PS3 What’s the mysterious about this 4TB external HDD? PS3 can read it!

[Dariush Aghaee]

As everyone says it's not possible to format a hdd with more than 2TB capacity in MBR, I decided to show you this one, which one of my customers bring to me to copy some of his backups on to it. It works on his PS3 and some others.
It's a 4TB my passport WD with PN:WDBPKJ0040BBK-0A

Questions:
1. How the heck they could make it MBR?
2. Its file system is FAT32. It should be so?
3.1. Its owner keeps asking not to format it so I can't format it to exfat or ntfs. How am I supposed to copy for example GOW3.iso to it?
3.2. Inside of this hdd is some games divided in 4GB parts which are new to me. They are some kind of split. What program they have used?

Additional information;
As it's visible in the picture, the allocation size of the unit is 4096 bytes. Looks like the hdd is sort of special in this regard:
512e is the advanced format in which the physical sector size is 4,096 bytes, but the logical sector size emulates 512 bytes sector size. The purpose of 512e is for the new devices to be used with OSs that do not support 4Kn sectors yet.
But the question is how to know if a drive is 512e compatible and if so, how to make it MBR? Is there any special tools for this?

 

[SKEPTiCK]

I think it's "internal HDDs" that have a drive limit of 2TB because I have gotten a 6TB external working as FAT32 with 32kb clusters using Wii Backup Manager and yes multiMAN will read it as 6TB being available from checking on PS3

Although, what happens beyond the usual known boundary of 4TB of storage I have not seen because I do not have that many games stored, maybe about 2.2TB is what I've loaded onto it at most.

Other than that I believe externals can be up to 8TB as FAT32 but I've never seen anyone po pictures of their external exceeding 6TB on PS3.

 

[Dariush Aghaee]

I have done a little searching through web last night and it seems not a big deal to format a HDD as MBR fat32/exfat or whatever.
You just need to initiate it as MBR in disk management then using commands format it. But I don't know why there is not a tutorial special for PS3. At least I didn't find.
Anyway The only thing I want to know is how to split large.iso game files. What program I need to use?

 

[bucanero]

Use the ISO split tool from here:

https://github.com/bucanero/ps3iso-utils/releases

 

[Berion]

You can convert GPT to MBR without data loosing because GPT is larger and have even designed space for MBR blob for backward compatibility.

Looks like the hdd is sort of special in this regard:

It is not. ;]

MBR have his limitations. You cannot use larger disk size for MBR than 2TiB. However, this can be hijacked if sector size (do not mislead with cluster size) is 4096 instead 512 (so max is 8TiB in theory; because in table LBAs are the unit; if in future physical sector size be even larger, then MBR would cover up larger sizes). I'm not sure if PS3 can use it properly thou.

 

[Dariush Aghaee]

Use the ISO split tool from here:

https://github.com/bucanero/ps3iso-utils/releases

The latest release of your application is not a .exe. It's build.tar.gz and I have no idea how to run it on windows

 

[bucanero]

The latest release of your application is not a .exe. It's build.tar.gz and I have no idea how to run it on windows

it's a compression format. Just get a tool like 7zip or win RAR and open the file. You'll find the executable files inside the archive.

 

[60fpshacksrock]

it's a compression format. Just get a tool like 7zip or win RAR and open the file. You'll find the executable files inside the archive.

And to think I could have used this instead Hex Editor Neo for combining ISO's larger than 3.99 or 4GB.

But I found a tool a while back to combine split files for my Wii since my PS3 uses a 2TB NTFS SSD and splitting is no longer needed. The only games I had issues being split was GT5/GT6 because the VOL file is quite large and it was loading a lot slower than usual. I am not sure if this issue only applies to wMM (the main one I use) or the other loaders too.

 

[Berion]

@Dariush Aghaee I don't know why inside *.zip is "build.tar.gz" but it is archive format. *.tar is Linux (well, even older) archive format without compression and *.gz i GZip.

@60fpshacksrock What are You talking about? :P

 

[60fpshacksrock]

@Dariush Aghaee I don't know why inside *.zip is "build.tar.gz" but it is archive format. *.tar is Linux (well, even older) archive format without compression and *.gz i GZip.

@60fpshacksrock What are You talking about? :P

When ISO's are run as split files and contain a (internal) file larger than 4GB it causes the game to load slower.

 

[Dariush Aghaee]

Today I was thinking maybe the PS3 ISO tools https://www.psx-place.com/resources/ps3-iso-tools.68/ has the tool for the purpose. So I run it and vola! thankfully it has the tools for splitting and merging ISO(s).
Knowing about that compression (.tar) is interesting by the way.
Thank you all for the good information though.

this can be hijacked if sector size (do not mislead with cluster size) is 4096 instead 512 .

