Upgrading the Hard Drive

TheVoid · 02/05/13 - 06:58

Hi, I'm thinking of buying a 1TB hard drive for my PS3 slim.

Had a couple of questions though....

If I take out my current hard drive and install my new one - let's say my new one became faulty, if I pop in my old one that still has all the downloads I had on it, would it work?

i.e. could I have a spare backup drive with all my games on it?

Ash_735 · 02/05/13 - 07:11

No, everytime a new hard drive is inserted into a PS3, the console will automatically want to reformat fresh so it can manage things how it likes.

TheVoid · 02/05/13 - 07:15

Ash_735 wrote: »

No, everytime a new hard drive is inserted into a PS3, the console will automatically want to reformat fresh so it can manage things how it likes.

Ah ok thanks Ash.

I've been looking at the Samsung HN-M101MBB which has 5 out of 5 on Amazon. Would you say this is ok?

Also, would I need to bother keeping my 320GB hard drive that came with my console? I supose I would as part of my warrenty right?

Conroy · 02/05/13 - 08:40

My Samsung Spinpoint M8 1TB has been acting up recently. Mainly slow transfer speeds over USB. Traffic over the network seems fine and I just re-downloaded Starhawk (9357MB) in 22 minutes.

I think it needs some serious defragging, I've had it for 2.5 years and it has been used a lot.

Yes you need to keep your 320GB HDD. You could use it as an external HDD (use a prog called Fat32Format) for now but you need it for warranty purposes.

TheVoid · 02/05/13 - 16:01

How would you defrag it though? Wipe the PS3 hard drive and start all over again?

fastest finger · 02/05/13 - 16:41

TheVoid wrote: »

How would you defrag it though? Wipe the PS3 hard drive and start all over again?

You can do restores of the File System and Database which should tidy things up but won't delete any data. There are guides dotted around if you google it.

TheVoid · 02/05/13 - 17:26

Went for this one in the end:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0053YLTBC/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Also bought a cheap caddy to go with the 320GB drive from my PS3.

TheVoid · 02/05/13 - 17:57

When I do the upgrade, I'm going to fresh install everything rather than doing a backup. I don't have a spare drive to do a backup anyway.

Anything I should be aware of before doing this? Last time I attempted this was in 2011, and there was a problem with the current firmware 3.56 which prevented you from changing the hard drive... and I'd already wiped my PS3 hard drive before starting so I was screwed!

homer2012 · 02/05/13 - 18:54

No issues but i did recommend a better hardrive not long back for you.

Plug play and away u go

TheVoid · 02/05/13 - 18:57

homer2012 wrote: »

No issues but i did recommend a better hardrive not long back for you.

Plug play and away u go

Thanks, but I needed to get it from Amazon as I had credit, and this went over my budget as it is. 5 out of 5 stars in the reviews so can't be that bad.

Conroy · 02/05/13 - 20:44

TheVoid wrote: »

How would you defrag it though? Wipe the PS3 hard drive and start all over again?

Yep. I'll plug it into my PC, format it and then see what defrag tools Windows 7 offers.

I will also be able to better test its reading/writing speeds once it's connected.

s2k · 03/05/13 - 01:03

Conroy wrote: »

Yep. I'll plug it into my PC, format it and then see what defrag tools Windows 7 offers.

I will also be able to better test its reading/writing speeds once it's connected.

There is no point plugging it into the PC since the PS3 will format the drive into its own encrypted filesystem regardless. The data on it cannot be accessed by a PC, Mac or any other PS3 console. The only useful thing you could do if you really wanted, would be to use something like SeaTools to confirm the health status of the drive.

If you need to transfer data off the old drive you have to use the backup utility from within the XMB and save the backup to a USB drive (which has to be in FAT32 format). This can then be imported onto the new system when it has been set up.

Depending on the model of PS3 you may also need a copy of the firmware on a USB flash drive for the initial setup.

Conroy · 03/05/13 - 04:49

s2k wrote: »

There is no point plugging it into the PC since the PS3 will format the drive into its own encrypted filesystem regardless. The data on it cannot be accessed by a PC, Mac or any other PS3 console. The only useful thing you could do if you really wanted, would be to use something like SeaTools to confirm the health status of the drive.

If you need to transfer data off the old drive you have to use the backup utility from within the XMB and save the backup to a USB drive (which has to be in FAT32 format). This can then be imported onto the new system when it has been set up.

Depending on the model of PS3 you may also need a copy of the firmware on a USB flash drive for the initial setup.

I'm aware of all of that, I've had my PS3 since launch and have upgraded the HDD a few times over the years.

I want to see how my HDD is performing outside of the PS3 as I know it's not currently 100%.

s2k · 03/05/13 - 13:46

Conroy wrote: »

I'm aware of all of that, I've had my PS3 since launch and have upgraded the HDD a few times over the years.

I want to see how my HDD is performing outside of the PS3 as I know it's not currently 100%.

You wont be able to do any normal performance tests since the data wont be readable. If you perform a format on it, this will wipe everything and leave you with nothing to defrag so you would simply be wasting your time.

SeaTools will let you perform a DST and a SMART health check - these are low-level tests on the drive itself (which ignore any data that may or may not be on it) and can tell you straight if the drive is failing.

Conroy · 03/05/13 - 15:58

s2k wrote: »

You wont be able to do any normal performance tests since the data wont be readable. If you perform a format on it, this will wipe everything and leave you with nothing to defrag so you would simply be wasting your time.

SeaTools will let you perform a DST and a SMART health check - these are low-level tests on the drive itself (which ignore any data that may or may not be on it) and can tell you straight if the drive is failing.

This is why I'm going to plug it into the PC. It is unperforming at the moment and I want a clear(er) picture of what the drive is doing as well as checking for bad sectors. I have used several of the PS3s utilities in the last month including a format and the problem still persists.

Losing the data on it isn't a problem. I've been backing up save data since the day I got it and I can download 10GB in 25 minutes from the PSN.

Whilst I'm doing that on the PC, I can put one of my older smaller HDDs back in the PS3 and carry out some tests to eliminate/highlight a possible failing Blu-ray drive.

s2k · 03/05/13 - 22:51

Conroy wrote: »

This is why I'm going to plug it into the PC. It is unperforming at the moment and I want a clear(er) picture of what the drive is doing as well as checking for bad sectors. I have used several of the PS3s utilities in the last month including a format and the problem still persists.

Losing the data on it isn't a problem. I've been backing up save data since the day I got it and I can download 10GB in 25 minutes from the PSN.

Whilst I'm doing that on the PC, I can put one of my older smaller HDDs back in the PS3 and carry out some tests to eliminate/highlight a possible failing Blu-ray drive.

Jolly good then. If I were you I wouldn't bother putting the smaller drive into the PS3 though - if you do this it will format and pair up with that and treat the original drive as foreign. Even if you have backups its a lot of faffing around and repeated steps, and as you mention it may not even be that the disk is faulty. A check with SeaTools wont mess with any of the data so if it comes back clean you could always just shove it back in afterwards and try some other things.

Hey there!

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