PS3 Whats the true compability for faster HDs on the PS3?

[Kevin8082]

So funny story, installed a 7200RPM HD on my 2001A slim some time ago, did close to no testing since for putting the games back in and everything worked out aka games = runs and even after losing my profile since even the guide in this forum on how to do it manually and using the data transfer utility didnt work out but it doesnt matter atm, fast foward maybe 2-3 months later I decided to replay all the god of war games and I noticed that the same audio track was playing 2-3x at the same time, sometimes dialogues would be cut off out of nowhere but even after a reload they would play just fine so that part was fully random, but that audio problem was bothering me like hell but I played through the games, now fast foward to yesterday and I found a 500GB 5400RPM HD lost in the PC stuff cabinet and decided to do a full wipe(zero fill) and thought of testing it on the PS3, but I also ended up doing the same on the 500GB 7200RPM HD that was on the PS3, both are from WD btw, just to try on a clean everything to test it out, fully formatted it on the console, installed webMAN MOD and put God of War 3 in the HD and even with that I was getting those annoying audio issues, and I stopped there for yesterday since I had stuff to do and today I put the 5400RPM HD in and did the same thing, fully clean install, webMAN MOD, God of War 3 and played the start of the game until I reached Athena and in the end with the slower HD I didnt have any issue with the audio whatsoever, something that when using the 7200RPM one on the first time Gaya talks the audio desync was there already.

So, I hear people talking about using SSDs, faster loading times and etc, in the end is it trully worth it putting anything faster on the PS3 considering the games seems to be so damm hard coded for that stuff to happen? Specially that "generically" the cutscenes/dialogues getting cut off seems to happen with different games(other god of war games had that problem and noticed it on killzone 3 as well).

And this stuff I couldnt find anything anywhere about it, so would be nice to hear if someone else also had this problem.

 

[GuilloteTesla]

HDD/SSD speed has nothing to do with how the games run on your console. There are reports of compatibility issues of using HDDs/SSDs above specific sizes, or SSDs with layers other than SLC.

Your audio issues may be caused from another thing, maybe some issue with the AV/HDMI encoder.

We are way over those ancient times where game's speed was bound to the hardware clocks.

 

[Kevin8082]

HDD/SSD speed has nothing to do with how the games run on your console. There are reports of compatibility issues of using HDDs/SSDs above specific sizes, or SSDs with layers other than SLC.

Your audio issues may be caused from another thing, maybe some issue with the AV/HDMI encoder.

We are way over those ancient times where game's speed was bound to the hardware clocks.

mind explaining on how changing to a slower HD fixed the problem? considering the console isnt getting overloaded anymore since even the fan isnt ramping up anymore compared to before(got a dynamic fan set up)

 

[GuilloteTesla]

mind explaining on how changing to a slower HD fixed the problem? considering the console isnt getting overloaded anymore since even the fan isnt ramping up anymore compared to before(got a dynamic fan set up)

You are mixing things up. One thing is your initial claim about audio speed affected by a faster (or slower) HDD, which is not related at all.

Now you mention that your console isn't overloading and the fan isn't ramping up with the slower HDD. That's the problem.

Faster disks usually run hotter. If your disk is hot, then it transfers its heat over to the console (and other parts).

 

[Kevin8082]

You are mixing things up. One thing is your initial claim about audio speed affected by a faster (or slower) HDD, which is not related at all.

Now you mention that your console isn't overloading and the fan isn't ramping up with the slower HDD. That's the problem.

Faster disks usually run hotter. If your disk is hot, then it transfers its heat over to the console (and other parts).

Considering that after testing both HDs were just warm to the touch that isnt the case, specially that the HD sits under the BD on the opposite side of the console where the CPU and GPU are.

Less cherry picking please.

 

[Berion]

Both SBU and DTU aren't trustworthy. If You want Your copy, You need doing it by hand, and restoring by hand:
https://www.psx-place.com/threads/ultimate-userdata-backup-guide.29037/
However, in case of saves and licenses, Apollo SaveData Tool is sufficient.

If You played from so called JB format, then You can expecting any kind of issues with games. If from disc image, You should get exactly the same results as from ODD.

HDD speed doesn't matter other than I/Ops. The faster, the better. Of course in assumption that read speed anytime from anywhere is not lower than BD speed (some games tolerating DVD speed too because was tested on such media in dev studio).

Zeroing disk is waste of time because all sectors used by PS3 are encrypting. So from PS3 point of view, zeroes or not are unreadable because after trying decryption on input block, garbage is the output.

