SPACE: PART II
You can replace the built-in hard drive in the Sony Playstation 3 by yourself. It's really quite easy to do, but what they don't tell you is backing up your data on the drive is a pain in the ASS.

If You don't care about such things: your save games, your music you ripped from CD, your pictures, your movies, or anything else you. You can replace the drive in 15 minutes. However... Who is like that?

I choose to backup my system and replace the 80GB drive with a fast 320 GB 7200rpm drive. No problem, I just buy a external drive, backup the PS3 drive using the USB port and the Backup Utility on the PS3. Then I'll pull the drive, put in the new larger drive, and restore the system. OK... One hour tops I figure.

HA!

I shop around for a external drive and enclosure at Newegg.com. It's 1 TB (1000 GB) and on sale. Great! This should handle my needs quite nicely. They also have the 2.5 inch drive I need for the PS3. Everything comes in a couple of days, and after reviewing several YouTube DIYS video clips I think I can handle the transfer. I first I need to backup the original PS3 drive...

WTF!

The USB port on the PS3 only recognizes hard drives smaller than 32GB and in Fat32 formatting. WHY would SONY do that. How do you squeeze 80GB into 32GB? Several thoughts go through my head. 1 - F*CK - My new drive is useless, unless I reformat and repartition it. 2 - I've an old 40GB laptop drive partitions into to small 20GB drives. 3- Great I'll just copy the stuff I want keep in one partition and back the system in the other partition. 4 - What a Pain in the A**

WTF!

The PS3 doesn't see the second partition! Now I have to reformat the little drive into one 32Gb drive and leave the other 8 GB unallocated. Plus I have to cut about 40 GB of current files just to make the backup small enough to fit onto the USB drive. I spend the next two hours getting rid of stuff, backing up files to my PSP, flash drives, and anything else I can get my hands on. At about 11 PM, I'm done and can start the backup utility. My PS3 start cramming 31 GB into my little drive. My PS3 tells me it might take awhile (71 minutes).

Midnight.

I pull the old drive out, and install the new drive. I start the restore function on the PS3. Hmmm... the backup only took 29GB. How did that happen? The restore proceess will take another hour. Time for bed.

Morning.

After 10 hours and large sum of cash, the PS3 has a new drive. Now I'm afraid to use it. :P