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View Full Version : PS3 + SSD = Faster Load Times, Shattered Budgets...

eth3rton
10-15-2008, 04:01 PM
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y242/LostGames/ps3-ssd-600.jpg

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.

Original article on : engadget.com (http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/15/ps3-ssd-faster-load-times-shattered-budgets/)

I'm in. Well early next year when the prices start to fall on said drives....
Suicidal ShiZuru
10-15-2008, 04:48 PM
Fuck the PS3 I need a new SSD for my desktop.
Orz
10-15-2008, 05:17 PM
Fuck the PS3 I need a new SSD for my desktop.

True words. An OS on a SSD would rock.
jeffbax
10-15-2008, 05:33 PM
True words. An OS on a SSD would rock.

Depends on the OS... most SSD are pretty small and I know Vista is particularly chunky on required space, even relative to XP which was pretty high as is.
Suicidal ShiZuru
10-15-2008, 06:22 PM
It would be a games only drive... I thought that would be obvious...

The SSDs are great with level loading, but not so spectacular in other areas of data transfer. Gaming on a SSD = sweet.
Zander
10-15-2008, 08:13 PM
I'd take a SSD large enough to just fit my swap file. Game installs second.
Windsong
10-15-2008, 11:04 PM
Agreed...we need SSDrives for PC. These unreliable "moving parts" hard drives from Seagate/Maxtor/W.D. are becoming mind bogglingly frustrating. You send in a hd for an rma and get a f'ing REFURB..NOT a new drive. More reliability would of course mean less money for Seagate's "hard disc data recovery" centers however (they charge 800 and up to retrieve your corrupt data).

Oh yeah..um, the PS3? If youve got a wolfdale cpu..who needs it?
Narradisal
10-16-2008, 05:31 AM
I'm surprised at all the supporting messages above when usually people complain about the 360's expensive HDs and although this is just an optional tweak to improve performance, the idea of spending a ton on a PS3 then more cash on improving demo downloads by 30-40 SECONDS just seems silly.
Venkman
10-16-2008, 08:22 AM
That's pretty damn cool, putting an SSD in the PS3. Cool shit!
ResistanceAddict
10-16-2008, 10:14 AM
I'm surprised at all the supporting messages above when usually people complain about the 360's expensive HDs and although this is just an optional tweak to improve performance, the idea of spending a ton on a PS3 then more cash on improving demo downloads by 30-40 SECONDS just seems silly.

Quoted for truth.
GringoFrenzy
10-16-2008, 10:49 AM
I read an article by some storage expert earlier this year that using an SSD for Windows is pretty pointless. Something to do with the way it's designed to handle accessing the storage...it takes the delays in seek times etc. that you would get from a regular HDD into account, or something like that.
I think random access times are faster, but sequential transfer speeds are actually worse.

Dunno if that applies to other OS's like Linux et al, though I've been told it makes bugger-all difference on the MacBook Air.

This argument probably won't hold any weight, as I can't seem to find the original article for citation now, but, you know...I might save someone from wasting money in the short term :)
chowweekly
10-16-2008, 11:22 PM
I'm surprised at all the supporting messages above when usually people complain about the 360's expensive HDs and although this is just an optional tweak to improve performance, the idea of spending a ton on a PS3 then more cash on improving demo downloads by 30-40 SECONDS just seems silly.

Microsoft jacks up the prices on their HDDs. You can use any HDD you want on the PS3. If you feel so inclined you can even use a SSD to increase performance. That's cool, being forced to pay MS prices isn't. Also, I don't see anyone saying they're running out to buy one right now.