 

[GuilloteTesla]

Considering that after testing both HDs were just warm to the touch that isnt the case, specially that the HD sits under the BD on the opposite side of the console where the CPU and GPU are.

Less cherry picking please.

No cherry picking here. In your first post you stated that you had audio issues because of using a faster HDD, which is a false statement as disk speeds don't affect how the DIGITAL data is processed. It will never, ever, be like playing vinyl record.

Then, in your second post, you add another factor to the equation: heat. Heat is known to cause issues on machines due to the nature of materials. In electronics and semi conductors, heat is known for disturbing signal processing, generating bad calculations, adding errors in the math results, producing artifacts in video signals, reducing processing speed, damaging components permanently, among many other bad things (that's why your console has a fan and heatsinks, that's why your console has safety features if it overheats, that's why it must run cool in order to work as expected).

The heat is transferred by conduction, convection and radiation. The PS3 has a steel plate that distributes the heat by conduction (doesn't matter where your HDD is as the steel plate surrounds the disk. The HDD produces heat that is transferred by convection to the motherboard and the BD drive first, and then to the rest of the console (the fan is on the opposite side so no flow of air is able to help transferring the heat). Finally, there is heat transferred by radiation which can't be helped and will add something to the heat problem.

So no, no cherry picking here. Your console is lagging because of heat (you said it yourself, the fan ramped up while your console overloaded). Your problem is not related to HDD speeds.

 

[donatelo27]

My experience is replacing the PS3 HDD with an SSD. There is no difference in the process of installing or copying the game. Game boot speed is much faster than hdd. especially when playing GTA V and The Last of Us games

Sent from my Mi A2 using Tapatalk

 

[Kevin8082]

No cherry picking here. In your first post you stated that you had audio issues because of using a faster HDD, which is a false statement as disk speeds don't affect how the DIGITAL data is processed. It will never, ever, be like playing vinyl record.

Then, in your second post, you add another factor to the equation: heat. Heat is known to cause issues on machines due to the nature of materials. In electronics and semi conductors, heat is known for disturbing signal processing, generating bad calculations, adding errors in the math results, producing artifacts in video signals, reducing processing speed, damaging components permanently, among many other bad things (that's why your console has a fan and heatsinks, that's why your console has safety features if it overheats, that's why it must run cool in order to work as expected).

The heat is transferred by conduction, convection and radiation. The PS3 has a steel plate that distributes the heat by conduction (doesn't matter where your HDD is as the steel plate surrounds the disk. The HDD produces heat that is transferred by convection to the motherboard and the BD drive first, and then to the rest of the console (the fan is on the opposite side so no flow of air is able to help transferring the heat). Finally, there is heat transferred by radiation which can't be helped and will add something to the heat problem.

So no, no cherry picking here. Your console is lagging because of heat (you said it yourself, the fan ramped up while your console overloaded). Your problem is not related to HDD speeds.

So ignoring the fact that I said that I got the dynamic fan setup which obviously is holding the temperature at the same point on both cases makes your point valid, specially that I'm stating a fact that happened which you are calling false to also make your point valid, again chuerry picking, of you dont want to help to find out the cause don't post stuff filtering stuff to your liking, thank you very much!

 

[Kevin8082]

Both SBU and DTU aren't trustworthy. If You want Your copy, You need doing it by hand, and restoring by hand:
https://www.psx-place.com/threads/ultimate-userdata-backup-guide.29037/
However, in case of saves and licenses, Apollo SaveData Tool is sufficient.

First time I did try following this guide but the PS3 wouldn't accept the files getting replaced, I think I had to enable writting on the flash so it would replace the xRegistry.sys and then it accepted the profile from the previous install, but like I said doesnt matter anymore since I wiped everything for testing.

If You played from so called JB format, then You can expecting any kind of issues with games. If from disc image, You should get exactly the same results as from ODD.

I already found out early that the JB Folder format was crap, for the games I tested are dumped discs that I bought to look pretty on the shelf and I validated them with the IRD Database.

Changing the order of the quotes here because of relevance to the post.

Zeroing disk is waste of time because all sectors used by PS3 are encrypting. So from PS3 point of view, zeroes or not are unreadable because after trying decryption on input block, garbage is the output.

I had this weird as hell issue where the PS3 would say it was formatting the HD when I was doing a clean install but when it would boot up to the system with the previous profiles and settings, and it did that a couple of times so zeroing the HDs seemed like a better bet after that happened, making it sure that there wasnt any data left in the HD that for some reason it was still reading it.

