Using just a USB drive and a software exploit, the PS Jailbreak apparently does what so many have tried doing before it: allowing unauthorised software — including backups — to run on the PS3.
The beauty of the exploit is that it makes the PS3 run games just like it’s a debug console. This means you can run your legitimate backups from either the internal HDD, or over USB from an external one. This is obviously a neta-o-rama trick, and one that PS3 users have been wanting since Firefox was still cool.
Best of all? It runs on any firmware version, and only when the magic USB drive is inserted in a port, meaning you won’t void your warranty using it.
Unfortunately, the PS Jailbreak website is down, so I can’t confirm if you need to purchase a USB drive from them, or if you can just extract some files onto your own drive. For the mean time, though, you can see the backup in action — with some commentary from a friendly fellow Aussie — in the videos at the bottom of this post.
Scepticism is usually advised in situations like this, as many a mod-chip has failed at bringing backups and homebrew to the PS3, but there seem to be some mounting testimonials that this device does, indeed, work.
The only caveats thus far seem to be that you can’t back up Blu-ray/DVD movies, or PSX/PS2 games. Sounds pretty good to me right now.
[via PS3 News]