PS3 Confusion around external storage

C

calmitjanet

Member
Hi folks,

I've got a CFW console running Evilnat 4.90, and I'm a bit confused around external (and internal) storage.

At the moment it has an internal 256GB drive, which obviously fills up quick. I've got an external USB 2TB storage device, which I want to use for storing and running PS3 games from only. (PS1, PS2 and anything else will be on the internal storage).

My understanding is that the external storage must be FAT32 with an MBR partition table, but obviously doing this will give me a file limit of 4GB, which I suspect will cause issues with the much larger PS3 games.

So essentially I'm asking - how exactly should I set up this external 2TB USB storage, so that it automatically stores/launches/runs PS3 games from it? Or do I need to use a manager/launcher for this?

Thanks in advance!
 
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Current WMM and IRISMAN supporting NTFS or exFAT on MBR or GPT if I'm correct. But if You have FAT32 then disc images must be split which backup manager would merging on the fly (due to filesize limit of FAT32 as You know).
 
from external device
NTFS and exFAT support :
- only iso files
- splitted iso (iso.0 iso.1 etc..) but it's useless to split here

FAT32 support
- JB (Folder) backup with only small files < 4GB
- ISO backup if it's smaller than 4GB
- Splitted ISO iso.0 iso.1 backup
/!\ It doesn't support JB backup with big files even if the game can be mounted, it will crash. Big files won't be merged on the fly like it's done with splitted iso. It must be copied/merged to internal hdd or extracted if it's doable (like psarc files)

My advice : Put only ISO backup inside an NTFS or exFAT hdd inside PS3ISO folder at the root then mount backup with the launcher of your choice. I think most people use WebManMOD.
 
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Thanks guys, really appreciate the help. I think I'm just going to find a 1.5TB internal storage solution, think it's going to be the most straightforward and simplest way of achieving seamless storage.
 
I have (or rather had, before it failed :() a 2TB USB HDD which had both a FAT32 and an NTFS partition. FAT32 for ISOs 4GB or under, which includes some PS3 backups but of course all PS1. Plus, native support for watching ripped DVDs which are easily made compatible by encoding with the PlayStation preset in Handbrake.

NTFS for everything else, including the majority of PS3 ISOs. The homebrew application Movian adds non-native codec/file support and it can also access NTFS partitions, so you're covered either way if you had some e.g. Blu-ray rips that were over 4GB.
 
Thanks for the advice guys. I just ended up geting a 1TB SSD and throwing that into internal storage and that'll do - I can't be bothered messing about with different drives and partitions etc etc.

Cheers!
 
calmitjanet said:
Thanks for the advice guys. I just ended up geting a 1TB SSD and throwing that into internal storage and that'll do - I can't be bothered messing about with different drives and partitions etc etc.

Cheers!
Click to expand...

Hey, I read that you're going with SSD for your internal. How is it? Any problem you encounter until now? I'm also planning to replace my internal HDD but quite worry because some people encounter problem while using SSD.
 
ramarsetya said:
Hey, I read that you're going with SSD for your internal. How is it? Any problem you encounter until now? I'm also planning to replace my internal HDD but quite worry because some people encounter problem while using SSD.
Click to expand...
SSD on the PS3 is a hit or miss thing. The PS3 was not designed for SSD and lacks support for the TRIM command. This means that write operations become slower over time and the SSD wears faster. Some SSD models handle the lack of TRIM better than others but there's no definite list. I guess getting a newer model from a known manufacturer is your best bet.

Also for some unknown reason on models that are backwards compatible with PS2 (CECHA, CECHB, CECHC, CECHE) installing an SSD seems to break the ability to play PS2 backups from DVD-R.
 
Worked perfectly, still works. SSD was very cheap and not bothered if it fails. It's quick and silent and I've not ran into any issues at all.
 
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