PS2 memory card modchip to play games from USB hard drives

An upcoming firmware update for Memor32 – the PS2 modchip on a memory card – promises to allow your non-chipped PS2 to play your entire collection of games from the comforts of a roomy, capacious USB hard drive. A group of Russian hackers named Memento are responsible for the firmware handiwork, allowing hard drive-based playback of your entire collection of PS2 discs for easy access, TiVo-style. Sure, the unscrupulous amongst you may use your Memor32's new found powers for evil, but we just want to fire up Shadow of the Colossus without leaving the couch.

[Via ripten]

[chilicoke @ Jan 11th 2008 4:48PM]

WOW! me want!

[John @ Jan 11th 2008 4:49PM]

I don't suppose there's some way for us to do this on our PS3s, is there? (I'm guessing, no)

[brian @ Jan 11th 2008 5:25PM]

Nope.

[Carbonize @ Jan 12th 2008 2:29AM]

Yet.

[Majiq @ Jan 11th 2008 4:52PM]

Me too!

[Kris @ Jan 11th 2008 4:54PM]

yeah... this kind of stuff has been around for a while. Look up "HD Advance". The older PS2s (the larger ones) actually have a slot for a 3.5" IDE hard drive. There's another version of HD Advance out there that will allow the use of an external USB hard drive.

[ryan @ Jan 11th 2008 5:04PM]

This works on an unmodified PS2, though.

[stealth @ Jan 11th 2008 9:56PM]

So did HD Advanced.

This is such old news.

'Insert engadget tardy compliant here'

[Paul @ Jan 11th 2008 6:38PM]

The only thing you need for HD Advance is the DVD, a network adapter(to connect the hard drive to the fat PS2) and a hard drive. No modification necessary.

[NovaLand @ Jan 12th 2008 3:14AM]

People seems to have missed out that this is a slim PS2. The slim ones do have the IDE-interface, but u need to solder to get hold of them in the current state so u could use HD loader or HD advance. But if it's true that HD advance can also use USB HD's, this would be a blessing for those with the slim model.

[tekdemon @ Jan 12th 2008 5:08AM]

NovaLand, apparently they've had an external USB adapter for the HD Advance for a long time now.

[ulovemikeroch @ Jan 14th 2008 8:22PM]

But you can also play burned games without any swap disks, fliptop mods or mod
chips.

[Atlis @ Jan 11th 2008 4:56PM]

now only if they could make it compatible with the ps3

[fuzzy @ Jan 11th 2008 5:03PM]

I thought this was going to be vaporware. There was another memcard/USB hdd/copied game tool promised a few months back, but it never came out. Everyone thought it was a hoax.

You can do similar with HDLoader/HDAdvance. They don't use USB, though. They require a fat PS2 with network adapter and internal HDD to work, and not all games work properly.

[fuzzy @ Jan 11th 2008 5:03PM]

I thought this was going to be vaporware. There was another memcard/USB hdd/copied game tool promised a few months back, but it never came out. Everyone thought it was a hoax.

You can do similar with HDLoader/HDAdvance. They don't use USB, though. They require a fat PS2 with network adapter and internal HDD to work, and not all games work properly.

[ARealOG @ Jan 11th 2008 5:10PM]

Not to burst your bubble but both PS2/PSTwo are USB 1.1. That's 12Mbits per second.

[michaelscrip @ Jan 13th 2008 1:58AM]

And how fast are the DVD drives in the PS2? I still think loading games off of a hard drive, even at USB 1.1, would be better than the optical drive.

[Ray @ Jan 11th 2008 5:18PM]

Now I can make custom Guitar Hero tracks without having to re-burn the game each time.

[martin @ Jan 11th 2008 5:29PM]

i;m probably wrong, but seeing as the ps2 plays dvds is there any chance that u can stick movies on that portable hard drive and play them through ur ps2?

[Kurian @ Jan 11th 2008 11:31PM]

You always could.

Get this app called SMS Player.
Plays divx,xvid,mgeg etc, either from the internal HDD, usb, or even from your windows shared folders over the network.

[Pwntastic @ Jan 11th 2008 5:37PM]

Yeah i was just about to mention that, ARealOG. The PS2's only got usb1.1 so you can play games, but they run horribly. I jumped on that bandwagon a while back and was quite disappointed. But hey, now people can find out how slow it runs for themselves without the extra expense of a modchip :D

[Jonny @ Jan 11th 2008 6:02PM]

Can play DVD-R discs without the swap method eh?

I hope to see someone verify these claims, as atm it smells like bullcrap.

[Faber foX @ Jan 11th 2008 6:24PM]

The point is that this memory card has a usb port, so it could work at usb2.0 speeds if the HD is plugged there. I've been using hdloader on a fat ps2 for almost 3 years, loading it from memory card and booting using the exploit. This would stop my slim owning friends envy at last. ;)

[Joe Anstine @ Jan 11th 2008 6:33PM]

sweeeeeeeeeet

[tehimp @ Jan 11th 2008 7:52PM]

Sweet, an easier and cheaper way to play "backups" of games I "own."

[Fernando Rivero @ Jan 11th 2008 11:44PM]

it has been possible to play Ps2 backups off a harddrive for well over two years now.

