Hard drive for PS3 Slim 3003B...

ElectroBlaster · 4 Dec 2012 at 13:12

I want to go ahead and get the biggest capacity drive that will fit and work in a PS3 Slim. Not the new one with the slide door thing but the one before that with no led's on the buttons.

Currently have a 320gb in there and would like at least 700gb or so... 1tb would be great but afaik there are issues with that?

Anyone know which brand is the one to go for?
Thanks

will13 · 4 Dec 2012 at 14:06

As long as its 9.5mm any will do, got a Samsung 640gb in mine for about a year now, works good

ElectroBlaster · 4 Dec 2012 at 14:08

Excellent

Any issues with 7200rpm's?
Time to hit the OCUK store.

ps3ud0 · 4 Dec 2012 at 14:31

I stick with WD when I can - anything 9.5mm in height will fit without trouble, think only the old phats could be easily modded to fit the 12.5mm ones...

ps3ud0 :cool:

ElectroBlaster · 4 Dec 2012 at 14:35

Yes WD seem to be the chosen choice for this job, been googling and reading everything I can find!

There does seem to be an issue that will need to be looked at tho! it involves "aggressive head parking".

If I encounter that or end up with drive that will do this then I should be able to sort it out

BuZ · 4 Dec 2012 at 14:41

Any 2.5 inch HDD will work I think. Same goes for XBOX 360. I don't know on the speeds though. I will actually search that up because I were thinking about extending the space on my 360's 250GB HDD.

ps3ud0 · 4 Dec 2012 at 14:47

ElectroBlaster said:
Yes WD seem to be the chosen choice for this job, been googling and reading everything I can find!

There does seem to be an issue that will need to be looked at tho! it involves "aggressive head parking".

If I encounter that or end up with drive that will do this then I should be able to sort it out

Hmmm Im actually moving from an ailing WD 320Gb Blue to a WD 500Gb Black - Ive noticed the clicks before but dont really notice them (game using headphones). Be interesting to hear if you find a way to reduce them...

ps3ud0 :cool:

ElectroBlaster · 4 Dec 2012 at 14:56

ps3ud0 said:
Hmmm Im actually moving from an ailing WD 320Gb Blue to a WD 500Gb Black - Ive noticed the clicks before but dont really notice them (game using headphones). Be interesting to hear if you find a way to reduce them...

ps3ud0

My son has an 11month old slim and I have never heard it make sound other than the BD drive rattling away and the fan cooling!

Mine was noticable the moment I first turned it on and I am so used to hearing dodgy drives, I just knew that moment something was not quite right!

So I am just assuming here but I may have a wd drive in it and the aggressive head thing has not been disabled. If not then its a dodgy drive that may soldier on for years or die sometime soon, sods law means christmas day just to wind me up! :rolleyes:

ps3ud0 · 4 Dec 2012 at 15:05

I dont think Sony uses OEM WD drives, normally be a Japanese firm - Toshiba/Hitachi/Fujitsu most likely

Head Parking is a good feature for normal OSes (and most HDD manus will have it implemented one way or another), unfortunately stuff that works for Windows doesnt seem to work the same for Sonys OS...

To illustrate my WD 320Gb is over 4years old and only now Im noticing it lagging, as its used with PlayTV it obviously gets used a lot too...

ps3ud0 :cool:

demonix · 4 Dec 2012 at 16:18

ElectroBlaster said:
1tb would be great but afaik there are issues with that?

There aren't as the samsung spinpoint M8 1TB is 9.5mm, and the only review for it on the store states that it works in the PS3

Monkeh · 5 Dec 2012 at 02:29

I have the spinpoint M8 1TB in my PS3, works lovely and feels faster than the Hitachi drive that came with the PS3 slim. WD scorpio blue 320gb gave noticeable lag on my original PS3 from the day it was installed but it was a lot newer than ps3ed0's drive and the head park feature might not have been as aggressive on the original versions of the drive I guess.

ps3ud0 · 5 Dec 2012 at 02:44

Ive not bothered to do any research since I bought the Blue, but I feel kinda reassurred Ive got a Black replacing it as from what I can tell it doesnt even have this featurred enabled to improve its access time

Gonna install it over the weekend hopefully so Ill try and post back if it makes any difference!

Its food for thought though, as Ive always recommended the WD drives but was unaware of such 'features' causing these issues on the PS3 and theres a fair few on here using them too. One thing I can say is I recently got a brand new 320Gb PS3 as a temp replacement and OMG the HDD in that was shocking compared to the 3year old PS3 Slim Im now back with and its 4yr+ old WD Blue so Im hoping I would have noticed if it was affected other than the noise characteristic...

