The PS3 has been available with a range of hard drive sizes over the past few years, spanning from 20GB to 160GB. Having a PS3 hard drive allows you download games, demos and HD videos as well as store all of your save games and other settings.
But what happens when you run out of hard drive space on your PS3? Luckily for us, Sony has made it so the hard drive can be upgraded to a larger capacity with ease. In fact replacing the actual drive only takes a few minutes. I’m going to break down exactly how to do it throughout this tutorial.
What You Will Need For The PS3 Hard Drive Upgrade
You only need a couple of things to perform the PS3 hard drive upgrade-
1) Replacement PS3 Hard Drive (2.5″ SATA Hard Drive)
The first thing you need is a bigger capacity hard drive. When looking for a suitable replacement make sure that you pick a SATA based 2.5″ hard drive. It is important you get a 2.5″ sized drive to make sure it fits inside the PS3 properly and as long as it has a SATA connection you won’t have any problems. Do not buy a drive with an IDE connection, it must be SATA or SATA-II.
There is no limit on the capacity of the drive, so you can upgrade to a 320GB, 500GB or even a 1000GB (1TB) drive if you want to!
So remember you need a-
- 2.5″ sized hard drive
- SATA or SATA-II connection
- Any storage capacity you choose
Recommended PS3 Hard Drive Retailers
I’ve been shopping online for nearly a decade specifically when it comes to any computer hardware related items. This is mainly because online component retailers are substantially cheaper than their high street counterparts such as PC world.
I have had great experiences with the following retailers that stock suitable PS3 hard drive upgrade replacements-
2) A Small Phillips Screwdriver
You probably have a small Phillips screwdriver around the house somewhere. Try and use the smallest one you can find. If you try and force the screws with a bigger screwdriver as they are quite soft they are easily rounded.
3) External Hard Drive (Optional)
If you have a lot of music, videos and game saves on your current drive, then you might want to back them up and transfer them to the new drive.
If you want to do this you will also require a USB external hard drive that is in the FAT32 format. If you’re not sure if it is FAT32 formatted, then plug it into your computer, open my computer and right click on the drive and select format. Then choose FAT32 from the drop down. Beware performing a format will erase any existing data on the external drive.
Backing up your data is an optional step though
How To Install The PS3 Hard Drive Upgrade
Sony have made it very easy to perform the PS3 hard drive upgrade, in fact that backing up and restoration of data takes the longest and that is an optional step.
Step 1 – Data Backup (Optional)
The PS3 comes with a handy application specifically for backing up and restoring the data on your hard drive. You can find the application by-
- Go into settings
- Select system settings
- Select backup utility
- Select backup
Then just follow the onscreen instructions to begin backing up your existing hard drive. This may take a while depending how much data your backing up.
Step 2 – Replacing The Drive
Now it’s time to perform the actual PS3 hard drive upgrade. All you need to do is remove the old drive, put the new one in its place and voila! It should only take you about 5 minutes to do.
First of all turn off the PS3 and unplug all cables before continuing.
On the right hand side of the PS3 you will see plastic tab with a HDD sticker, use a small screwdriver to prise this off. Once you have access to this panel, gently remove the blue screw with a Phillips screwdriver.
Now flick up the metal latch as pictured above and gently pull it so the drive slides out.
Next you need to remove the four screws that are holding the old hard drive to the tray. Don’t apply to much pressure to the screws; they are very easy to round off so be gentle!
Next swap your old hard drive, for your shiny new high capacity hard drive. Put the new drive into the tray and put the 4 screws back in place.
Finally slide the tray back into the PS3, replace the blue screw and snap the panel back on.
Step 3 – Setting Up The Drive
Now the new hard drive has been successfully fitted, it’s time to perform the final step in the upgrade process.
Plug the console back in and turn it on, it will automatically recognise that a new hard drive has been fitted. Follow on the onscreen instructions to format your new drive ready for usage. It’s pretty straight forward!
Once the format is complete, the PS3 hard drive upgrade is finished and you can now use your new higher capacity drive to your heart’s content.
Step 4 – Restoring Your Back (Optional)
If you chose to backup your data as outlined in step 1, then you will need to restore it to your new hard drive. Restoring the data is just as easy as backing it up-
- Go into settings
- Select system settings
- Select backup utility
- Select restore
Just follow the onscreen instructions to begin the restoration process. Again, this could take a while depending on how much data you’re trying to restore.
Wrapping It Up
Well that’s all there is to it! Hopefully the most challenging part in replacing your PS3 hard drive has been removing and replacing the 4 screws. Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you get stuck or run into any problems as I’m more than happy to help where I can.
It might also be watching this short YouTube video which demonstrates the entire process start to finish
