PS3 HDDs in 2022?

T

TheUNkilled

Member
Since it's almost impossible to find new non-SMR drives for a resonable price today, I was wondering if they're really that bad if I won't be installing new games often.
My current drive is failing and I need a replacement very soon but everywhere I go everyone is going insane about how SMR drives are unreliable on consoles.
I don't need a lot of storage as I don't play a lot of games on my PS3 these days but I still wanna play through persona for example.
Should I just get the cheapest SMR drive and not worry about it or go scavenging for old laptop hard drives and hope they work fine?
 
If you are willing to spend the money you can go with a SATA SSD, only the thing is that you wont get the fast speed. (Come on, its a 16 year old machine :onthego:)
 
According to this site some SMR drives are device managed instead of host managed. Maybe these would work? No idea honestly, I guess I'm behind as this is the first time of me hearing about SMR HDD drives XD
 
TheUNkilled said:
Since it's almost impossible to find new non-SMR drives for a resonable price today, I was wondering if they're really that bad if I won't be installing new games often.
My current drive is failing and I need a replacement very soon but everywhere I go everyone is going insane about how SMR drives are unreliable on consoles.
I don't need a lot of storage as I don't play a lot of games on my PS3 these days but I still wanna play through persona for example.
Should I just get the cheapest SMR drive and not worry about it or go scavenging for old laptop hard drives and hope they work fine?
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This is such an interesting topic, yet there's a second topic: Advanced Format. I'll let you google about it. However, considering that very late PS3 units shipped with a 500 GB HGST (that's a brand) hard disk drive using Advanced Format 512e, I think using "512e" HDDs is fine.

So... Back to your topic! I think modern device-managed SRM drives are powerful enough to be compatible with a PS3. Basically, I bet the PS3 won't be slowed down by an HDD. Of course, the best thing to do would probably to dump an existing system backup of your PS3, then install whatever you need once and for all. Finally, if I am to believe what I read on hdsentinel.com, it might be wise to not fill such SMR HDD. You'll want enough free space.
 
@TheUNkilled It is still better working drive than dying or dead drive. ;) So You don't really have a choice.

If S.M.A.R.T is ok and sector access time is reasonable, then they will work. How long is lottery, but if You afraid of some incompatibility, You shouldn't.

@Izofeu It is technology used to writing. SMR is slow and faulty but cheap so it will kill CMR and other on the market, leaving only server class drives.

@Bowi PS3 will not format partitions with cluster size = 4096KB, it will stick to 512KB no matter what.
 
Berion said:
But what benefit will be while file system clusters still be 512KB?
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I'm not sure I understand your question. There is no benefit when using 512e instead of proper native 512-byte-per-sector HDD.

I mean that most—if not all—current personal hard disk drives, while being advertised as 4066-byte-per-sector, also support 512-byte-per-sector emulation. I don't really know how it works, though… I think it's definitely not as good as the old native 512-byte-per-sector, but those native 512-byte-per-sector HDDs are difficult to find, and I'm pretty sure they are not manufactured anymore.

(edited formatting, and pluralized "HDD", "singularized" "benefit")
 
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The conclusion is: it doesn't matter for PS3 if this is 512, 4K or "512e". ;) She will always use 512 as logic block for internal and external storage.
 
Berion said:
The conclusion is: it doesn't matter for PS3 if this is 512, 4K or "512e". ;) She will always use 512 as logic block for internal and external storage.
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Actually, I'm not sure using a 4Kn (native 4096-byte-per-sector) on a PS3 (sorry, originally wrote "PS4") is even possible, but, AFAIK, 4Kn HDD are exclusive to large HDDs like WD Red Pro and other NAS drives.
 
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We talking about PS3 or PS4? PS3 can use any of those HDD, I don't know what about PS4 because I never changed her drives.
 
I put Crucial MX500 1TB (bought at a good price) into my PS3 Slim coz most of new HDD are not great and not cheap. All works fine plus there are performance benefits for some games.
 
raidriar said:
Honestly at this point, just grab a cheap 1TB SSD and call it a day. You can get the tforce Vulcan Z 1TB for like $60

https://www.newegg.com/amp/team-group-1tb-t-force-vulcan-z/p/N82E16820331833


Plenty for PS3, uses less power, more reliable, eliminates pop-out in some games.
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I do have an SSD in my PS3, but I understand why people are asking questions.

The PS3 doesn't support the SATA "TRIM" command, and this can apparently be a problem. I don't really know much about that though...

I don't know what is worse in a PS3: An SSD which is unsupported by the PS3, or a modern SMR HDD which doesn't rely on the PS3 to stay efficient...

TL;DR: Modern consumer HDDs support legacy OS and hardware, but I'm not so sure about modern SSDs.
 
I think SSD inside PS3 mainly loading data, less writing and deleting (in compare with OS like Windows) so i don`t care about TRIM. Some players using small (128, 250 GB) SSD for years without issues...
 
"dev_hdd1" is used for update packages unpacking and in theory by games. "tmp" for the same as on Linux, *BSD etc. but doesn't disappear on fresh boot.
 
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