Hey everyone, I'm new to the site but thought I might share a bit of info that I've collected in the past couple of days.
The title says it all: I've compared the Seagate 5400 rpm 80GB HDD that came with the PS3 and a Kingston 128GB SSD SNV425-S2BN for $175 after rebates. The reason I'm posting this is to hopefully get out to the public the information I've been readily seeking for after GT5 was released-- How much will and SSD improve the loading times? Is it worth it? I've seen in other small studies that say the speed increase isn't much due to the 2x limit of the Blu-ray drive. However, I've also heard accounts from GT5 users (specifically) that it does indeed seem faster, but we all know about the placebo effect. The reason I finally decided to back up all my data and transfer it over to the SSD and conduct this study was due to the fact that an 8GB install is allowed, which should, theoretically, allow for much faster loading times. Worse comes to worse and I just take the drive and put it in my laptop.
Now, after the first update (v1.03) and comparing the download times and install times between the two, I noticed that the games loading times for everything is highly dependent on how the servers performing. Therefore, I disconnected from the internet during every other test for both drives.
Anyways, here is what I found:
Install times were 4x faster. Which was an awesome start to this study. Next, I thought the best improvement would be with the menus (I thought they would install the menu on to the drive ). I tested these by doing three runs each. Surprisingly, even with the me + stopwatch, they were almost always the same. Here are the menu results:
And to get back to the home menu from each of these items
From the GT Mode menu to the other menus:
And back again:
I always thought buying a car took way too long, so I also tested that:
And finally, I was most curious about the loading times for races, which I expected to see very little improvement. I was wrong. Note: I had played and completed each of the races listed, along with the license test coming up (i.e. no install required).
Finally, the last test I did was on a Special Event I had not entered before this. Less improvement overall (as it likely had to install from the disc), but still substantial:
That was all of them- Phew!
So, what did I decide to do? Given that the races loading time was cut in half for the most part, Im keeping the SSD in the PS3. I wasnt expected such a huge difference, especially for the races. I hope this helps someone else decide whether or not its worth the extra money!
The title says it all: I've compared the Seagate 5400 rpm 80GB HDD that came with the PS3 and a Kingston 128GB SSD SNV425-S2BN for $175 after rebates. The reason I'm posting this is to hopefully get out to the public the information I've been readily seeking for after GT5 was released-- How much will and SSD improve the loading times? Is it worth it? I've seen in other small studies that say the speed increase isn't much due to the 2x limit of the Blu-ray drive. However, I've also heard accounts from GT5 users (specifically) that it does indeed seem faster, but we all know about the placebo effect. The reason I finally decided to back up all my data and transfer it over to the SSD and conduct this study was due to the fact that an 8GB install is allowed, which should, theoretically, allow for much faster loading times. Worse comes to worse and I just take the drive and put it in my laptop.
Now, after the first update (v1.03) and comparing the download times and install times between the two, I noticed that the games loading times for everything is highly dependent on how the servers performing. Therefore, I disconnected from the internet during every other test for both drives.
Anyways, here is what I found:
Install times were 4x faster. Which was an awesome start to this study. Next, I thought the best improvement would be with the menus (I thought they would install the menu on to the drive ). I tested these by doing three runs each. Surprisingly, even with the me + stopwatch, they were almost always the same. Here are the menu results:
And to get back to the home menu from each of these items
From the GT Mode menu to the other menus:
And back again:
I always thought buying a car took way too long, so I also tested that:
And finally, I was most curious about the loading times for races, which I expected to see very little improvement. I was wrong. Note: I had played and completed each of the races listed, along with the license test coming up (i.e. no install required).
Finally, the last test I did was on a Special Event I had not entered before this. Less improvement overall (as it likely had to install from the disc), but still substantial:
That was all of them- Phew!
So, what did I decide to do? Given that the races loading time was cut in half for the most part, Im keeping the SSD in the PS3. I wasnt expected such a huge difference, especially for the races. I hope this helps someone else decide whether or not its worth the extra money!
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I also imagine a 7200RPM drive would make a notable difference as well compared to the 5400RPM drives.
