Comments on: 7200rpm vs 5400rpm hard drive

By: BaMa

BaMa — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:38:55 +0000

hey, what about an SSD Hard disk? They are really fast and they will be still cool in action. Negative: they re really expensiv.
Could you take the “lowest” SSD Hard disk for the main system HD and then put a second HD via USB for games,sound ,… ?

thanks for awnsers

By: Justin

Justin — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 18:31:59 +0000

@ Talk Playstation

Thanks!

By: Redskin92

Redskin92 — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:40:35 +0000

@ Huppe

Yes you can upgrade your hard drive with any firmware installed, and with any ps3

By: Paranoimia

Paranoimia — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:43:14 +0000

@ Mark B – I upgraded mine to 320GB and it seems to recognise it fine. If I go to System Information, it reports that I have 238GB of 298GB free.

Apart from the space used by the system, I have a number of games installed – EG:WT, GT5P, MGS4, etc. So any issue there may have been appears to be sorted now.

By: Huppe

Huppe — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:31:30 +0000

Just for everybody to know. It is not anymore possible to upgrade your hard disk with a new one if you are running 40gb ps3 -version with the latest 2.41 firmware.

By: Mark B

Mark B — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:53:53 +0000

Does anyone know if Sony has sorted out it’s max partition size problem on the PS3? Where it can’t recognise anything over around 200gb for the internal hard drive. Last time I upgraded my hard drive to a 250gb 5400rpm drive it only recognised 205gb of space.

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Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:01:22 +0000

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By: Fran Aquino

Fran Aquino — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:50:50 +0000

I’d like to see the numbers of a ‘downgrade’ to a 4200rpm drive. Perhaps the times achieved are not much worse than those of the stock drive, but temperature (and fan kick in) could get much better. Don’t know. Please.

By: spookula209

spookula209 — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 03:44:44 +0000

I had the same problem with the screws when replacing my hdd. u can use compressed air from the duster cans to make the screws not be so soft since it freezes stuff. I too go the WD 320gb hdd and I have had no problems. I do notice that my fan tends to kick in a little more than before so I could imagine using a 7200rpm would make it a little worse. for the ps3 i think 5400rpm should be fine. and the 10,000rpms are way expensive and u cant get the same storage space as u can with a 5400 or 7200. check newegg.com

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:24:38 +0000

why not by a western digital of 10,000 RPM ??… that would do it… and you’d notice the difference… or is it not compatible??

By: Talk Playstation

Talk Playstation — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 23:00:09 +0000

16MB Cache.

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 22:08:22 +0000

What’s the cache on the 7200 HDD?

By: born2geek

born2geek — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 20:37:18 +0000

anyone know if the faster seek times on 7200rpm drives improve streaming ie. texture pop in in games like UT3

By: Paranoimia

Paranoimia — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 20:03:57 +0000

Generally speaking, it’s seek times and data transfer rates that matter. You can get both 7200rpm and 5400rpm drives that transfer data at 300MBps. The larger the file, the more seeking occurs, which is why the faster spinning drives (having lower seek times) notch up noticeably shorter times on the longer operations, such as installing games.

For everyday use in a PS3 (loading PSN or ‘installed’ games), I doubt you’re likely to get a noticeable decrease in load times of more than 2 or 3 seconds. Whether or not that can be considered worthwhile is down to the individual.

By: astronautbread

astronautbread — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:53:45 +0000

while the install time gains (or losses) aren’t really drastic enough to warrant it, are there any benefits in the vein of load times for games that use hard drive installs or for PSN downloaded games? I’d love to see the numbers on that, as the temp gains seem pretty minimal, especially if you keep your ps3 well ventilated….

By: Paranoimia

Paranoimia — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:26:05 +0000

When I was looking to upgrade my PS3 a few months back, I saw this same info on a website.

I decided that the speed increase of just a couple of seconds (for ‘everyday’ use – i.e. playing games, not installing them) was negligible enough to be irrelevant. Partnered with the extra heat generated by the faster drive, and the extra wear and tear that would place on the fan by causing it to step up much sooner, I decided to go with a 5400rpm 320GB Western Digital drive.

The hardest thing about actually upgrading the drive is that the screws holding it in the caddy are usually over-tightened and a real pain to remove. The heads on mine stripped in seconds, but a pair of long-nosed pliers soon got them out. I replaced them with the screws which came with the enclosure I bought for the old 60GB drive.