HDD speed doesn't matter other than I/Ops. The faster, the better. Of course in assumption that read speed anytime from anywhere is not lower than BD speed (some games tolerating DVD speed too because was tested on such media in dev studio).

Thats exactly what I thought, the faster the better, even on my RGH3 X360 since the console wasnt losing time to the HD the FPS got better in games which I found interesting to see, so did the same to my PS3 but compability wise seems to the random as hell, on games that are constantly reading from disc(if you noticed the HD light is on 24/7 on those games) like god of war 3 and ascension you get those weird audio problems and it also can randomly jump dialogues/what looks like in engine cutscenes after the next part is loaded, on more simple games where it loads and its done(like starhawk that I played right after the HD was installed) seems to not get those issues but I have a vague memory of the dialogue skipping because the loading was done but I'm not sure atm, same applies to the god of war collections(PS2/PSP Remaster Collections), at this point I'm guessing that on games that are reliant on constantly loading assets from the disc are the culprits, maybe because of hard coded loading sections or just badly made ones(sometimes it felt like the loading of something was basically just a loop waiting for the next file to get called and when it needed the current one it would just reload it over and over again like with the repeating dialogues I mentioned), in the end what I could guess that it depends on the game(and how badly it was coded since the PS3 is notorious for that), specially that the ones I had most problems are the ones later into the life of the PS3, so unless theres something I could try to see if I can make the 7200RPM HD consistent with that stuff for now I'm keeping the 5400RPM HD on it since the games I'm interested on playing and replaying are the ones having those weird issues.

 

[Berion]

Full format is waste of time as I said. It is enough to overwrite PS3PT (let's say first 512 bytes) to make disk clean for PS3. It is not possible that she would adopting VFLASH partition from fixed size offset because during format, all partition tables and filesystem tables are replaced by clean one. You probably mislead NOR and NAND models, on which user data from VFLASH on HDD is kept on eFlash on NAND.

All HDDs are compatible, only SSDs aren't and we don't know why some works fine and other have issues. And no, data from disc images aren't getting from fs but from 2048B blocks and only games accessing to it via FS, LBA or hh:mm:ss.

I believe, Your problem is not related to disk speed, especially that You are only one person on the planet who saying that.

 

[GuilloteTesla]

So ignoring the fact that I said that I got the dynamic fan setup which obviously is holding the temperature at the same point on both cases makes your point valid, specially that I'm stating a fact that happened which you are calling false to also make your point valid, again chuerry picking, of you dont want to help to find out the cause don't post stuff filtering stuff to your liking, thank you very much!

The fan kicking in is a clear sign that your console is having temperature issues, either caused by the new HDD or by replacing the HDD, thus affecting the heatsink contact or something. Again, that came in your second post, so no cherry picking.

If you still want to believe that your sound issues are related to the HDD speeds, be my guest. You wanted help but don't like the answers provided.

 

[Kevin8082]

The fan kicking in is a clear sign that your console is having temperature issues, either caused by the new HDD or by replacing the HDD, thus affecting the heatsink contact or something. Again, that came in your second post, so no cherry picking.

If you still want to believe that your sound issues are related to the HDD speeds, be my guest. You wanted help but don't like the answers provided.

yes because holding 65°C with both HDs would work differently because a 65 is higher than the other 65 >.>

 

[Kevin8082]

Full format is waste of time as I said. It is enough to overwrite PS3PT (let's say first 512 bytes) to make disk clean for PS3. It is not possible that she would adopting VFLASH partition from fixed size offset because during format, all partition tables and filesystem tables are replaced by clean one. You probably mislead NOR and NAND models, on which user data from VFLASH on HDD is kept on eFlash on NAND.

Look up Zero Fill, that should answer your doubt on whats has been done.

All HDDs are compatible, only SSDs aren't and we don't know why some works fine and other have issues. And no, data from disc images aren't getting from fs but from 2048B blocks and only games accessing to it via FS, LBA or hh:mm:ss.

I believe, Your problem is not related to disk speed, especially that You are only one person on the planet who saying that.

