PS3 + SSD = faster load times, shattered budgets

Sitting idle while your new PS3 game installs is painful, but since it's all in the interest of reducing subsequent load times it's worth the wait, right? Not for the impatient sods at ExtremeTech, who tried to speed things up further by swapping out their original 60GB PS3's HDD with Intel's hot new 80GB X25-M SSD. The result? Sadly, those multi-minute installs from disc were largely unaffected, since the limitation here is Blu-ray drive speed and not disk speed. However, installs of downloaded demos were upwards of 30-40 percent faster, as were post-installation load times in most games. That's an impressive boost, but at a cost of about $600 for the SSD itself you'll be spending about 50 percent more than an entire PS3 of the 80GB spinning disk variety. In other words, this one's not for the frugal modders, but it is so choice if you have the means.

[zunq @ Oct 15th 2008 12:15PM]

Most high end computer parts these days make the PS3 seem like a bargain.

[Jake @ Oct 15th 2008 2:46PM]

Are all bloggers here tech cretins?

"Installs off a Blu-ray disc were as slow as ever, due to the the limitations of Blu-ray drive speed."

I think they need a crash course on drive speeds. The PS3's Blu-ray drive is faster than the 360's DVD and Wii's DVD drives....

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=42157

Please stop your clueless PS3 hate... You would think Engadget had at least an ounce of tech knowlesde, apparently not...

[bobartig @ Oct 15th 2008 3:05PM]

@Jake: The BluRay drive is still the choke point in terms of data installs, since optical drive throughput

[borland502 (SDF Macross) @ Oct 15th 2008 3:10PM]

"I think they need a crash course on drive speeds. The PS3's Blu-ray drive is faster than the 360's DVD and Wii's DVD drives...."

I love my PS3, but I think you're a little off base here. I suppose they could have added, "as it would be in any optical drive," but assumed no one would jump down their throat about it.

[EmoChicksAreHot.....Seriously @ Oct 16th 2008 12:13AM]

i think the next thing Sony needs to improve on are the drives in the ps3's.their doing everything they can to make the psp better,why not this?

[RD. @ Oct 15th 2008 12:15PM]

It It is so choice If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up

[Nickerson @ Oct 15th 2008 12:28PM]

Nice reference, a Ferrari California wouldn't be bad either.

[Dan @ Oct 15th 2008 12:42PM]

Fry? Fry??

[Boudu @ Oct 15th 2008 12:45PM]

Probably in a year or two these SSD drives will be relatively cheap enough, but thank god PS3s standard SATA connection.

[Testies, Testies, 1, 2... 3? @ Oct 15th 2008 12:59PM]

All you liberal hippies, always pro choice!

[KarlW @ Oct 15th 2008 1:11PM]

It'll be a long time before SSDs become affordable at capacities rivalling HDDs.

We'll probably have ditched NAND by that time, god-willing. Hopefully MRAM can finally come out and shine :)

[SirPasta117 @ Oct 15th 2008 12:15PM]

Thats a brilliant idea!

[lowdef @ Oct 15th 2008 12:16PM]

definitely not worth the $600 for 30-40% faster DEMOS and post installs...you could buy another ps3 and still have $ left over if you buy a bigger hdd instead

[crow610 @ Oct 15th 2008 12:26PM]

It would be more logical to buy another PS3 and load up the next game you plan on playing.

[Rob @ Oct 15th 2008 12:35PM]

The day Sony decides to change the hdd format from FAT32 to NTFS, it would be the day I put a bigger hard drive in my PS3.

[Sean Z @ Oct 15th 2008 12:45PM]

n00b!!! - the filesystem on the internal drive is not FAT32; that's the requirement for external drives.

[Rob @ Oct 15th 2008 12:52PM]

@ Sean Z:
You can call me whatever you want. But, since you find yourself in a position to dictate which way the wind should blow, tell me exactly why I can't put a bigger than 4gig file into the PS3 or any external hdd. If you have a solution for that, I'd be grateful. I can't do it with an external hdd because, as you've pleasantly reminded me, it's FAT32 and I've already mentioned the 4gig limit in that. So, do you have a working solution to that?

[Nomi @ Oct 15th 2008 12:58PM]

Rob...use a media server.

