Question about the PS3's harddrive

[greenmedic88]

Sort of irrelevant since it sounds like you're planning on replacing the drive anyway.

I'm assuming you're trying to find out what level of load time reductions you could expect to see with a higher performance drive.

I don't have the link, but switching to a 7200RPM drive was determined to provide minor, but noticeable differences in load times and file access times. Less than 2 seconds in most instances requiring extended load times. For most access times, you're looking at differences measured in miliseconds.

Depending upon your uses for a larger drive, it's a toss up between extra, cheaper storage with a standard 1.5Gb/s transfer, 5400RPM/8MB cache drive, or paying a premium for a faster 3.0Gb/s, 7200RPM/16MB cache drive.

If you don't have 320GB+ of downloaded media/videos to store on your PS3, the faster, more expensive, but smaller drive will probably be more beneficial.

Also keep in mind that some of the newer 5400RPM drives have the same 3.0Gb/s transfer rates as the 7200RPM drives, meaning drive spin rate alone is not the only factor in determining data transfer speeds. Also look at average seek time and latency.

Also keep in mind that HDD manufacturer is just as important in terms of drive noise and overall reliability. Going by the numbers, Seagate is widely regarded as the best, and typically cost more than drives made by Toshiba and Samsung (which are cheaper). Key point: don't just buy the cheapest drive with the highest storage if they are known not to be the most reliable.

WD are considered top tier as well although I've personally had one crap out on me in the past. But average user experience, not individual experiences carry more weight, so don't take this to mean WD drives are unreliable.