External USB hard drives

[Ramzy]

Sorry for my plethora of PS3-related topics but just need to know one last thing before I make the splurge

Okay, suppose I get a 20-gigger, would I be able to hook in my standard IDE external USB hard drive? If so, does it act just like the internal PS3 HD?

[sj33]

You can upgrade the internal HDD, btw.

[Uzion]

120 gig sata 2.5" hardrives cost around ?60

[Ramzy]

Yeah, I realise they're cheap and all that, but I've got a spare 300 gig IDE that's gotta get some use. Besides, it'll probably make transferring things easier between my PC and PS3...

So, any idea if I can still view and play my mp3s/videos/photos/saves etc. right from an external HDD?

[Geezer]

Yeah, I realise they're cheap and all that, but I've got a spare 300 gig IDE that's gotta get some use. Besides, it'll probably make transferring things easier between my PC and PS3...

So, any idea if I can still view and play my mp3s/videos/photos/saves etc. right from an external HDD?

Yes mate, I stuck the 20GB I took out of my machine into a USB powered enclosure and it works fine. I haven't managed to play any video from it, but I think that may be an extension or codec issue, I've played music and viewed photos from it without problems. I'm not sure if you can transfer saves to it though.

The PS3 can only read FAT32 formatted drives btw, NTFS is a no go.

[fishbowlhead]

this may seem like a stupid comment, but is the firmware stored on the hard dirve? therefore if you change the hard drive over yourself wouldnt the operating system go with it?

[sj33]

this may seem like a stupid comment, but is the firmware stored on the hard dirve? therefore if you change the hard drive over yourself wouldnt the operating system go with it?

I would imagine it's stored in FlashRAM, same as the 360 dashboard etc.

[Nit3m4re]

Its the same as PSP, writes to the motherboard not the memory card.