How to do so?
Because it looks like there is no way to change the sector size on a HDD. But the WD external drives (perhaps its SATA->USB controller) are just compatible because they have a feature to emulate desired sector size. This feature could be activated by the WD format tool by selecting the XP compatibility option.

If you select that option your hdd will be initiated MBR

 

[60fpshacksrock]

I'm not sure if it would help, but you could try EaseUS partition master. It is my favorite formatting tool.

 

[Berion]

@Dariush Aghaee Sector size is physical value, You cannot change it until You become God and move atoms at will.

 

[Dariush Aghaee]

I'm not sure if it would help, but you could try EaseUS partition master. It is my favorite formatting tool.

Thank you. It definitely helps. Actually the 4TB hdd which I have here is a WD. Using the "WD quick format tool" I can make the 512e enabled. After that, formatting that capacity as fat32 needs such third party application.

@Dariush Aghaee Sector size is physical value, You cannot change it until You become God and move atoms at will.

Yeah. That would be interesting[emoji16]

 

[TnA]

I think it's "internal HDDs" that have a drive limit of 2TB

AFAIR rather ~1.5TB... internally...

because I have gotten a 6TB external working as FAT32 with 32kb clusters using Wii Backup Manager and yes multiMAN will read it as 6TB being available from checking on PS3

The Clusters are not sectors, as Berion mentioned. They make no difference regarding 512n, 512e, 4kn...

Although, what happens beyond the usual known boundary of 4TB of storage I have not seen because I do not have that many games stored, maybe about 2.2TB is what I've loaded onto it at most.

Usual known boundary of 4TB?????????? That does not exist!

Other than that I believe externals can be up to 8TB as FAT32 but I've never seen anyone po pictures of their external exceeding 6TB on PS3.

16......... 16TiB/17.6TB!

But I don't know why there is not a tutorial special for PS3. At least I didn't find.

Because it isn't needed?!!

so max is 8TiB in theory; because in table LBAs are the unit; if in future physical sector size be even larger, then MBR would cover up larger sizes).

No... 4k is 8 times of 512Byte........... 2TiB times 8 is 16TiB.............!

Today I was thinking maybe the PS3 ISO tools https://www.psx-place.com/resources/ps3-iso-tools.68/ has the tool for the purpose. So I run it and vola! thankfully it has the tools for splitting and merging ISO(s).

Oh wonder... You followed what you have been told and now make it seem like you've just done a new discovery!

@Dariush Aghaee Sector size is physical value, You cannot change it until You become God and move atoms at will.

That is NOT CORRECT!
It is a LOGIC-ABSTRACTION and CAN be changed!

 

[atreyu187]

AFAIR rather ~1.5TB... internally...

1.75tb drives work great as well. When I used a 2tb internal I was able to get 1.82tb useable with the rest unallocated. The problem with that is if you have to do a file system check or database rebuild it forces a format.

 

[Berion]

It is a LOGIC-ABSTRACTION and CAN be changed!

Service Area cannot be modified, so it cannot be changed. And I'm not sure if magnetic domains aren't grouping which is why sectors are "invented" in the first place, instead to MFM predecessors.

 

[Dariush Aghaee]

the WD external drives (perhaps its SATA->USB controller) are just compatible because they have a feature to emulate desired sector size.

I have tested a WD elements sata to usb bridge with a 4TB 3.5" hdd but it gave me this error.

From searching trough web and some documents on WD website (NOT my discovery of course!) Looks like the hdd it self needs to be 4K. Meaning it's physical sector size needs to be 4096.

Because it isn't needed?!!

Why not?!! Obviously it IS! I have nearly 200 game disks collection and I am looking for a solution to backing all them up in one hdd connected to one USB port of the console.

Oh wonder... You followed what you have been told and now make it seem like you've just done a new discovery!

It looks like so to you? Well I clearly didn't mention discovery or anything. Actually I said thankfully the app has the tools. And when exactly I was told about PS3 ISO Tools? Don't you think you need to look more carefully before making a judgment?!!

That is NOT CORRECT!
It is a LOGIC-ABSTRACTION and CAN be changed!

We were talking about physical sectors and from google: You can't change the sector size of a hard drive, the sectors are created when the hard drive is manufactured and can't be changed.

 

[ModderFokker619]

This is old news and not all HDD can be formatted MBR passed 2tb. If they are then yeah they will work on ps3 and wii and older 360 methods. USB only of course.

 

[Dariush Aghaee]

This is old news and not all HDD can be formatted MBR passed 2tb. If they are then yeah they will work on ps3 and wii and older 360 methods. USB only of course.

Of coarse it is old news. The whole thing is about this. Even the thread title says so. What I'm looking for is what features one HDD should have so it could be formatted MBR passed 2TB? Could you shed some light on this?
I'm looking for specific information so I can know the HDD I'm buying is going to work.