Change harddrive on Playstation 3

Detailed guide on how to change your Playstation 3 harddrive.

I received my Seagate Momentus 160GB S-ATA harddrive today, which is one of two reasons for making this guide. The other reason is you. Yes, you!

Disclaimer: Sorry for the bad quality on pictures, just to give you a visual and I hope it is enough. I do not take any responsibility for damaged or otherwise defect hardware, you do this entirely on your own risk.

Important: If you ever have to send your Playstation 3 to repair, I advice you to replace the custom harddrive with the stock harddrive that you got with the console when you bought it. Don’t yell at me if you receive a new Playstation 3 with a 40GB harddrive and lost your custom harddrive.

Standard Playstation 3 harddrive specs

• S-ATA
• 2.5″ (Same harddrive that is in your standard laptop)
• 5400 Rounds Per Minute (RPM)
• 40GB, 60GB or 80GB harddrive by default depending on your model

What you need

• Screwdriver that fits the screws connecting the harddrive
• New harddrive (It has to be 2.5″, other than that you’re free) for your Playstation 3, 5400 RPM drives are recommended since they produce less heat
• External harddrive/storage formatted with FAT32, should have enough space to backup the current files on your Playstation 3 harddrive (You can check this in Playstation’s XMB by “Settings -> System Settings -> System Information -> Free Space”)
• Step 1-4. is only to be done if you wish to backup current data on your Playstation 3, if you do not have any data to backup you can jump directly to point 5.

1.
Prepare your Playstation 3

• Turn on your Playstation 3
• Plug in the USB-cable connected to the device you wish to store the backup on

2.
Backup the data on your Playstation 3, if you want to keep the data (Game Data, Save Data, Video, Music, Pictures), Settings -> System Settings -> Backup Utility

3.
Choose to backup

4.
Select the device you wish the backupdata on (In the guide I used a ‘Creative Zen Vision: M’, MP3 player)

5.
Prepare your Playstation 3

• Turn off the Playstation 3
• Disconnect all cables, including the USB-cable to your external storage

6.
Open up the tray to access the harddrive-case. This is located on the left side when the Playstation 3 is laying horizontal.

7.
Remove the lock, you’ll now see three screws, the blue one holds the harddrive-case in place

8.
Pick up your prefered screwdriver and get the blue screw out

9.
The harddrive-case is now free, slide it to the right as shown in picture 10.

10.
Just like that

11.
Lift the harddrive-case upward and out of the Playstation 3

12.
Pick up your prefered screwdriver and get the four grey screws out. Get the harddrive out of the case

13.
Repeat the last 8 steps just in reverse

• Insert the new harddrive into the case
• Fasten the screws (Not too hard)
• Gently slide the harddrive-case back down in the Playstation 3
• Slide the case to the left
• Fasten the blue screw
• Put on the plastic lock
• Connect the cables to your Playstation 3
• Turn on the Playstation 3

14.
Format the new harddrive

15.
Plug in the USB-cable connected to your storage-device with the backup

16.
Browse to your System Settings

17.
Select the Restore Utility

18.
Select the Restore option

19.
Choose the storage-device containing the Playstation 3 backup files

20.
This takes a while, depending on how large the file of your system is, my system was 7.9GB and it took roughly one hour to restore.

If you followed this guide point to point, you should now be done.