that's about as long as it takes me to download a PS3 game, including download failures.  

Good luck man.  and remember to have the beers before you sleep, not after you wake up.  

I might not remember that so I'll just have beers before and after. LOL

Time dropped pretty quickly like a Microsoft time estimate. I'm now at 6 hours and 10 minutes. 

Step 2. Do not drop the new drive.

I'll be really careful not to and I won't rub my socks on the carpet before removing it from anti-static bag. :)

LOL. yes that would not be good either.

Heh. Good luck. The PS3 is a slug when it comes to transferring data. Let me know how you do it. I was thinking about upgrading my hard drive. I'm sick of deleting games lol.

Yep, I've done this once before between the original 60 GB and the 320.

It's not difficult, it just takes way longer than it should. the basic steps are.

After acquiring a SATA 2.5" laptop hard drive of the size you desire (you might want to check a compatibility list but generally a 5400 RPM SATA drive should do it.)

1. Get yourself a USB device bigger than the total space you need to back up. The space must be formatted using a special tool that can create a FAT32 partition bigger than 32 GB. Native Windows will only create FAT32 partitions up to 32 GB and the PS3 can only read FAT32. I used Linux to create a 500 GB partition.

2. Once the backup completes shave and take a shower because you will probably need it. 

3. This should go without saying but turn the thing off before executing this step. Remove the old drive. There are instructions in the original manual or they can be found all over the weeb. This is the simplest part of the process, there are no cables or wires to detach. It will just pop out.

4. Put the new drive in. Just as simple as step 2. Now you should be able to boot up with the new drive

5. Restore the data you backed up in step 1. (Warning if any of the data you backed up is corrupted this will fail). This also takes a long ass time.)

There may be some reboots involved I can't remember but that should be it. If I think of anything else while I'm doing this I'll post it.

Cool. Thanks. I don't know how to do the technical stuff tho. When I decide to do it, I'll have to research it more. heh

The backup and restore parts are under System Settings on your PS3. As long as you have the USB hard drive plugged in this is a breeze. I guess I should have mentioned that. I type faster than I think. LOL

Ah, okay. That doesn't sound bad at all. I will have to learn how to do a partition tho. It's pretty sad that my 2 TB external has more space than my PS3 lol.

Sweet deal!  This was the first thing I did when I got my fat PS3... 500 GB HD for games, and I have a 2TB external HD plugged in for video.  The folder system is a bit of an inconvenience (one level of subfolders? really?), but for videos, it's not too bad... I wish you could make playlists...  I'd love me a Flanders Simpsons playlist... Or Principal Skinner.  Goodspeed on those transfers; they take ages...

Thanks, I'm about 35% through the restore right now. 4 hours to go. 

I'm pray'n for ya buddy.  I'm sure you'll let us know if this worked or not.  I sure hope it does.

I'll keep ya posted Jamie. I'm on to step 3 now. Restoring the drive. The tension mounts. LOL

Be careful NOT to strip the screws! I had stripped one of them and thought I was screwed. Those screws are tiny!

Yep, been there. a pair of decent pliers works wonders in that situation. :D

At least this version of backing up allows you to drink beers. I don't know if you also backed up your 1up blogs, but I did so on Google, and had too many hard to read captcha codes to be drinkin'! lol

Hang in there, buddy. We're all pulling for you.

Damn, that's one huge hard drive. I don't download many games from the store, so I imagine that's why mine's not nearly full. And I have had a mere 20GB hard drive for my 360 for five years!

My launch 20 GB 360 didn't last past the first couple of years. Then it died so I strapped it to a driveless 4GB, which I sold when I got my 250 GB 360 included with my laptop.I have plently of room on that one right now.

I have 65 PS3 games downloaded at the moment, plus a bunch of PSP, PS1 and Minis. I deleted about 8 GB of music of it before I did the backup. 750 should be the last drive I need on the thing. 

Good luck dude. I need to replace mine too but first I'm gonna need some cash to do that lol And yep, heard that the final step takes really long.

Well, now I know who to annoy when I decide to make that step for myself...

I'd be happy to help Tami.

I do not trust myself at all when it comes to this kind of stuff. I always get the strangest feeling I'll screw something up.

Me too. But after the third beer that feeling goes away. Does that mean I never screw things up? Hell no! So generally I just take it slowly and keep my wife around so that she can tell me when I'm about to do something stupid. :)

I'm going to track this swap writing.

I didn't have to do much backing up when I did mine given I didn't own much on my system. that's when I learned the heard way how I had to re-download all the patches that were given to most of the games I owned.