I picked this up at Target tonight for $69. Can I crack it open and put the actual drive in my PS3? $70 seems like a good price for this drive even if I can’t use it in the PS3.
If I can use it for my PS3 is there a way to transfer my old drive contents to the new one?
The PS3 uses a standard 2.5" SATA drive. As you said, you’d have to open it up first. It’s very simple overall to install a new drive and Sony actually provides documentation on how to do it. You’ll need a backup drive to copy the data initially since the console will want to reformat the drive once you install it. What I did was back up to an external drive I had, install the new hard drive and format it, reinstall the system software, and then use the backup utility to install the existing data. Didn’t take too long.
If you don’t have any games installed on your system or don’t mind re-downloading (and especially if you’re a PS Plus member with online save backup) you can just install the new drive, format it, and then install the software and you’re good to go. Every instruction you need should be linked to the page I linked above.
Now, I don’t know if that’s the drive I’d want to use. I’m not sure a SSD would be worth the cost but I expect you could just get a standard internal hard drive for less. Seems easier to me than having to crack the case on an external drive.
Hmmm…isn’t $70 a decent price though for this large of a drive?
It’s a fair price, though it was available at the same price over a year ago.
And it should work fine in your PS3, but it will almost surely void the warranty once you crack it open, so that’s something to consider.
Yes, but also consider how big a drive you actually need. Again, if you download a lot of games and keep them on the hard drive, then you might need a drive that big. Personally, I’ve just about filled up a 500 gig drive, but there’s a number of free games from Playstation Plus on there that I haven’t really played and could delete to make space. I’d probably just get an internal drive and keep the external initially to do the backup needed for this installation and then for other things like backing up my computer.
Are you sure about that? There are instructions in the PS3 instruction book on how to install a new harddrive. From here:
I think he’s talking about the hdd.
Yeah, so am I. That’s why I linked to an article entitled “Upgrade the Hard Disk Drive (HDD)” on Playstation’s support website.
I still think your not tracking here. He’s talking about the warranty on the external hdd I bought. If I bust it open and take out the drive it will not be under warranty by seagate anymore. The PS3 will still be covered, though it’s a day one machine that’s way out of warranty.
Ah. Indeed. Carry on. 