PS3 (ps3) replace disk drive with hard drive??

[NarrDarr]

So, I have been looking around to figure out what are limiting factors of changing a disk drive to HDD are. Some extra insight would be great.

 

[manuki]

Honestly, that makes no sense.

The PS3 can handle a 1TB internal HDD (or SSD) without any problem – and even more depending on the model and setup. Why would you even need more space than that on a PS3?

Replacing the Blu-ray drive with a hard drive is extremely impractical. The BD drive in the PS3 is cryptographically paired and programmed to the motherboard. Even replacing it with another original drive requires remarrying it, dumping the ERK, and doing quite a bit of work. It's not a simple plug-and-play swap.

Turning that space into an HDD bay would be extremely complicated – and for what purpose? You can already install a 1TB+ internal drive, and you can also connect external storage over USB.

Enjoy the Blu-ray drive and what the PS3 offers. Storage is not really the limitation here.

 

[GuilloteTesla]

The PS3 can handle a 1TB internal HDD (or SSD) without any problem – and even more depending on the model and setup.

That's not entirely correct. The PS3 can handle HDDs only, as SSDs tend to get corrupted with time (also, not every SSD on the market is compatible).

The max HDD size is 1TB, after that limit the PS3 the filesystem will get corrupted. See the PS3 DevWiki: https://www.psdevwiki.com/ps3/Harddrive#Internal_Harddrive_maximum_capacity

 

[manuki]

The PS3 can handle HDDs only, as SSDs tend to get corrupted with time (also, not every SSD on the market is compatible

Thank you for correcting me on the capacity limit and the potential issues with larger drives.
I have a few more questions regarding SSD compatibility. I was discussing this with a friend who recommended using older Samsung EVO series drives specifically because they have a DRAM cache.

Do you think those are a good choice for the PS3?

Also, is there an official or community-maintained compatibility list for SSDs? Lastly, in your experience, is it a certainty that every SSD will eventually suffer from file system corruption due to the lack of TRIM, or does it depend on the specific drive's controller and wear leveling?

 

[esc0rtd3w]

This would be an interesting hardware project, to be honest.

 

[Berion]

That's not entirely correct. The PS3 can handle HDDs only, as SSDs tend to get corrupted with time (also, not every SSD on the market is compatible).

The max HDD size is 1TB, after that limit the PS3 the filesystem will get corrupted. See the PS3 DevWiki: https://www.psdevwiki.com/ps3/Harddrive#Internal_Harddrive_maximum_capacity

That's not entirely correct too. Above that "safe size cap" all filesystems are fine. The problems are two: recovery mode will not finish any task related to UFS2. And disk will stop to be recognized at all if exceeding 1.5TiB cap.

There must be some caps set somewhere on low level parts of the ecosystem. We need reverse engineer squad to investigate that and patch it. After that, size cap will become zeta bytes because PS3PT and UFS2 handle such sizes. It would be super funny to see that CFW could have any size disks (from today perspective because that limit is fully abstract in 2026) while OFW cannot. Unfortunately I'm to stupid for that, so I waiting for time when someone will be in the same time pissed off and bored to investigate.