All you need is an ide drive, network adapter and this

http://www.hdloader.net/

I do not see what the big deal is.

[Marrvia @ Jan 11th 2008 8:24PM]

I've been playing full PS2 games off a hard drive using a program installed to a memory card on a unmodified playstation 2 for the last few years. This is old stuff.

[Jeremy @ Jan 11th 2008 9:44PM]

PLEASE pay attention here - FAT32 drives can NOT store a single file over 4GB in size. What are they going to do about this?

Dont tell me 'most' games are under 4GB, because 8 of the games I play most are all over 4GB. I am in a PAL territory and when compared to the USA ISO file sizes, the PAL is always much larger.

The only game I own that is under 4GB is Family Guy (USA). What about the rest?

The only USB hard drive I own in my 160GB 6G iPod classic, I can use this in disk mode perfectly BUT it is FAT 32 and I cant format it to something else.

And yes I do actually own a Memor32 with Memento firmware, and yes it does work for most backups. Its far from perfect with compatibility though, and I'm interested to see how they get around the 4GB file size limit.

[Kurian @ Jan 11th 2008 11:34PM]

If you have a phat ps2 you DONT NEED to use the Memento firmware to launch the games from the HDD.

Just use it to boot HDLoader and then run the games with almost perfect compatibility with that.

[NovaLand @ Jan 12th 2008 3:16AM]

Yeah, so why use FAT? I bet they do like all other manufacturers use some other OS. I use an USB-HD for my HD Loader and been doing that for a couple of years now. It uses.. some other OS which i need an additional software to be able to write stuff down to it from my computer. My PS2 with HD Loader manages it nicley tho.

[NovaLand @ Jan 12th 2008 3:17AM]

..And i do mean FS, not OS.

[Jeremy @ Jan 12th 2008 7:16AM]

Yeah I understand but if your using the hard drive for other things such as my iPod which can't be formatted to another FS but otherwise functions perfectly as a mass storage device, then your screwed.

What format of file system does HDloader use? This means the hard drive is dedicated to PS2 only applications?

[NovaLand @ Jan 12th 2008 7:35AM]

It uses "playstation file system" or PFS, not to be confused with all the other dozens of filesystems called PFS =)

I imagine one being able to use one partition with PFS and one with FAT to be able to use the same drive for both things, but that just splits the size, not making u able to choose the size unless u use some partition magic or whatever program that can alter the sizes of the partitions.

[Faber foX @ Jan 12th 2008 10:56AM]

Novaland, just want to clarify what you said so people don't get their hopes up.
HDLoader or advance DO NOT work with USB HDs. You can use (as I do) an USB-IDE adapter to load games on your PC, but still need to plug the disk inside a fat PS2 using the network adapter.
USB Extreme was released for USB disks, BUT it sucks. Really low compatibility, slow as hell when streaming, and the HD remains in FAT32 format. For usbextreme you use software on the PC to load the games into the HD, and it splits them into 2GB chunks so you don't break the FAT32 4GB limit.
Let's hope that memento found a way to use the HD in USB2.0 mode.

[Mark McCune @ Jan 12th 2008 5:51AM]

Ok, maybe those martinis last night are making my brain slow today, but will this work around the problem of my "disk error"? or is there anything I can use my PS2 for now that wont read disks anymore or do I throw it in the closet with the other game systems?

[AlienSoldier @ Jan 12th 2008 11:37PM]

no way you will ever to play game at acceptable speed from that card, the port is too low on bandwith.

From here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pstwo

"2 proprietary Memory Card slots using MagicGate encryption (250 kHz for PS1 cards, up to 2 MHz for PS2 cards)"

[Calvin Foo @ Jan 14th 2008 12:20AM]

If you have an old PS2 console, and would like to run a HDD in it, you can refer to this video clip

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/905769/video/R/CFD_1002/

[butane bob @ Jan 15th 2008 9:00PM]

So what's the compatibility rate/where's the compatibility list from this thing? there doesn't seem to be any info on the site or their forums except a video showing it booting gt3... sounds dodgy...

[ParkerT @ Feb 13th 2008 4:00PM]

I would like to buy one of these if possible, e-mail me.

[Modmax @ Feb 22nd 2008 4:58PM]

I have found a new product calling MemorPro at http://www.memor-pro.com --> I think this have the same function as the Memor32 but with a better game support, a free USB cable and a product case. Has anyone already tested this set? Works it or not? Please replay asap because I need a good solution for import games - thanks!

[justin @ Mar 13th 2008 4:04AM]

hey instead of usin the memor32 could i use a 30gig ipod vid??
new to this stuff but i can use my ipod as a mass storage device and i was thinking it might work but i dont want to go wasting my time dowloading a program that possibly wont work and could it be plugged into the front of a ver4 ps2 (old school big betsy). well i hope to hear a msg soon thanks

[Jason @ Apr 8th 2008 9:42AM]

it called usbadvance, had it on my ps2 slim but its REALLY slow as its only usb1. only up side is copied games and no laser death.
works awesomely with fat ps2 tho and hdadvance.
both do not require a modded ps2, just a modded ps2 to do the memory card hack on.. after that it works on whatever