Not sure. Sounds mysterious. I only have 37/40GB to use on mine.

Can you size check the various installs and saves?  I don't have a PS3, but I have played some PC games that just eat HDD space like theres no tomorrow. I'm wondering if one of your games might be a space eater. I was shocked that one game of mine was using 8gig of space for various saves, pictures and custom data.

So if you can. Size check the various app installs.

As I said the OS seems to assign space to itself based on some form of ratio.  When I put in a 250GB HDD it took around 35GB - much to my surprise.  I'm not sure if the OS needs that much space for some reason or whether the OS simply assigns a percentage - which seems silly really.  I don't know why it doesn't always just nab the same amount but I can assure you based on similar experience to yours that if you put in a bigger HDD it takes more space.  Lots more.

I want to say that the PS3 reserves roughly 10% of the HDD capacity for cache, system data, security, etc.

A 320GB HDD was about 298GB formatted with OS installation. If I remember correctly a 500GB HDD was less than 460GB formatted. A 60GB HDD was about 55GB formatted and a 40GB HDD was 36GB if memory serves me correctly.

So a 120GB HDD would be about 108GB formatted, maybe a bit less.

You can check the Game Data Utility to check the HDD allocation for every game that uses installation space.

I bought the 250 gb version because it came with 2 games for free.  I checked like right after I turned on and it said there was like 223 gb left.  It all has to do with the operating system and updates and also how they determine the space for a hard drive.

Meh, it still doesn't explain why I'm missing 40GB, unless the OS really requires 30 GB by itself from 120GB HDD which I think is a bit high... Since I have close to nothing downloaded/installed on the PS3

Ok, lets start off with fact A.  When advertising as 120 gb, they are using the stat that 1000 bytes are in a kilobyte, versus the truthful 1024 bytes that are in a kilobyte (your system is showing you the value based on 1024 bytes in a kilobyte).  This means that with the true value of a kilobyte, your system is actually only 111.76 gb, not 120 gb.

Now lets go towards your current save files.  Based on what you mentioned, you have approximately 7 gb of stuff saved, but as previous people stated, you show you are playing BFBC2 and Red Dead Redemption as well.  I have no clue what those games take, but it is probably a considerable amount.  I may be overestimating or underestimating, but you probably have ~10 gb of save data.  This brings you down to 101.76 gb.  This leaves approximately 20 gb that are still unaccounted for.

The ps3 system saves 10% of the hard drive space for its own things, which would be 12 gb.  You are now down to ~90 gb, with about 8 gb still unaccounted for.

The only thing I can think of is RDR and BFBC2 taking up more space than I previously mentioned.  I believe BFBC2 takes a little space for a mandatory install of some sort.  RDR also requires some install to the best of my knowledge.  Updates for these games and everything else, I really don't think you have to worry about anything...it's completely normal.

Alright I understand, thanks for the replies.

Go to game

under game go to game data utility, there you should see a couple of games listed, press triangle, and click information.. there you will see the size of that data, that is the install data for the games you have, it's likely that that's what's taking up your HDD space, not some mysterious ghost!

I'm thinking that when I first got my 120 Gb slim, that I only had 90 something GBs free before I installed anything, so your's sounds about right.