I streamed Batman Begins to my PS3 using TVersity and it worked perfectly fine...this was a 8gig 1080p version that I converted from .mkv. Later, I decided I didn't like streaming cuz it taxed my PC, so I copied the file over using said media server.

[Septimus @ Oct 15th 2008 1:02PM]

You can put a file larger than 4GB on the PS3 via a network copy. It is the FAT32 external drive that is the issue. So he was right. When I record, say the F1GP via play TV, that comes out at close to 7GB's some times. One file.

The only way to get around it is to take something like a 12GB MKV for example, and convert it to VOB/IFO. PS3 handles those fine as well.

[KarlW @ Oct 15th 2008 1:19PM]

NTFS is a proprietary filesystem. It only works well on Windows.

The open source community have to try and reverse engineer it - reading has been fine for a while, and the NTFS-3G project is having some success at getting write support. The fact remains, however, that Microsoft can change the filesystem at any time and break compatibility.

[Rob @ Oct 15th 2008 1:22PM]

@ Nomi:
I'm using WHS with Tversity already. It works fine with h.264 files, but I'm having issues with mpeg2 files. I'm still working on it.
What the hell is wrong with everyone around here. You can't make one single comment against a product because right away they want to castrate you. I think the PS3 is a great console. But, dealing with the FAT32 limitations has not given me a lot of positive experience.

[Rob @ Oct 15th 2008 1:23PM]

@ KarlW:
The irony of it all is that even the Xbox 360 is using FAT32 as well.
What's the point behind this practice?

[h0mi @ Oct 15th 2008 1:41PM]

You mean the external HDD. And I have the same problem but on the 360; I have a WMVHD file thats 11gb in size and can't put it on anything to use on a 360, let alone transcoding it to work on a ps3.

"I copied the file over using said media server."

That works with tversity? I've hated using tversity because streaming performance has not been good but I've never attempted copying files...

[Patriks7 @ Oct 15th 2008 1:55PM]

"NTFS is a proprietary filesystem. It only works well on Windows."

It works perfectly fine on my Mac..

[KarlW @ Oct 15th 2008 2:24PM]

By default, OSX comes with a read-only driver. I don't know where it comes from - it may be community-developed, or it may have been reverse-engineered by Apple, or they may have the specifications as part of some agreement with Microsoft.

If Microsoft make any changes to NTFS, the community projects and implementations not licensed by Microsoft wouldn't work with it, and it might be years before they reverse engineered enough of the code for full, stable read/write support.

[Jake @ Oct 15th 2008 2:48PM]

More clueless newbies.

The internal HDD format is not FAT32, nor is it NTFS, it's actually Encrpted JFS. External drives are FAT32.

[Rob @ Oct 15th 2008 2:57PM]

@Jake:
Instead of talking useless shit, like some other posters around here, why don't you offer solutions to the problems mentioned. You're not doing anyone a favor by pulling your one incher out. FAT32 or not, the problem remains.

[hfm @ Oct 15th 2008 3:44PM]

You can upgrade your drive, and you can also put a larger than 4G file on it using a network copy, so what problem still remains exactly? It seems like it's the one between your chair and your keyboard.

[Nomi @ Oct 15th 2008 3:54PM]

Or you couch and TV...

[Chris @ Oct 15th 2008 12:39PM]

Nice ferris reference

[JoeNES @ Oct 15th 2008 12:41PM]

By Black Friday of next year, these things will be so cheap, I see myself doing this. I still have 30% free on my 60gig, and if I got rid of my demos, it would be 90% free. Unlike the iPhone, lack of storage is not killing me right now, and I'd pay for a little faster/cooler performance with the PS3. This is encouraging news; other sites (testing 'older' SSD technology, I'm sure) claimed little to no improvement in any way.

[Ysleiro @ Oct 15th 2008 2:13PM]

Hey guys !

Totally unrelated. Today I figured out something. While driving activate your phone's camera and hold it to your face until all you see is your screen. Forget Forza and GT it doesn't get any realer that.

[Nomi @ Oct 15th 2008 1:01PM]

That made my day...lol.

