Worth it alone for how snappy and responsive it makes the XMB & MultiMan menus. Especially if you have a ton of ISO's archived.

2006...My God, that seems like a lifetime ago. Though it was at the tail end, I so miss the sixth console generation.

Two things to note about the installation of fear 3. It's either a limitation of the BluRay drive or a limitation of the SATA generation that both HDD and SSD are connected to. It's likely that it's a little of both. Even HDDs saw an improvement in performance shifting from SATA 3 gbps to SATA 6 gbps

Ps3 is such a great console even today so many great games to go back and play

If you have a backwards compatible, especially an A01 or B01, this makes the most amount of sense for loading up a BUNCH of PS2 games to the internal storage! Makes it where you don’t have to go look for discs or worry about wearing out lasers!

Another benefit of the SSD is the thermals. Mechanical drives generate a lot more heat which the console has to work even harder to dissipate and cool. By using an SSD, you're keeping the internal temps down and prolonging the life of the console and reducing YLOD.

One thing I saw when I upgraded to a ssd on my ps3, when using heavy titles like GTAV or metal Gear 4/5 and black ops 2 was instant texture pop in. Where all the game assets loaded properly and quickly. Also load time diminished.

Very well done video : straight to the point, with summary at the end. Thanks Sir!

Thank you for making this video to compare, I have always been curious on how well an SSD will work in a PS3. Now I have to change my drive out lol

Good video, informative and concise. Also, thanks for the timestamps.

Exactly what I was looking for! Great video mate!

Good video! I really liked how you showed and told some information about each game!

I had a spare HDD and SSD (both 1tb) laying about and put the HHD in my PS3 slim because I heard that unless games were digital or very hard drive bound, the results are negligible. Granted that was before I got games like GT5 and GT6. Thanks for the video to show differences!

I recently had this question. I vaguely remember finding an answer but I'm glad I was recommended this video. Thank you!

I have a PS3. Thank you for the video. I will go ahead with the SSD installation now. subscribed

I installed an ssd years ago the added benefit is that you have a ton of free space. Remember guys games were a lot smaller (storage) than they are today! I still have the PS3 today and it still works great.

Honestly such a cool video! Thanks for making my day, I woke up to this and took my first cup of coffee 🥰

wow they used Swap Meet by Nirvana in the main menu of Motorstorm Pacific Rift, never noticed that before. Very underrated song

Nice work! I have a 480GB SSD in my PS3. Load times are good (and the XMB is very snappy). I might try to copy the data into a 2.5-inch HDD (either with the backup utility or Acronis) in order to compare loading times. I don't plan to compare install times thought.

It runs cooler with an SSD.

Even in online gaming on SSD is crazy..

Bro is so passionate about games and technology that got me thinking about going back to my PS3 and give it the SSD treatment along with getting a FEAR 3 copy lol Thanks for the video

I’ve had an SSD in my ps3 for a while now, the ssd REALLY helps with LittleBigPlanet 3. LBP2 also gets helped out with the SSD

Amazing work

I installed an SSD in my ps3 super slim in 2015. At that time, I suggested that it was worth it. The SSD I used was a cheap lower end one. The SSD is still in there, working like a champ. Still no issues after all these years. Granted, this all was published on a website that shut down nearly 5 years ago. I'm glad to see that people are trying new things with the devices they have.

I responded to a Reddit thread years ago of someone asking if an SSD would speed up their PS3. I was down voted because I said it would, but brainlets on reddit said the SATA speeds would make it not be any faster. Go figure then a non moving drive is faster than a moving drive. Who'd thunk that. Great video!

great video thanks mate

good job great work

upgraded mine modded to 1TB SSD. love it

Great test! 15~30 seconds per load time it's great!

Nice Video

SSDs made the original Xbox, Xbox 360, PS3, Xbox One / X, PS4 / Pro better consoles anyway.

Why does KZfaq NOW recommend this?? This is what I’d like to see day of.

Great video! at the time you released it i could very well have been doing similar testing on an xbox one x with an SSD, a mechanical drive, and a hybrid which leads me to a little bit of constructive criticism (whether or not you've changed things since, i do not know, so this could be void now) and that's with the testing from booting the game to gameplay, which whilst still being a very valid real-world test (as sometimes you just want to jump into a game) i find it flawed due to the often unskippable intros, and the navigation of menus. I find it better to split it into 2 separate tasks (boot to main menu, and from clicking play to being in game) as this more accurately represents the load times which you will encounter much more frequently (e.g. you beat a level and go onto the next, or die and re-load) and as such i consider it a more important metric, and because it cuts out the unavoidable intros and shows you the actual performance difference of the drives

I got an SSD just so the XMB would quit stuttering, the hard drives used even in the PS3 slims are way way worse than the ones eventually used in the PS4. The loading times in games are not that bad but it's the responsiveness that really counts

I know this video is a year old, but I had read sometime towards the end of the PS3 lifespan that in addition to some quicker load times as you demonstrated here, that games that requires swap space for assets stored on the drive would show benefits as well. I remember the first RAGE when I played it and still had a spinning HDD in the PS3. The texture load in alone was pretty brutal in that game. But after putting in the SSD, the texture loads were almost non existent. I'be bee installing SSDs in most all of my storage based consoles since. Including one in my PS4 Pro and even my PS2. Am I getting the performance of the SSD on most of these consoles? No, but the added benefits you have shown in addition to many other mentioned in previous comments are why I did.

