Best fast way to backup GAME UTILITY DATA

Atari800

Atari800

Member
Maybe I missed reading it or not using the right keywords in the search but I need to make a backup of GAME DATA UTILITY.
I am looking for the proper, best, fastest way to make a backup of this. UTB System Backup Utility appears this might back it up, however it gives a warning of something like "its slow and it backs up about 11 GB an hour".
Soon as I start it, the screen froze but I did see HDD activity so I let it just run. I decide to let it run over night. I wake up and the screen is still frozen and no HDD activity. I had to power off/on PS3 to get is back to normal.
I am not confident I backed up the GUD or the condition it is in.
I have 220+ games and all patched so there is a lot of data in there. I am thinking to remove the drive and plop it on Linux and do a DD to make a 1:1 drive image.

Does anyone else have any thoughts or can point me to the article on how to back this up correctly?

Thanks in advance
*note: 220+ games are stored on network and accessed via PS3NETEMU and do not reside on the PS3. I am just wanting to protect the GUD as Sony may shutdown PS3 servers in the near future or throttle back speed even more so that the 7 MB/s on downloads today to maybe 1 MB/s.
I think they took PS3 Little Big Planet servers offline already -
https://cogconnected.com/2021/09/little-big-planet-servers-closing-permenantly/
 
Atari800 said:
Maybe I missed reading it or not using the right keywords in the search but I need to make a backup of GAME DATA UTILITY.
I am looking for the proper, best, fastest way to make a backup of this. UTB System Backup Utility appears this might back it up, however it gives a warning of something like "its slow and it backs up about 11 GB an hour".
Soon as I start it, the screen froze but I did see HDD activity so I let it just run. I decide to let it run over night. I wake up and the screen is still frozen and no HDD activity. I had to power off/on PS3 to get is back to normal.
I am not confident I backed up the GUD or the condition it is in.
I have 220+ games and all patched so there is a lot of data in there. I am thinking to remove the drive and plop it on Linux and do a DD to make a 1:1 drive image.

Does anyone else have any thoughts or can point me to the article on how to back this up correctly?

Thanks in advance
*note: 220+ games are stored on network and accessed via PS3NETEMU and do not reside on the PS3. I am just wanting to protect the GUD as Sony may shutdown PS3 servers in the near future or throttle back speed even more so that the 7 MB/s on downloads today to maybe 1 MB/s.
I think they took PS3 Little Big Planet servers offline already -
https://cogconnected.com/2021/09/little-big-planet-servers-closing-permenantly/
Click to expand...

Hello there!. I've run up with some issues on the HDD myself while moving my data from one PS3 to another, and the simples and easiest way to make backups is via FTP. Game Data is stored in /dev_hdd0/game/<TITLE_ID>.

I didn't know that Little Big Planet got an update that moved all the profile and saved games data into the Game Data folder. When I tried to continue gaming with Sackboy, the game started from the tutorial intro. Luckily, I could retrieve the profile data from the Game Data and re encrypt to be used in my new PS3.

Hope that helps.
 
Thanks for the response.
I am not moving the data to another ps3, I just want to make sure I have a backup of all of the patch updates.
I'll test ftp, I hope it is faster than 15 MB/s like MultiMan copy gets up to. The computer and PS3 are on same wired hub
 
Atari800 said:
Thanks for the response.
I am not moving the data to another ps3, I just want to make sure I have a backup of all of the patch updates.
I'll test ftp, I hope it is faster than 15 MB/s like MultiMan copy gets up to. The computer and PS3 are on same wired hub
Click to expand...

Well the speeds are not going to change unless you install 3.55 or 4.21 as Sony nerfed the speeds in 4.30 firmware. If you enable QA flag with system update debug you can freely swap firmwares stored on the PS3 to make it easier.

OpenFTP seems to be the fastest FTP as I got 20mbps using it while webMAN & multiMAN maxed out at 15mbps as you have seen.

If you just want to backup the drive quickest way possible is with your eID root key to use PS3tools to allow your PC to copy the data. This is a good idea as it's quick & easy to pull out of PS3, hookup to either directly to your PC or using an external HDD case of sorts.
 
Thanks - I think I will just pull drive , plug it in my linux box, DD copy contents to a file then put it back in PS3
That "should" make a mirror image of the drive and copy at 500 MB/s
*I put in an SSD into PS3 like 3 years ago - no problems (yet)
 
Atari800 said:
Thanks - I think I will just pull drive , plug it in my linux box, DD copy contents to a file then put it back in PS3
That "should" make a mirror image of the drive and copy at 500 MB/s
*I put in an SSD into PS3 like 3 years ago - no problems (yet)
Click to expand...

It will but with it encrypted if you ever put another one in the PS3 that drive will not work. Unfortunately there is no swapping HDD's once it is locked if you insert another that will no longer work.

That's why I suggested copying the contents unencrypted as it will be less of a hassle in case something doesn't go right. If that was the case then backing it up we absolutely pointless. The only sure fire way to backup encrypted is via the recovery menu but that takes forever.
 
True - if my current PS3 gives up the ghost, and it is not a hard drive issue, I'll start over fresh
Else
I will get a replacement 1TB drive and reimage it with my last backup
*Unless PS3 uses some drive signature as part of its encryption

Or maybe make a backup image, get EID key and see if I can find info on how to mount the image and decrypt it.
Or something with VirtualBox
or..... well it will be a project for sure
 
The Ps3 has all the HDD info in their xRegistry.sys config file, so I believe that copying exactly every byte from one HDD to another will not be so easy.

Never try to do that, though.
 
If you want to create a backup your PS3 Internal Hard Drive in case it fails or gets corrupted ... then CLONE IT !

I've been using HDD Raw Copy Tool software for PC and have been able to clone my PS3 1TB HDD onto another 1TB HDD without any problems. :)

You can swap the hard drives over at any time because they are exact 1:1 Byte/Sector by Sector copies. (in fact i have 2 Clones as backup)

When i've finished cloning successfully, to check everything is ok .. i insert the cloned HDD into the PS3 and it recognizes all the data just fine.

You can download HDD Raw Copy Tool from here: http://hddguru.com/

Obviously when you connect the PS3 HDD to your PC .. Windows will not recognize it (and may prompt to Format it .. DON'T)

The HDD Raw Copy Tool software will see the PS3 HDD and be able to clone it.

Oh, Approx time to clone a 1TB HDD (in a USB3.0 Enclosure connected to PC) is around 6 Hours
 
Nice...
However I am in Linux so the native command line methods would be
Disk to Disk Clone
dd if=/dev/sdx of=/dev/sdy bs=64M conv=sync,noerror status=progress
*where sdx is the original ps3 disk and sdy is the new drive I'm cloning to

Disk to File
dd if=/dev/sdx of=/path/to/ps3-backup.dsk bs=64M conv=sync,noerror status=progress
*where /path/to/ps3-backup.dsk is a directory path and filename you want to save to

File to Disk
dd if=/path/to/ps3-backup.dsk of=/dev/sdx bs=64M conv=sync,noerror status=progress

Since I will be plugging into SATA ports directly (not USB) I am expecting to get ~500 MB/s vs ~120 MB/s across USB

Some math...
500/120 = 4.1 (sata directly is 4 times faster than USB)
6/4 = 1,5 (hoping to backup drive in 1..5 hours ;-) )

We shall see

Thanks Team
 
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