EDIT: Just realised Ive got a photo of the drive in question Im using - its a WD3200BEVT using Firmware 22ZCTO I think and was manufactured in May 2008

ps3ud0 :cool:

Monkeh · 5 Dec 2012 at 09:27

Mine is a WD3200BEVT-22A0RT0, Firmware 01.01A01 manufactured 26/2/2010 - seriously a horrid drive for gaming, reading on the WD forums it appears this one will park the heads and spin down after just 8s of inactivity.

I don't think the older blues were as bad tbh - my brother in law uses the same drive and didn't have any issues either which was why I bought the drive. The drive still works fine though, I've retired it to my laptop.

ps3ud0 · 5 Dec 2012 at 09:54

Cheers Monkeh, just for a minute there I actually thought that perhaps I just hadnt noticed but considering I sent back a new PS3 for such issues (crashing games, crashing at midnight within PlayTV - around same time it polls for next days guide, every recorded program stuttered at the start of playback and needed replaying before being smooth) it would have been more than obvious to me looking at what youve said.

Cant you reduce the head parking as I resume its just a power management feature? WD used to give you HDD tools to do such changes. LOL imagine a Green in a PS3 :eek:

ps3ud0

ElectroBlaster · 5 Dec 2012 at 13:37

Well I will be getting the 1tb Samsung soon as funds permit

I had 5minutes spare earlier whilst the house was quiet so I could check my son's ps3 again. His makes the same knocking noises but not as loud as mine!
But he has a more serious problem and it involves him getting a lot of black screens... the video plug seems to be the issue here but I cannot suss out why this has happend? The console has always been in one spot and never pushed back against anything. So much as a touch on that lead and the screen goes black so I assume the lead is at fault, well I hope so anyway! I need to connect up the one we had on the ps2 and see if that sorts it.

Monkeh · 5 Dec 2012 at 14:22

@ Ps3ud0, you can try and delay/disable the parking feature by putting the drive in a USB enclosure and running their w3idle util - something I didn't try because my original PS3 started overheating and so I replaced it with a 320gb slim. Although reading the WD forums again it was hit and miss whether the drive was picked up at all by the utils.

Funny you mention the greens, WD have said blues and greens share this parking tech now.

@ElectroBlaster - if you think its the lead at fault couldn't you quickly try the working lead from your PS3 to rule it out or your son's suspected faulty lead on your own PS3? That way you'll know better if its the lead or the video socket (HDMI?) on his PS3 thats worked loose.

ps3ud0 · 5 Dec 2012 at 14:27

Monkeh said:
@ Ps3ud0, you can try and delay/disable the parking feature by putting the drive in a USB enclosure and running their w3idle util - something I didn't try because my original PS3 started overheating and so I replaced it with a 320gb slim. Although reading the WD forums again it was hit and miss whether the drive was picked up at all by the utils.

Funny you mention the greens, WD have said blues and greens share this parking tech now.

Well from what I can gather here the symptoms are obvious, so it doesnt look like Im affected and Ive used this drive on a Phat and a Slim, Im now moving to a Black and from the quick look I did it doesnt appear they have the feature enabled anyhow so will be safe there too.

I mentioned the Greens as no doubt the heading parking feature was designed when they were invented and added to the Blues, the Greens were the first low powered HDD from WD so kinda makes sense, perhaps its just Blues manufactured since the Greens existed that suffer this issue (hmm but that was late 2007)...

ps3ud0 :cool:

ElectroBlaster · 5 Dec 2012 at 14:46

@ElectroBlaster - if you think its the lead at fault couldn't you quickly try the working lead from your PS3 to rule it out or your son's suspected faulty lead on your own PS3? That way you'll know better if its the lead or the video socket (HDMI?) on his PS3 thats worked loose.[/quote said:
I can easy enougth! The original ps2 is still under the desk but not connected and it has a genuine sony lead which is compatible, I can try that one!
I just hope my son has not been messing with the ps3, his lead seems way too loose in the socket! Mine was pita to get in and had to use slight force to push it home.

ElectroBlaster · 5 Dec 2012 at 15:05

Monkeh said:
@ElectroBlaster - if you think its the lead at fault couldn't you quickly try the working lead from your PS3 to rule it out or your son's suspected faulty lead on your own PS3? That way you'll know better if its the lead or the video socket (HDMI?) on his PS3 thats worked loose.

I can easy enougth! The original ps2 is still under the desk but not connected and it has a genuine sony lead which is compatible, I can try that one!
I just hope my son has not been messing with the ps3, his lead seems way too loose in the socket! Mine was pita to get in and had to use slight force to push it home.