LittleBlueMacaw Posted April 13, 2021 Share Posted April 13, 2021 Hello everyone! With the store closing and getting issues downloading patches, I've decided to download all the PS3 games just to be on the safe side. But I feel like 1TB won't be enough... So I have a few questions: 1) Is 1TB really the "max" size the PS3 can work with properly? I read on multiple sites that sizes bigger than that can get wonky or cause issues. 2) Is it possible to swap between HDDs on the same console? Let's say I have games from HDD-A I wanna play, but then I want to play a different game that is on HDD-B. So I take out HDD-A from the console and then insert HDD-B to play. Would that work? Since it's not possible to backup your games to an external HDD, this is the only way I could think of to "keep" the games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PostalDudeRus Posted April 13, 2021 Share Posted April 13, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, LittleBlueMacaw said: 1) Is 1TB really the "max" size the PS3 can work with properly? I read on multiple sites that sizes bigger than that can get wonky or cause issues. 2) Is it possible to swap between HDDs on the same console? Let's say I have games from HDD-A I wanna play, but then I want to play a different game that is on HDD-B. So I take out HDD-A from the console and then insert HDD-B to play. Would that work? 1) Not recommended, me personally never test it, but looking via different topics on different forums you gotta go for 1TB max, any 7200rpm HDD will do, I guess. 2) Possible, just remember to install HDD correctly -> Format it, Download games and then swap to different one. You can also use secondary console as backup machine and don't forget about data transfer futures, just in case. Edited April 13, 2021 by PostalDudeRus 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KingmathyGoodman Posted April 13, 2021 Share Posted April 13, 2021 I haven´t tested it on PS3 myself but i know it does work fine on ps4. As Postal said, the best option is get another ps3 for that. PS3s are way cheaper than a 1TB HDD nowadays. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otonio_Bruno Posted April 13, 2021 Share Posted April 13, 2021 (edited) 10 hours ago, LittleBlueMacaw said: Hello everyone! With the store closing and getting issues downloading patches, I've decided to download all the PS3 games just to be on the safe side. But I feel like 1TB won't be enough... So I have a few questions: 1) Is 1TB really the "max" size the PS3 can work with properly? I read on multiple sites that sizes bigger than that can get wonky or cause issues. 2) Is it possible to swap between HDDs on the same console? Let's say I have games from HDD-A I wanna play, but then I want to play a different game that is on HDD-B. So I take out HDD-A from the console and then insert HDD-B to play. Would that work? Since it's not possible to backup your games to an external HDD, this is the only way I could think of to "keep" the games. 1) Yes, 1TB is the maximum safe size, anything past can get out troubles like "invisible" files, randomly deleted stuff. I know on 360 you can go up to 2TB but it's kinda weird that PS3 only supports 1TB. 2) No, it's not possible. Whenever you swap between HDDs in a single playstation 3, it will ALWAYS ask to format the HDD that was just put in. So say you filled a HDD-A with 1TB and want to use a second one (HDD-B). You take out HDD-A from PS3, put HDD-B and as soon you boot up ps3, it will ask to format HDD-B, which is no issue since it's a new blank HDD. Then after filling HDD-B with games too, you decide to play a game that is on HDD-A so you swap those drives...and as soon you pop the HDD-A back in, it will be asked to be formatted, meaning all games lost. Then if you try to swap the HDD-B back in, it will also be asked to format it, meaning you just lost 2 HDDs full of games. Is it dumb? Yes, but it's the design poorly chosen for Playstation 3. On 360 you can easily swap between HDDs with not a single issue. Edited April 13, 2021 by Otonio_Bruno 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewDust Posted April 13, 2021 Share Posted April 13, 2021 (edited) 9 hours ago, PostalDudeRus said: 2) Possible, just remember to install HDD correctly -> Format it, Download games and then swap to different one. You can also use secondary console as backup machine and don't forget about data transfer futures, just in case. Just to make it absolutly clear, this is not true. Whenever you place a different HDD in the PS3 you are forced to format, even if that HDD