What is a maximum hard drive storage does Playstation 3 (FAT not slim) can handle?

March 29, 2011 8:44 AM

What is a maximum hard drive storage does Playstation 3 (FAT) can handle?

I need to upgrade my HDD for may playstation 3 fat edition but I need to know what is the maximum does the console can handle.
And what type of HDD?
Also does it supports solid state drive "SSD"?

Thanks a lot

posted by omaralareefi to computers & internet (9 answers total)

It's my understanding that any 3.5" drive will fit. So technically you could squeeze a 3TB drive in there.

3TB Hard Drives on Amazon
posted by darkgroove at 9:09 AM on March 29, 2011

No. You need a 2.5" laptop/notebook drive for the PS3. I've seen up to 640GB in a PS3, there's theoretically no upper limit.

There are apparently some performance improvements in going to an SSD drive, mainly in Gran Turismo.

NeoGAF has a guide, with links to specific drives on NewEgg that will work.
posted by curse at 9:18 AM on March 29, 2011

And not just any 2.5...it has to be the narrow ones, I think they're like 9.6mm tall versus the newer 11's----which are what most of the extremely high capacity drives are.

I wouldn't recommend an SSD in there, that space gets super duper hot. I've got a 250gb in mine I got from a system pull, but there are tons of 500's that will fit.
posted by TomMelee at 10:11 AM on March 29, 2011

FAT does have upper limits depending on what you use to format the disk, and what type of system is reading it. I would stay at 500gb or lower if the PS3 is using FAT32 to be on the safe side, but there are reports (unsure if they're true) that 1-2tb drives work as well. Personally for the money I'd go for a nice high rpm 500gb, factoring in the transfer speeds and seek time.
posted by samsara at 10:43 AM on March 29, 2011

What about RPM?
posted by omaralareefi at 10:56 AM on March 29, 2011

Also about SATA speed 3GB/s or 6GB/s or other?
posted by omaralareefi at 11:01 AM on March 29, 2011

PS3 isn't using FAT, its a different format so capacity doesn't matter.

He's using one of the old style, fatter PS3s.

RPM will help a little, but not much. Cache might help more. I've got a 7200 RPM 500 that replaced my old 60 GB. I can't really tell that much difference in performance.

Its doubtful that SATA transfer rate will matter much. Here's NeoGAFs recommendations:

hdd requirements:
• 2.5" SATA (aka a laptop hdd)
• 9.5 mm height
• speed: 5400 rpm or faster
• cache: 8MB or more
• size/capacity: as much as you want
posted by curse at 11:05 AM on March 29, 2011

Also does it supports solid state drive "SSD"

Yes, PS3's do support SSDs. The tradeoff is pretty simple: Pay a lot more money for a very fast drive. The difference seen is that SSDs halve the loading times. I dispute the response about not recommending SSDs due to heat. HDDs will fail due to heat sooner than a SSD.

What about RPM?

You won't see too much difference, not to mention that 7200 RPM 2.5" HDDs are a price premium; a standard 5400RPM Laptop HDD should be fine.

Also about SATA speed 3GB/s or 6GB/s or other?

PS3's came out years before the SATA 6Gb/s spec. Any HDD does not even saturate SATA 3Gb/s. SSDs that are SATA 6Gb/s will be throttled to 3Gb/sec. In other words: don't worry about this.

Quick suggestions:
Western Digital 750GB at $90.
Western Digital 640GB at $70
Item=N82E16822136314">Western Digital 500GB at $55
Seagate 500GB at $50 (with promo code until 4/4)
SSD: OCZ Vertex 120GB at $195.
posted by Mister Fabulous at 11:24 AM on March 29, 2011

You can use an external enclosure and a sata extension cable to run a 3.5" drive.
posted by onya at 5:24 PM on April 6, 2011