Through homebrew software like and prepISO (formerly known as prepNTFS), the PS3 can easily map raw storage sectors from exFAT and NTFS partitions. However, scanning massive multi-terabyte drives with hundreds of games on every boot can cause system slowdowns or homebrew memory crashes.

You will see two main options:

Ensure the drive is not currently holding temporary cache files from other applications. Step 2: Preparing the Drive (Maintaining Structure)

Move your heavy files, ISOs, or data to the root of the freshly formatted drive.