had been assigned to that PS3 previously, as Otonio_Bruno describes above. Edited April 13, 2021 by NewDust 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PostalDudeRus Posted April 13, 2021 Share Posted April 13, 2021 5 hours ago, NewDust said: Just to make it absolutly clear, this is not true. Whenever you place a different HDD in the PS3 you are forced to format, even if that HDD had been assigned to that PS3 previously, as Otonio_Bruno describes above. Yeah, I've made mistake here, coz I clearly remember testing it on Xbox and PS3, seems like memory serving me bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeoMesjasz Posted April 13, 2021 Share Posted April 13, 2021 I have got 2TB for years and no problems, so don't worry, it's not too big and pretty cheap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleBlueMacaw Posted April 14, 2021 Author Share Posted April 14, 2021 Thanks guys! ? Got myself a 1TB drive. Too bad the HDD swapping doesn't work though. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dreamcast12 Posted April 14, 2021 Share Posted April 14, 2021 You can also backup to external drives. But I cannot remember if you can select what to copy back or if it just dumps the entire backup onto the internal hard drive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnowxSakura Posted April 14, 2021 Share Posted April 14, 2021 Just now, Dreamcast12 said: You can also backup to external drives. But I cannot remember if you can select what to copy back or if it just dumps the entire backup onto the internal hard drive It only backs up the entire drive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dreamcast12 Posted April 14, 2021 Share Posted April 14, 2021 10 minutes ago, SnowxSakura said: It only backs up the entire drive That is bad at least on the vita you can select what to copy back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TigerHawk_Neo Posted April 14, 2021 Share Posted April 14, 2021 On 2021-04-13 at 2:52 AM, LittleBlueMacaw said: Hello everyone! With the store closing and getting issues downloading patches, I've decided to download all the PS3 games just to be on the safe side. But I feel like 1TB won't be enough... So I have a few questions: 1) Is 1TB really the "max" size the PS3 can work with properly? I read on multiple sites that sizes bigger than that can get wonky or cause issues. 2) Is it possible to swap between HDDs on the same console? Let's say I have games from HDD-A I wanna play, but then I want to play a different game that is on HDD-B. So I take out HDD-A from the console and then insert HDD-B to play. Would that work? Since it's not possible to backup your games to an external HDD, this is the only way I could think of to "keep" the games. For your first question, this is what I did: I bought a 1.5TB Seagate portable HDD, took it out. It's 5400 rpm. Next, I had a spare 2TB portable HDD that I formatted to FAT32 (32KB clusters) using AOMEI (free version 6.0), and used it to download all my games and stuff from my PS3's 320GB HDD. I took out the 320GB HDD, and then inserted the 1.5TB Seagate drive, and let the PS3 format it to FAT32. Finally, I used the Back-up restore feature on PS3 by taking all my saved data from the 2TB portable drive to download it to the 1.5TB HDD inside the PS3. So far, after a few months, everything works great. I'm on the latest PS3 firmware 4.87. I'm tempted to use my 2TB HDD for my PS3, but I didn't go through with it due to many posts and articles saying that 2TB will not work. Something about how the maximum is about 1.83TB, or partitioning a HDD so that 0.5TB (500 GB) would just become unreadable to the PS3 by using a partitioning software via PC (e.g. AOMEI). Sorry, I don't know the answer to your 2nd question, but I'm also curious to know if HDD swapping could work without issues? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otonio_Bruno Posted April 14, 2021 Share Posted April 14, 2021 1 hour ago, SnowxSakura said: It only backs up the entire drive In addition to only being to copy those backup files to same device it was originally created from, can't be done on another ps3. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gigafalcospamer7 Posted April 19, 2021 Share Posted April 19, 2021 Swapping HDD’s is possible. I have done it with my fat ps3; switching between the original 40gb HDD and a 500gb SSD. No save data or game data was lost. Of course, the only way to confirm is to test it out yourself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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