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How to Expand the Hard Drive in a PlayStation 3

The Sony PlayStation 3 is usually sold with either a 20, 60 or 80 GB hard drive installed. Of course, no matter the size of the hard drive originally installed on the console, it may, after time, become overloaded with saved games, music and videos. Thankfully, Sony developed the PS3 with the capability to upgrade and expand the hard drive. They also made it so that the system was fairly simple to upgrade. Thus, for the average PS3 owner, all that's required is a bit of time, a few simple tools and a new, larger hard drive.

Things You'll Need

Philips screwdriver
External storage device, such as thumb drive or memory stick (must use FAT32 file system)
New 2.5-inch hard drive

Instructions

- 1
  Purchase a new 2.5-inch SATA hard drive. The new hard drive should be at least 120 GB in order to make the expansion worth your time, money and effort. A smaller hard drive will simply fill up too quickly. You can go all the way up to a 250 GB hard drive for your PS3, but it must be 2.5 inches in order to fit.
- 2
  Turn on your PS3 and plug in your external storage device. Navigate to the PS3's "Backup Utility" program and copy your data to the thumb drive or memory stick. Of course, if you don't have any important data saved on the console, you may skip this step. Remove the storage device when you're finished and set it to the side.
- 3
  Turn off the PS3 and unplug it from the electrical outlet. Then locate the panel marked with "HDD" on the side of the console. Unclip the "HDD" panel and use your Philips screwdriver to remove the blue screw.
- 4
  Pull out on the small metal handle. Use this handle to slide the hard drive tray to the right and then pull the hard drive out of the PS3 console.
- 5
  Locate the four screws which attach the hard drive to the metal tray and then remove the four screws using your Philips screwdriver.
- 6
  Place the new hard drive into the metal tray and secure it by replacing and tightening the four screws.
- 7
  Insert the new hard drive into the PS3 console. Once again, use the metal handle to slide the hard drive to the left. Fold the metal handle down and then replace and tighten the blue screw.
- 8
  Clip the "HDD" panel back into place and plug the console into an electrical outlet.
- 9
  Turn on your PS3 and allow the console to automatically format the new hard drive. After the drive is finished formatting, navigate back to the Backup Utility and plug in your external storage device. You can then transfer your saved files to the new hard drive.

PlayStation 3