SSD in... PS3?

[TemjinGold]

So with the announcement of the Samsung 840, I can finally put aside my silly aspiration of going with a Vertex 4. I was hoping to get a large 840 Pro for my rig and move my G2 to my PS3. Is this hard to do? I've never replaced the drive in the PS3 before. Has anyone done this?

 

[jpiniero]

I think it's complicated, but there are plenty of tutorials out there on replacing the HD. I don't think it's worth it to put an SSD in though, the benefit in most games is minor.

 

[razel]

It is not complicated. My leftover SSD went to my PS3 years ago. If the SSD is larger than the PS3 HDD, then you can use minitool's partition wizard home which is free to sector-by-sector clone the PS3 HDD to SSD. When you plug that SSD into the PS3 it will be the same size of the PS3 HDD. That is the EASIEST and QUICKEST way. It's good if you just want to see if it helps you any.

The correct way is to backup the PS3 using it's backup utility. This can take a long time since the PS3 seems limited to 8MB/s USB transfer. To do this you'll

1) synch your trophies
2) plug in a USB drive with enough space to copy the PS3 HDD contents
3) copy the latest PS3 firmware from the Sony website onto that USB drive
4) plug the SSD in, on startup it will want to install the PS3 firmware
5) once it's fully working, perform the restore
6) re-synch your trophies, activate your PS3 for downloadable games/video.

Done!

It's benefits depend on the game. I found it indispensable for both Fallout 3 and Fallout 3: New Vegas. Entering new areas didn't take up to 30 seconds. Which I honestly didn't mind sometimes since it forced my body to stand up and reset my eyes from hours of gaming.

 

[TemjinGold]

Thanks. I don't actually have any save games I care about on the HD, so is there a way to put the SSD in and have it be a fresh start? I have a 160 gb ssd but a 200 gb notebook drive in there (I replaced the 60 with a 200).

Should add: Now that I think about it, I DID replace the drive before (200 for the 60) but it was so long ago I can't remember if it was hard...

 

[jpiniero]

It's benefits depend on the game. I found it indispensable for both Fallout 3 and Fallout 3: New Vegas. Entering new areas didn't take up to 30 seconds. Which I honestly didn't mind sometimes since it forced my body to stand up and reset my eyes from hours of gaming.

Note: I said most

Bethesda games are so seriously unoptimized and buggy that they would show a benefit from an SSD.

 

[razel]

Note: I said most

No worries! I totally agree with you. Along with Bethesuda's bad programming. Believe me, as much as I loved the Fallout 3 universe... I'm a Wasteland fan, I was just as irritated having to deal with how bad their DLCs slow down the game.

For the OP, for a fresh start, sync your trophies, remove the HDD, put a copy of the PS3 firmware off Sony's site onto a USB stick and plug the SSD in. It will format it, ask for the firmware and bam. New fresh start.

 

[raasco]

With the prices of SSD drastically falling, I've been giving this some serious thought. I do have a few questions for people who have already done this.

1. Have load times for applications improved? I.E. Netflix
2. I'm assuming you will want one with internal garbage collection?
3. What issues have you had?

 

[razel]

1. Load times for HDD installed games improved. The Fallout 3 series was the major one for me. You can see other benches off the web or youtube that Rage improves as well. Netflix will load quickly, but as you know once you start a movie, it is all up to your Internet connection.
2. Not a concern with current model SSDs and that the PS3 is *probably* SATA I. The fastest I can load information on the PS3 is via DLNA at ~30MB/s.
3. Space with smaller SSDs.