Missing PS3 HD Space

I need some advice as to about 10 - 15 gb of missing HD space. When I look at the System Info it says I have 8316mb/149gb of free space.

So I finally decided  to pull out my PS3 from storage and dl all the games I've been buying online. After dling most of the games I am now out of HD space but can't figure out where it went.

Here's the breakdown of what I've found: (I've rounded some of these up)

PS1 games total 41 at 18gb

PS2 games total 8 games at 24 gb

PS3 games total 30 games at 70 gb

1 Movie at 7gb

1 Soundtrack at 378 Mb

Saves and other things I've found 4.32 gb

So where did the missing 10 - 15 gb go? I also added the PSP and Vita games that are ready to install (bubble). I've only seen one update for a game but it wasn't even a GB. I'm trying to find out because I have two more games I have to install and don't want to delete or buy another HD.

[quote name="Gideon68" post="12784887" timestamp="1436055250"]I need some advice as to about 10 - 15 gb of missing HD space. When I look at the System Info it says I have 8316mb/149gb of free space.

So I finally decided to pull out my PS3 from storage and dl all the games I've been buying online. After dling most of the games I am now out of HD space but can't figure out where it went.

Here's the breakdown of what I've found: (I've rounded some of these up)

PS1 games total 41 at 18gb
PS2 games total 8 games at 24 gb
PS3 games total 30 games at 70 gb
1 Movie at 7gb
1 Soundtrack at 378 Mb

Saves and other things I've found 4.32 gb

So where did the missing 10 - 15 gb go? I also added the PSP and Vita games that are ready to install (bubble). I've only seen one update for a game but it wasn't even a GB. I'm trying to find out because I have two more games I have to install and don't want to delete or buy another HD.[/quote]

Hard drive formatting and system software.

I accounted for 23 gb of it already. 160gb - 149Gb = 11gb plus I added another 10 for 21gb. Is that not enough? At this rate it would be around 36 gb for formatting and system software.

It's possible that system and user profiles are using up that 8GB but that seems like a lot. 

The only other things I can think of are BD data and PS3 game data (not actual PS3 games, but the updates and cache). 

Some BD discs install some kind of data on the system for special features, though these are usually small 2-3 MBs each so I doubt that's the cause.. unless you watch a lot of BDs. The other is what I would guess would be the culprit unless you're already accounting for that in your 4.32GB? 

yeah, don't watch blu-rays on this system and no one uses it so other profiles and possible games on their account isn't a factor. I can't believe game updates would take up 15 gb especially since the system's only prompted me once that a game had an update and it wasn't even a gig. The only way to find out for sure would be to delete and reinstall everything and I don't want to waste my time doing that. Too bad this isn't as clear as the 360 seems to be.

I'm way too tired to be doing this and haven't booted up my PS3 in a while to check but here goes:

You are at ~124GB in size with everything you listed.  You have 149GB worth of usable space after formatting and that includes your system software.  Add in the ~8GB that you have free and you are at 132GB.  I really do not remember how large the system software is but this seems right.

Also remember block sizes count.  That's old school stuff but larger hard drives waste more space due to larger block sizes.  I do not even remember what the block size is but as an example let's use 1024, 2048, 4096, and 8192 block sizes.  A left over 100k chunk takes up 1 block regardless of the size so there is excess wasted space.  There is that to consider as well but that will not get into the GB range but it will take up space with a lot of small files.

Ok, this is sorta related but figured it's worth sharing. 

I have the 80GB MGS4 bundle (the fat black system, that has software PS2 compatibility) that I've had since launch and after a few months of purchasing it, I replaced the stock HDD with a 320GB HDD.

I backed up my data last night and just now, I decided to swap out the HDD for a new 500GB HDD. I turned off my PS3, flipped the main power switch in the back, replaced the old 320GB HDD with the new 500GB HDD... and things got weird. 

When I started up my PS3, told me I'd need to format, as expected. I said yes and let it do it's thing. When it was done... all of my user profiles were back and the system was ready to go. I didn't even have my USB drive with the latest firmware on there (as you'd normally need to). I didn't have anything in the USB drive or the media ports.

Of my 465GB of available space, only 413 is free. Literally, just after formatting the new HDD and no updates whatsoever. For all I can tell, all that's on my PS3 is 4 user profiles-- just profiles and PSN log in data (no trophies, no game saves/installs, etc.). 

I'm still baffled as to what's up with the missing data. Could 4 profiles really take up 52GB? But I'm more baffled as to how the PS3 remembered the firmware and the user profiles. AFAIK, the PS3 has no other storage, outside of the HDD... does it? 

Go to the Game Ultility folder and thats where all the installs are. Thats what youre looking for.