pretty good performance considering the Super Talent brand SSDs are garbage in every way. Plus the added savings for power is a plus. Also the PS3 will have less heat.

@Ultraslick
I'll try to look for a source on Sony requiring the original HDD for servicing tomorrow, since it is getting late. I know I read it somewhere, and it makes sense considering they will want to make sure that it is their equipment causing the problem.

@Wenlan
Both models are Hitachi. Nice try. ;)

@MakingMusic
I didn't think using Heavenly Sword would be a relevant test because I think is loads off the HDD and the blu-ray simultaneously. Same goes for DMC4, I think but I don't have precise enough instruments or reflexes to mesure the differences in the typical 3 second load times of DMC4. Maybe I'll give it a quick test soon and post if the results are significant.

Would loading the game in 480i on one setup and 1080p on the other skew my results?

yes

Good stuff dogs rule.  Thanks for the info.

Thats a well written article dogs. Thanks for the information.

You know, in the US there are no federal sales taxes, and in Canada there are national taxes (already included in the price for your convenience).

Nice comparison though. Really useful thanks.

I have never heard of a retailer in canada including the taxes in the list price.  Its not good buisness sense to add the tax to the list price.

Screenshot of tigerdirect.ca

I edited the first post to reflect the fact that I re-ran the GT5:P test forcing my PS3 to display in 480p at 4:3 and that shaved some additional load times which make the performance option that much more appealing.

There are actually speed differences among 5400 drives from different manufacturers (different quality levels) though they are less significant. I would highly recommend size over speed if money is an issue having tried both a 7200 and a 5400. I was able to get a 250GB 5400 drive from Frys for 80 dollars from Fujitsu. It's been nearly as fast as the 80GB 7200 I had (seagate) and was less expensive.

If you really want capacity and have more then 80 bucks to throw at it go for the 500GB for 200 dollars (do a google search), though 250GB will most likely be plenty for a long time. Also the PS3 can use external hard drives (including networked hard drives) so for something like putting your entire movie collection somewhere it would make more sense to get an expandable external drive and put 2-4TBs of 3.5 hard drives in it then try to cram ever bigger laptop drives into the PS3 since laptop drives are more then twice as expensive on a GB for GB basis.

   Also adding 3rd party components such as a bigger HD does NOT in any way void your warranty, in fact Sony encourages it (and provides step by step instructions in the manual).  

The point of the post is to allow people to decide if the compromise of size in favor of performance is worth it. Some people don't have a ton of media. 320GB would be overkill for me basically, so I went the performance route.

AS for the warranty, the post states that you might need the original HDD in case you need to ship your unit to Sony for servicing. Having all original components when you sent them your unit allows them to just grab a refurbished unit from the pile and sent it to you without them having to make sure you're not getting an extra HDD in the process. Of course it does not void your warranty, but it might be useful to have all original parts when sending your PS3 in for servicing.