Generic answer 101 I guess, specially that I gave the scenarios that I tested and found issues, and considering that trying it for yourself would help me out to find out where the fault lies(specially that ussually I take a "dev" with higher regards) I guess I will stay with the 5400RPM HD since it seems that nobody here got the good will of helping someone

 

[jackraiden]

I decided to replay all the god of war games and I noticed that the same audio track was playing 2-3x at the same time,

You didn't specify if this problem happened with all the God of War games or just with God of War 3. For some reason, God of War 3 has this well known problem of lagging the audio and delaying some cutscenes events. I heard this also happens with Uncharted 3. This problem still happens even with the game in JB format, I haven't tested it in ISO myself and unfortunately GoW3 doesn't have a digital release.
At first, I thought the great size of the game would cause this, as it is near 40GBs, but God of War Ascension is similar and doesn't lag this way (I've played the digital version though). Other games, like FF13, has a big size and doesn't lag.
Worth mentioning too that God of War 3 seems to "randomly" NOT load the costumes you buy and download from PSN. So idk, seems like this game has some problems, it's not really a HDD fault.
I couldn't link it here, but just google for "GOW 3 Audio lag" and you will see many cases of this problem happening, with discs and backups.

 

[Kevin8082]

You didn't specify if this problem happened with all the God of War games or just with God of War 3. For some reason, God of War 3 has this well known problem of lagging the audio and delaying some cutscenes events. I heard this also happens with Uncharted 3. This problem still happens even with the game in JB format, I haven't tested it in ISO myself and unfortunately GoW3 doesn't have a digital release.
At first, I thought the great size of the game would cause this, as it is near 40GBs, but God of War Ascension is similar and doesn't lag this way (I've played the digital version though). Other games, like FF13, has a big size and doesn't lag.
Worth mentioning too that God of War 3 seems to "randomly" NOT load the costumes you buy and download from PSN. So idk, seems like this game has some problems, it's not really a HDD fault.
I couldn't link it here, but just google for "GOW 3 Audio lag" and you will see many cases of this problem happening, with discs and backups.

I did look up but as "audio desync" and didn't find anything decent(most people saying it was fixed with a patch or it was a bad disc) but as audio lag stuff that showed up was like the issue I'm having, and for both cases most of the time is people on forums(even here) says "it's only you" while it isn't, damm lazyness!

Either way thanks for the input that's actually usefull to hear about, as far as my testing gone with a dump of the disc in ISO format seems to be work just fine on a 5400RPM HD, both for God of War 3 and Ascension, originally played both on the same HD and didn't have an a issue with the same files, and since those are the primary games I like on the console I might stick with the slower HD for stability, better than changing HDs because of 2 games xD

 

[haxxxen]

Full format is waste of time as I said. It is enough to overwrite PS3PT (let's say first 512 bytes) to make disk clean for PS3.

hm, I also have to disagree here. the hdd encryption is somehow messed up, imo. since it is per sector encrypted, there is possibility, you will end up with same encryption as before on same files, if hdd was already used on same PS3. I think 3141card or glevand have said sth similar along the lines

 

[Kevin8082]

hm, I also have to disagree here. the hdd encryption is somehow messed up, imo. since it is per sector encrypted, there is possibility, you will end up with same encryption as before on same files, if hdd was already used on same PS3. I think 3141card or glevand have said sth similar along the lines

So I could have gotten the extra rare coincidence to happen? Because it was weird as hell to see the system show up with the stuff from a previous install, only thing that actually helped was a full format with zero fill to properly clean everything

 

[haxxxen]

So I could have gotten the extra rare coincidence to happen? Because it was weird as hell to see the system show up with the stuff from a previous install, only thing that actually helped was a full format with zero fill to properly clean everything

if you do not change the contents of the hdd in between, yes, the partition should be encrypted same, cause of using same keys over and over again. thus it is possible, to just overwrite vflash/devflash partition on hdd, and just force a fw reinstall instead of loosing hdd contents.

edit
from a maintenance point of view pretty useful and ease to recover, but from a security point of view completely useless as I see it

 

[GuilloteTesla]

yes because holding 65°C with both HDs would work differently because a 65 is higher than the other 65 >.>

One case (slower HDD) with the fan NOT ramping up because of the overload of the console, one case (faster HDD) with the fan ramping up because of the overload of the console.

Trully a well done experiment in a controled environment.

Generic answer 101 I guess, specially that I gave the scenarios that I tested and found issues, and considering that trying it for yourself would help me out to find out where the fault lies(specially that ussually I take a "dev" with higher regards) I guess I will stay with the 5400RPM HD since it seems that nobody here got the good will of helping someone

I repeat: if you still want to believe that your sound issues are related to the HDD speeds, be my guest. You wanted help but don't like the answers provided.