I don't know specifically for the PS3, and as it does allow you to add and change over the HD in the system and it runs the OS within the firmware it might not be the same. Obviously the firmware version for the PS3s would need to be identical for any hope of them working with the HD.
But with other consoles such as the Xbox, the HD is formatted in a way that locks it into the specific system it is running on. So if you try to connect it to another Xbox the system and drive would not work as their locked serials would not match. Also the original Xbox HD was formatted into a number of partitions that held vital information for that specific system. If you tried to just put a different HD in the same console it would be dead and not even boot. You had to clone the HDs system partitions across from the old drive to the new using some underground PC software to make this work.