Using External Hard Drive with PS3

By using this external hard drive with your PS3, you can substantially increase the amount of space you have on your Sony PlayStation 3 console. The advantages of greater memory space need not be highlighted, as this lets you store more games, and more media content. There are many different hard drive sizes available for the PS3 when you buy it from the market today, and in most cases the space provided by Sony is just not enough.

One solution to solve this problem is to replace the hard drive in the console with a larger one. This is perhaps the most effective solution, but there are two disadvantages that come with this. Firstly, the task is very expensive and complicated, so only a qualified technician can carry it out. Secondly, by replacing the hard drive in your console, your warranty is going to be nullified. So if there is any damage to your console after this, you will have to pay Sony some heavy repair charges. There are some additional PS3 hard drive upgrade problems that you may have to face as well.

Another option that has arisen recently, is to learn how to use external hard drive on PS3. This option can provide you with all the space that you need, and you are not affecting your warranty in any way either. All you have to do is plug in the external hard drive, and you can enjoy the many benefits of additional space.

Installing External Hard Drive with PS3

Before you start using the external hard drive, you need to carry out a few instructions. Simply plugging in the hard drive to the PS3 is not possible. Follow the steps given below, and you will be able to enjoy the benefits of this procedure.

• Connect the external hard drive to your computer.
• Go to the 'Start' menu, then go to 'Control Panel', then go to 'Administrative Tools', then 'Computer Management' and then 'Disk Manager'. What you need to do is check if the file system type is FAT32 or not.
• This is the system type you need on the hard drive for it to be recognized by the PS3 console. If it reads FAT32, then you need to skip the next step.
• If the file system type is NTFS, then you must right-click on it and then click on the 'Delete Partition' option. Now you need to download and install a program known as 'CompuApps Swiss Knife'. Now select the hard drive that you need to partition. Select 'Partition Type - Primary', 'File System - FAT32', 'Volume Label' and then choose 'Create'. This process will set up your FAT32 type file system.
• Now all you need to do is open the hard drive on the 'My Computer' section in your PC, and then create folders there called 'PICTURE', 'MUSIC', 'VIDEO' and 'GAME'. These folders need to be created in capital letters, and their names should correspond with those on your PS3.
• Now you can connect the hard drive to the PS3 and check if the folders you created open there. If they do, you can save all your games and multimedia content in their respective folders, and the process of connecting external hard drive to PS3 is complete.

Once this process has been completed, you can even transfer files to your external hard drive from your PC, and then view these files via the PS3. This is a great way for sharing files, and it also provides you with the unmatched power of greater space to store your PS3 files. External hard drives that are available today have a variety of sizes, and you can purchase one that you feel will suit your requirements.

This task of using the external hard drive is very elemental, and anyone can make use of this option. All you have to do is change the file system type, and you are ready to enjoy the benefits of increased memory for your PS3 console. Please note however, that by configuring an external hard drive to work with the PS3 you will be formatting the hard drive. This means that all the data that is present on it will be removed, so ensure that you have created necessary backups first.