Over the weekend we had a chance to put together a video and outline what is required to upgrade your PlayStation 3 hard drive. Keep in mind that the installation is very straight forward and WILL NOT void your PlayStation 3 warranty.
The drive is concealed behind a panel on the side of the PS3. To remove the panel simply pry up the end with a small slot head screwdriver. You will find that the factory drive cage will contain an OEM Seagate 2.5″ 5400RPM SATA drive.
To free the drive cage from the PS3 chassis you must remove the single BLUE screw with a phillips screwdriver.
Once you have removed the single BLUE screw you can use the drive cage pull tab to slide the drive cage towards the front of the PS3 unit and free of the internal SATA connector. Once free of the internal SATA connector you can slide the drive cage out of the PS3 all together.
After you have removed the drive cage from the PS3 you can remove the 4 screws securing the hard drive to the drive cage and seperate the drive from the cage. Slide in your 100GB upgrade hard drive or 120GB upgrade hard drive and secure it to the drive cage using the 4 screws you removed in the previous step.
Once you have the drive secured in the drive cage you can slide the cage back into the PS3 and then slide it towards the back of the console to engage the internal SATA connector. Now that the new drive is in place replace the BLUE screw and the access panel. Reconnect you PS3 and power the system ON. The PS3 will automatically detect the new drive and prompt you to format the drive
Once the format is complete your new hard drive is ready for use.
Also check out the following video which demonstrates the PlayStation 3 hard drive upgrade process:
December 2nd, 2006 at 2:44 am
Can you put any 2.5″ SATA drive Hard drive in there or is there a only certain models?
December 4th, 2006 at 9:52 am
Yes, you can indeed install any 2.5″ SATA hard drive. We do suggest that you limit the drive choice to 5400rpm models to keep the heat down.
January 5th, 2007 at 4:14 am
what if i want more than 120 Gigs? what if i want like… lets say… 300 gigs? will it still work?
January 5th, 2007 at 11:13 am
You can put any capacity drive into the PS3 however at the time of writing the largest capacity 2.5″ SATA drive is 200GB.
January 6th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
If you upgrade, is there a way to transfer the contents of the old drive onto the new drive using the USB ports?
January 6th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
k. thanks!
January 9th, 2007 at 8:46 am
Hey, I was wondering about the 7200RPM drive… will that overheat the processor of the PS3?
January 10th, 2007 at 4:39 am
Curious, would the external cooler be effective with a higher RPM drive, I got maybe 2-3 120 GB Maxtor 7200s still in the box. Would the aftermarket cooler help?
January 11th, 2007 at 10:43 am
I think that additional cooling would be a MUST if you are going to use higher RPM drives. Maybe the Nyko PS3 InterCooler would be a good option.
January 13th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Just a question? Is there a way to transfer files from a media device or computer onto your PS3 HDD?
January 24th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Does This HD replacement work for Japanese PS 3 consoles as well. Pls Inform me asap. Thk
January 24th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Yes, this HDD replacement works on the Japanese PS3 as well as the US version.
February 26th, 2007 at 8:37 am
i want to know whether i can connect the ps3 60 gb hard drive to my pc and transfer all the movies, pics etc .. to my ps3 60 gb hard disk and put that hard drive back into ps3 … .. so that i can watch all the movies on ps3 which were stored in PC … will that work ?
April 28th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
My PS3 manual says my hard drive is a 2.5″ Serial ATA. Can I replace it using a 2.5″ – SATA-300 hard drive or are they not compatible?