How to Upgrade Your PS3 Hard Drive – and keep all your game save data

How to Upgrade Your PS3 Hard Drive

The upgrade process is basically the same for each model of PS3. The only difference is in how to get the physical drive unit out of the console.

You’ll need a 2.5 inch hard drive or SSD. An SSD will give you better performance but a standard mechanical drive is fine and cuts the cost down. I like to make sure the drive is cleaned of all partitions before putting it into the PS3 but this is probably a bit of overkill, especially if you’ve bought the drive new or second hand. I sometimes use my drives for Raspberry Pi or Linux installations so they can have random partitions embedded into them.

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You don’t need to format the drive as the console is going to do that for you.

Once you’re happy that the drive is clean we’re ready to install it.

Backing Up Your Existing Hard Drive

Before we swap the hard drive you have the opportunity to copy over your existing hard drive content. This will include any downloaded games and content, along with your game save files.

For this you’ll need a USB drive that’s big enough to hold everything on the hard drive. If you go into your Settings, System Settings and then System Information you’ll see how much space your content is using on the hard drive. You’ll need a USB drive that’s big enough to hold this data with some room to spare.

To allow the PS3 to use your USB drive it needs to be formatted as an FAT32 drive. I like to use the Minitool Partition Wizard Free version for this, but you can use any suitable formatting tool that will format larger drives as FAT32.

Minitool Partition Wizard Free

Once that’s ready pop it into a USB port on the console and select the Backup Utility from the System Menu. Follow the onscreen prompts and the PS3 will start to back up your data. This process can take some time so just leave it running.

Once the process is complete unplug the USB drive. We’ll restore the backup once we complete the hard drive swap.

Swapping the Hard Drive Unit

I’m going to be using a PS3 Slim model in this video so let’s have a look at that one first.

First of all make sure you shut down the console and unplug the power supply.

The hard drive in all of the models is held in a drive caddy behind a plastic cover. On the slim model we first need to flip out this little plastic cover on the underside of the console. In there you’ll find the drive caddy retainer screw. Just remove this to unlock the hard drive.

We now need to slide off the hard drive cover on the front face of the PS3 underneath the overhang.

You should now see the hard drive caddy. There’s a small wire handle that you can use to pull out the drive unit. Once that’s out you just need to unscrew the hard drive unit from the caddy and then replace it with the bigger drive. Make sure you put the new one back in the same way round as the old one.

Now just slide the drive caddy back into the console, replace the cover, securing screw and close up the flap.

The hard drive is now ready for setup.

As I mentioned earlier each model has the hard drive mounted slightly differently.

On the Phat models you’ll find the hard drive cover at one end of the console. Just prize that open and you’ll see a blue retaining screw. Undo that and you should then be able to pull out the hard drive caddy.

On the Super Slim models one of the plastic end panels slides off to reveal the hard drive caddy and securing screw.

Formatting and Installing the Operating System

Now that you’ve installed the new hard drive we need to initialise it. This process involves formatting the drive and then installing the latest firmware. This is exactly the same for all models.

So first we need to download the latest PS3 operating system. If you go to this web address you’ll get to the PS3 system software update page. At the time of making this video this software was at version 4.91.

We need to scroll down to the How to Update section and then expand the Update Using a Computer dropdown. In here you’ll find the download link for the system software, so just download that to your computer.

We now need to create a USB drive to get this software onto our PS3 console. Again you’ll need to make an FAT32 formatted drive. You then need to create a folder called PS3, all capitals, and then inside that folder a directory called UPDATE, all capitals again.

The system software file we downloaded now needs to be copied into this UPDATE folder.

It’s important that you get these folders correct. If you don’t the system won’t be able to initialise your hard drive.

With that all set up we need to jump back onto the console.

With the console powered off, plug in the prepared system update USB drive. You also need to connect your PS3 controller to the console using its USB cable.

You can now power on the console.

The first message you’ll see will just confirm that you need to have your controller connected via USB, so just press the PlayStation button to confirm that.

Next you’ll see a message asking you to connect your USB drive and press Start and Select. Do this and the PS3 will scan your USB drive to see if it can find the update file. If all’s gone well you’ll see a message asking you to hold down the Start and Select buttons to confirm the formatting of your new hard drive.

Once you’ve pressed the buttons the formatting process will start. Just let it run through.

Your PS3 will now restart and begin the System Software installation.

First it checks to make sure the software is valid. You’ll then see a message confirming the version and asking you to press the PlayStation button. This will take you to the terms page where you can use up and down on the D pad to read them and the right button to go to the accepts menu. Just accept the terms and the installation process will start.

Again this will take a few minutes to complete.

Once that’s installed we need to go through the basic console setup procedure and then we’re done.

If you now go to the Settings menu, System Settings and System Information you should see the new, bigger, hard drive listed.

Restoring your Backup

The last task is to restore your data backup if you made one. Unplug the system update USB drive and plug in your backup drive. Now go to the Settings, System Settings, Backup Utility and Restore option.

The system will ask you to select your USB drive and dated backup file and will them run through the process of restoring this to your console. This process will take around the same amount of time as the initial backup.

Once that’s finished you should have your old account and game data back on your PS3.

What Next?

Now that we’ve got a big hard drive in our PS3 we’re all set to hack it and start playing all the games we want directly from the internal drive.