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"Game Installs"

I don't know about everyone else, but I'm getting absolutely sick of game installs.

Yeah, sure, they were fine, when they were small little things: 1GB or less. But over the last year or so, they've gotten horribly large. I had over 12GB free a few days before Christmas on my hard-drive (which was only made possible following the removal of installs of Heavy Rain (4GB) and ModNation Racers (3GB).

But following *mandatory* installs of The Saboteur (4GB), Prince of Persia Trilogy (3.5GB) and Assassins Creed: Brotherhood (3GB), I find myself at a loss for space yet again. And with Yakuza 3 sitting unused on my shelf so far (5GB), I'm wondering when I'll actually be able to play some of my games without deleting the install for something I still plan on playing.

I had planned on getting Gran Turismo 5, but after hearing that it's loading times are awful without the 6.4GB compressed install (10GB uncompressed), there's just absolutely no chance of that happening (besides, I played it last week and I don't feel like I'm missing much).

The only solution that doesn't involve waiting disproportionate amounts of time between playing games, is to replace the hard-drive, but I've not found anywhere that will do it for me, and I don't have the means for data transfer, so I guess, for now, I'll have to struggle on...

I don't know about everyone else, but I'm getting absolutely sick of game installs.

Yeah, sure, they were fine, when they were small little things: 1GB or less. But over the last year or so, they've gotten horribly large. I had over 12GB free a few days before Christmas on my hard-drive (which was only made possible following the removal of installs of Heavy Rain (4GB) and ModNation Racers (3GB).

But following *mandatory* installs of The Saboteur (4GB), Prince of Persia Trilogy (3.5GB) and Assassins Creed: Brotherhood (3GB), I find myself at a loss for space yet again. And with Yakuza 3 sitting unused on my shelf so far (5GB), I'm wondering when I'll actually be able to play some of my games without deleting the install for something I still plan on playing.

I had planned on getting Gran Turismo 5, but after hearing that it's loading times are awful without the 6.4GB compressed install (10GB uncompressed), there's just absolutely no chance of that happening (besides, I played it last week and I don't feel like I'm missing much).

The only solution that doesn't involve waiting disproportionate amounts of time between playing games, is to replace the hard-drive, but I've not found anywhere that will do it for me, and I don't have the means for data transfer, so I guess, for now, I'll have to struggle on...

Agreed, they are getting silly, and will only grow more I feel.

Although i recently propped myself up with a 250gb PS3 and the Xbox has 120gb so it's not a major concern really.

I'm not going to have 50 (at 5gb average) PS3 games installed that I will play at "some point".

The good thing is the consoles steadily get cheaper with deals.

I don't think it is limited to the PS3. Xbox 360 suffers the same issue and the popularity of Wii downloads meant Nintendo had to rush out SD support. I guess it's something that no manufacturer can truly anticipate: how much games manufacturers are going to push the system. Storage size is something that dates back to the early systems - even the ROM-based systems where games manufacturers butcher the internals of the cartridge with their own hardware to get around the interface limitations. Switching to optical drives meant more cost-effective storage but even then there were multi-DVD games for the previous generation & multi-CD games for the generation prior. The console manufacturers (OK, may be not Nintendo who always seem at least one generation behind) got around the speed of the optical drive this time by permitting installs to a hard disc.. I've no idea how much 3D gaming is going to hoard but it's not likely to be light-weight. :(

Good look finding a hard drive upgrade path. Personally, it was a PS3 slim.

Well, I figured I'd do a quick experiment and actually see what's occupying the hard-drive at the moment, install-wise [and some notable patches, too] (although I might go through videos and games to see how much of a difference it's making)

Need For Speed Hot Pursuit (Patch): 345MB
Smackdown vs. RAW 2011: 3656MB
Prince of Persia Trilogy: 3721MB
The Saboteur: 4012MB
Assassins Creed Brotherhood: 3042MB
Dead Rising 2: 2858MB
Red Dead Redemption (Patch): 533MB
Uncharted 2: 245MB + 219MB
Assassins Creed 2: 1113MB
Heavy Rain (Patch): 246MB (With deleted install 4000MB)
Prototype: 678MB
Mirrors Edge: 650MB
Prince of Persia: 2158MB
LittleBigPlanet (Patch Only): 858MB
Burnout Paradise (Patch Only): 946MB
And various other patch datas that are around 200MB

So that's 22,133MB worth of installs, 24,716MB (24.1GB) including patches. Or just under half of my hard-drive taken up with install data. Hmm...wonder where the rest of my space is...

(Quick note, Free Space: 1625MB/55GB, if anyone was interested)

You have only listed game install data there. Other locations where resources can be used:

Save data for games (obvious)
Video demos

Check your Blu Ray section aswell, can't remember where this was. I remember when I checked there was at least 2GB there on mine 0_o . Everytime you watch a Blu Ray it may install some stuff on the system for some reason. (DAMN YOU "The Hangover" !)

And don't forget that the system itself will be using some space. On my nice new 250GB I only had about 240GB remaning on start up.

I get around this problem by simply not buying so many games. Anything that can be finished (or that I'm likely to be bored with quickly) within 2 weeks can be rented, played to death, completed and deleted. I've got an 80GB PS3 and I think I've still got half that space free.
There are videos online showing how to change the harddrive but I've not actually watched them and don't know what's required.

It is the simplest thing in the world. Go to side of PS3, unclip the cover (very easy).

When removed lift "Pin handle" up and slide to one side, then lift out.

Hard drive removed.

Get new hard drive, push in gently, then slide to one side (opposite of the take out process) 'til it clips.

Replace clip cover.

Hard drive installed.

What about data transfer?

Use the back up utility to copy the data to usb and then restore onto the new drive.

I would go via the data transfer route but I don't have enough room on what I have currently (except my external hard-drive, which would be fine, but it's formatted in NTFS and I now would have to find space to put the stuff on that before reformatting into FAT32 so the PS3 would recognise it.) and so it'd be additional expense on top of buying the new hard-drive.

And apart from the installs, yeah, I have quite a few games from the PSN store (Sonic Adventure is 1731MB in size, and that's just one of 26 full titles I have [This is one of my arguments against digital distribution, too]), and I have quite a lot of save data, but the save data is generally only tiny (I'm aware that little bits add up when theres lots of them). But that doesn't get beyond the fact that I wouldn't have a space issue if it wasn't for huge installs and (in part) large patches. (I checked the Blu-Ray data section, only had 1MB in it for Burn After Reading)

As for the rental thing: Yeah, I do that, but there comes points where the rentals have installs larger than what my hard-drive can offer currently (For example, I had to remove data to get the ModNation Racers 3GB install to be able to run)