slimequest | The more you know~* (Reply)

Just a quick public service announcement about memory card saves stored on your PS3's hard drive.

The PS3's built-in "Backup Utility" will back up all your saves (and basically everything else on your PS3's hard drive) when used. However, if you upgrade or replace your PS3's hard drive, or your PS3 dies and you have to get it replaced, the Backup Utility will only restore PS3 save data when restoring to a different hard drive.

Meaning, all your memory card (aka PS1 and PS2) saves will be gone if any of the above happens. So really, it's not that great of a "backup" utility after all.

You can always insert a USB drive or memory card or something and manually copy over each save, which will work, but it's a pain.

However, I'm sure a lot of people assume the Backup Utility backs up everything (which it technically DOES... ) but depending on the circumstances you find yourself in, it might let you down.

So, just letting all my PS3-using friends know. Even if you don't have BC for PS2 games on your PS3, if you decide to download any PS1 classics this little loophole could still bite you in the ass.

Also, if you have multiple PS3 accounts, I believe it only backs up the PS3 save data of the account currently in-use while running a backup. Memory card saves are a part of every account.

(In case you're wondering, my PS3 died recently and I lost some save data, luckily not too much because I tend to back things up regularly, but this console death came suddenly and without warning so I was caught off-guard. Oh well, time to restart SMT Nocturne ;_; )