[neihrick @ Oct 15th 2008 1:07PM]

i tried that, it was pretty cool. after a while my phones screen turned off from inactivity. i have to ride the bus now

[Lowest Ranked @ Oct 15th 2008 1:15PM]

I just tried it and attempted to take out the waving 2-dimensional crowd on the sidelines, but the 10 fps refresh rate on my phone interfered with my ability to avoid the other drivers and now you owe me a new car.

[Mr.Ironic @ Oct 15th 2008 1:28PM]

hahaha yeah that's 'realism' for you.

I can imagine people getting head contraptions to hold the phone so they can still use both hands.

Funny how we think the 'virtual' is so much better than the reality and then strive to make the virtual as near to reality as possible..

[o29 @ Oct 15th 2008 2:07PM]

@ Mr.Ironic:

Virtual is better because if you total your car in a video game it doesn't have any real-life implications. If we really could drive insanely with impunity (i.e. death), that would beat any video game, except unfortunately you can't restart reality. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to play Burnout with that damn slow car that just loves to drive in the fast lane.

[Ysleiro @ Oct 15th 2008 2:13PM]

Glad to have made your day.

What's crazy is that I really did try it. But briefly (I'm not that brave). Like Lowest pointed out the refresh rate makes it a bit too much of a guessing game.

Oh by the way to get the "Low street view" simply zoom in until all you see is road.

[scape @ Oct 15th 2008 2:16PM]

why not just a faster hdd? 600$ seems ridiculous! can't the ps3 be retro'd with a 10k or even 15k rpm drive?

[JoeNES @ Oct 15th 2008 2:44PM]

Do they make laptop drives that fast? Also, I've heard 7200rpm models make little difference, I doubt a 10k or 15k would either, if the BD drive is the bottleneck.. Who knows.

[Ethan @ Oct 15th 2008 1:04PM]

It's about 3/5ths the speed of the 360, if it's still a 2x Blu-Ray drive, and assuming the 360 drive is still the same speed. Not exactly gaping, but it's indicative of a system with bottlenecked potential. But Blu-ray will inevitably get faster (and importantly, cheaper), somebody will work out how to replace them too.

I hope the hardware race ends of at least abates next generation. MS put out a flawed console because of it, and the ps3 is bogged down with unjustifiable components (which an SSD is right now too, that's why my Wii is full).

[Extinction @ Oct 17th 2008 3:17PM]

"3/5ths..."

Only on the outer edge of single layered discs. Everywhere else on the disc it's the same speed, and everywhere else on dual layered discs bluray is faster.

[Michael Zupcak @ Oct 15th 2008 1:36PM]

"if you have the means, it is so choice"...good one, Ferris

[NHAnimator @ Oct 15th 2008 1:26PM]

So, essentially, adding a SSD to a PS3 has the same pros and cons as adding it to a PC?

[fistpittingnork @ Oct 15th 2008 1:32PM]

Who knew?!

[K Nang @ Oct 15th 2008 1:37PM]

if sony put a 3.5" hard drive in there instead, everything would be soooooo much sweeter
can't see a reason for them not to!

[Aaron @ Oct 15th 2008 2:09PM]

nothing stopping you. just slap some extension cables onto the power and data ports, and run them outside your ps3. The power requirements, and connections between 3.5 and 2.5 sata are the same. (or i should say the basic requirements....some 3.5 may require more power, but since we have seen that higher rpm does not matter, then go for a slower sata 3.5 and you should be ok...or go balls out and power with an external power supply)
Once you have everything running, purchase a large roll of black electrical tape and wrap it A-team style....now not only do you have a 3.5 drive, you have a groovy retro A-Team PS3 case mod!

[ethana2 @ Oct 15th 2008 1:58PM]

HAHA! With an SSD, I'll bet the 512MB of system memory will be quite enough for a solid desktop machine!

Two weeks and one day until Ubuntu 8.10, the first Ubuntu release that Just Works on the Sony PlayStation 3!

[Serial 8-Ball Mouse @ Oct 15th 2008 3:00PM]

Annoying.

[ethana2 @ Oct 15th 2008 3:05PM]

Dude, a sleek looking desktop machine that plays blu-ray for $1000 and can dual boot into an OS with awesome games?
What is annoying is that Sony won't let us get at the GPU ourselves, but the reasons for that are somewhat obvious..