As I've posted recently. I recently purchased an 80GB PS3 model to swap for my brothers 60GB model. I bought two 500GB HDD's one for my bro for switching with me and another for myself so I wouldn't have to worry about deleting installs. Suffice it to say, swapping consoles with the PS3 is not an easy task. In fact, I recommend against it.
With the 60GB model, out side of the insane amount of time (12 hours!!)) it took to back up my brother's data, the hard drive swapping process was a breeze. The 60GB immediately detected the new 500GB hard drive. Unfortunately the despite backing up all his save data, the locked saves files did not transfer to the new console. So basically I'm screwed. I will not ask my brother to start several of his games from scratch because Sony's back up utility is useless. I feel bad for anyone that has their PS3 fail because even if they back up their data, they will lose any save files from games that lock the data when restore their data to the replacement unit.
The new 80GB model PS3 is terrible. I already knew about the lack of PS2 BC, card readers, usb ports, SACD support etc. What I didn't know is that swapping the hard drive on this unit is a complete and utter pain in the ass. Unlike the 60GB model, the 80GB requires you to download the XMB from Sony's site. It would be a minor qualm, but the 80GB isn't detecting the XMB on the flash drive. I'm going to look around for on line for a work around but the PS3's hardware has taken huge step back. If I can't get at least the 500GB hard drive installed on the 80GB, I'm seriously considering selling my new 80GB PS3 if Best Buy won't give me a refund. Especially since my brother is willing to give me his PS2.
