Oh I didnt read up on that yet.
However, I think 2 TB may be a mathematically limit
The number 2,147,483,647 (or hexadecimal 7FFFFFFF 16) is the maximum positive value for a 32-bit signed binary integer in computing.
PS3NETSRV doesnt need to handle the OS so the limit "should be" whatever the host OS filesystem limitation would be
*within reason - I doubt the PS3 could handle 10000 titles in the xmb - lol
Yes, is a limitation of the max partition size allowed by the
MBR. Applyes to external USB storage devices (and the card readers of the first PS3 fat models too because are considered USB too)
The organization of the partition table in the MBR limits the maximum addressable storage space of a partitioned disk to 2 TiB (232 × 512 bytes).
The way i see it (for simplification purposes), is... when we create a MBR and a partition there is a index that contains the info to find all sectors of the partition, and the amount of entries that can be added to the index matches 2TB
The only way to go bigger than 2TB is by not using MBR (in other words, using GPT instead of MBR)
As far i remember
@Zar added GPT support to ManaGunZ at the same time he added support for exFAT
*If someone wants to play around with GPT + exFAT i suggest to use an small USB stick with a small game backup for the tests (an stick of 4GB with a PS3ISO of 2GB would be good enought) before starting moving several TB of games in between drives... mostly to see how it works, its limitations, to get used to it, etc...
As far as SSD, you'll get mixed answers.
I am using SSD within my PS3 for over a year (maybe more) with no issue.
When my PS3 crashes for whatever reason or I power off my UPS and not thinking that PS3 was awake, it only takes a minute for the PS3 to check the system and rebuild database (or whatever voodoo it does)
Now you wont see a night and day difference in performance as the SATA is SATA300 (or SATA II) and MAY get up to 300 MB/s.
I read that people had problems or speculated certain issues were caused by SSD but I havent experienced any
I think the PS3 internal drive cannot exceed 1.8TB
I am using a 473GB drive (some odd number) but it works
The problem when using a internal SSD in the PS3 is there are some models that have some incompatibility with the PS3, we dont know why it happens but i guess is because the controller (chip) of the SSD drive
That controllers are updated every year, is a technology that is in constant evolution in the last years... so is hard to know if a specific SSD is going to work fine in the PS3
All i know is i have seen some good reports from some samsung SSD's (but was manufactured some years ago, and was around 500mb like yours as far i remember)
As a general rule i use to say that is not worthy to buy a new SSD specifically for the PS3, because there is a probability to be incompatible with the PS3
But if you already have a SSD around not used then yeah... just try it
The way to check if the SSD is working fine in the PS3 is by running the process you mentioned, when it does the vodoo
(named "restore filesystem" available from the recovery menu.... or triggered automatically after a firmware freeze/crash)
That process does a manteinance of the filesystems to find errors and to repair them, in the incompatible SSDs doesnt works. You can start it but shows an error and is not completed so is imposible to do any kind of manteinance to the filesystems
Btw, the time required to complete that process depends of the capacity of the HDD/SSD... the amount of files... and also how much "damaged" was the files and the filesystems. Is a good synpthom that in your PS3 only takes a minute to complete
