

As far as re-using the original PS3 drive, I don't see that as a problem in general, but the issue is can you re-use it as-is to access your old stuff.

You probably can use the original PS3 drive in general, but like I said earlier, you need to reformat every new hard drive that´s installed to PS3 and that also means the "original PS3 drive". So in any case, you´ll lose all the data from that "original drive" if you want to put it "back" at some point.