Upgrading the PS3 harddrive

testisbest

testisbest

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Hola CAGers. I was wondering if anyone on here has experience upgrading their PS3's hard drive. I've been doing my research on upgrading and the process looks surprisingly easy.
I do have a few concerns though. Some people have problems with their PS3's skipping at certain times after they upgrade. If I was going to upgrade I'd probably go for a 500 GB HD. But from what I've read, the bigger the HD, the more likely PS3 skipping will occur.
Probably not as important, the two options are 5400 and 7200RPM. 7200RPM hard drives seem to show some increase in speed over 5400 but supposedly run hotter as well, increasing the tendency for PS3s to overheat.
I'm basically looking for reassurances from those of you who've upgraded. (And to get a little knowledge about the HD you chose) I don't want to go through the whole process and learn that I was better off leaving my PS3 as is.

Thanks All
 
There are a lot of posts on the board regarding this topic. I'd do a quick search in the PS3 forum for "harddrive" and see what comes up.

The long and short of it is this: It's as easy as it sounds (if not easier), and you shouldn't go over 5400. Anything faster and you risk overheating. Put in a 500gb WD "scorpio blue" and haven't looked back.
 
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I stripped the blue screw, now I can't get my HDD out. The screw was in very tight, I couldn't even unscrew it at all, not even a little and five minutes later it was stripped. Probably the one reason that would stop me from getting PSN plus since I don't have the space to store all that content the plus would provide.
 
You need a lot more downward pressure than torque on the blue screw, also, a well fitting screwdriver... I think I used a #1 precision screwdriver.
 
I think the newer the PS3, the more likely you are to not have trouble with the "blue screw". I bought my PS3 maybe a month before the Slims were announced, and when I upgraded my hard drive a while back I had no problems with any screws. Also, for that matter, when comparing a video guide on Youtube to what I had, there were slight differences in the drive caddy. I think Sony changed things around to make it easier.
 
I got a 500gb seagate one at first after reading loads of recommendations as seagate made the original PS3 one. However it made a slight clicking noise and upon power up wouldn't pick up the HDD and need powering up and down. The Scorpio one at the time was often put down by people (though when I got it no one had a big HDD in there PS3) but I saw it for a good price so picked it up.

It's wonderful, absolutely silent with no problems at all. Just remember the PS3 limits the RPM so anything too high will just be limited and thus pointless.
 
Just updated the HD to 500 gigs with the WD Scorpio Blue that Best Buy had on sale. The absolute hardest part was getting out the stripped screws. The overall consensus on the internet is to use a pair of needle nose pliers to to get them out. It took me close to thirty minutes to take out the 3 of the smaller stripped screws on the HD casing.

Other than that, everything else was a smooth process.
 
If you're stripping the screw, use a bigger screwdriver. The blue screw on a few PS3s (older and newer) caused me no trouble at all.
 
Mine was a bit stiff, but well, It wasn't that hard - just get the right type of screwdriver.
 
Upgraded my 60 Gig PS3 a few months back with a Seagate. Very easy process. Just back up your data, pop out the hard drive, pop in the new one, and run a restore. Very simple and I haven't had any problems with freezing or anything like that.
 
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