5200rpm HDD really does drag compared to solid state Certain instances seem to also be limited by the CPU and ram prioritizations due to the PS3's optimization.

I cannot express enough how much I love that shirt.

For a 512gb ssd for only 20 bucks I said why not? Jus last week I started thinking of updating the old 250 drive.

Hey Champ, all of my ps3 videos are using the Samsung EVO 870 1tb and I use hardware upscaling too. Last thing, if you want the absolute best from the ps3, the RSX must be overclocked. Ive tried a few and the 750Mhz boost is just excellent 🥊🥊🔥🙏

I installed an SSD into my PS3 back in 2010 using a 128Gb. System remained cooler longer, faster install & level load times, less jaggies, & smoother gameplay. I installed an SSD in my base & Pro PS4 as well.

Very cool. I wonder, does it affect the overall quality of life? Like in the home menus or pop in, in games? The loading times seem good when you consider how snappy we are used to modern games. Anything helps lol. I had put a ssd in my Xbox one x. I was having issues with the menus loading and overall quality of life got to be a chore. With the ps3 super slim I have, I got it off eBay but they never mentioned it was missing the hdd and the bracket so atm I have my old Xbox hdd in my ps3 and I 3d printed a bracket. Def thinking about upgrading it to a ssd.

Never cracked the ps3 kinda, so now I guess I should do that also

hi, well long time ago with a slim console i made an hdd upgrade replaces with an mx500, some games like syrim had some improvment, such as graphica texturel loading better , everything sounded so smooth...:)

I installed an SSD (1TB Crucial MX500) in my PS4 at the end of 2020 and have been happy with it. So last summer, when I spotted the 500GB model of the MX500 selling for just £30 on Amazon UK, I thought I'd upgrade my PS3 Slims 160GB HDD. And I've been happy with the results, like the PS4 the PS3 UI feels, for lack of a better term, snappier on an SSD. It was cheap enough where I figured it would be worth it either way, and as I run stock OS (ie not CFW), 500GB is plenty of space for me personally. When I did the backup & restore, I only had about 40-50GB of data, so was able to use a 64GB USB stick. It took about 2.5hrs for the backup then 90m for the restore. I know that with an SSD you may eventually run into issues, due to the lack of TRIM support. But personally I always keep save backups etc. so it's less of a concern and you could always do a backup to a spare USB HDD and then restore that, if/when you ran into issues. Also for those on CFW looking to maximise the storage, there's conflicting info whether the PS3 supports max of 1TB or 1.5TB. But a 1TB HDD or SSD is probably a safer bet. As for what SSD to pick, some will suggest any cheap SSD as the PS3 is only SATA 1, but I'm not so sure. Cheaper SSDs typically have no DRAM cache, which can effect performance & lifespan, and may even have slower writes than a HDD. All I can say is my PS3 & PS4 run well on the MX500 drives, so those are what I'll typically recommend.

That's crazy man

For GT 6 in practice you might not notice that much, the game loads the map as you tune your car, so if you are used to tuning your car before racing, it will be almost instantaneously, just try it, open the start race menu and wait a few seconds before pressing to start, it will take less time to load as it would have already loaded part of it

My brother was an early adopter of SSDs....he had a 32GB SSD but he didn't pay $699 for it...I think he bought it when it was like $300...I thought he was crazy for paying $300 for 32GB when you could get like a 250GB or 320GB mechanical drive for about half that....but at the same time I wasn't into PC gaming at that time....What I used a PC for was very light...web browsing, listening to music and watching videos. About 6 years ago I got into PC gaming and realized how important an SSD really is...I had a laptop with a 512GB SSD and 1TB mechanical drive and put my AAA games on the SSD and put stuff like emulators, ROMs, music and movies on the mechanical drive. Now I just have an SSD in my laptop and just need more space for everything I do on it...

Infamous and Infamous 2 are just about my favorite games on the PS3. Yes, I highly recommend you play Infamous (the original) in addition to its sequel ! It would make more sense to play them in order for the storyline. It's not 100% necessity IMO

Can u test Modnation Racer load times? That the game that I know have really long loading times per race.

I wonder if there are some minor performance improvements as well such as the speed of loading in textures on the fly.

there's other benefits besides loading times. when GTAV released, i couldn't even properly play it on the PS3. pop-ins while driving made it unplayable. whole buildings and trees would just appear out of nowhere, because of how slow the old HDD streamed data. threw in an SSD, and i was able to play the game to completion just fine.

Hey OP, while loading from the disc vs SSD, were you loading the disc with an HDD installed, or an SSD? Playing Payday 2 with a disc + SSD in my PS3, I still load into an online map much faster than everyone else.

I just put one in my ps3 because retired my sata ssd from my pc cuz I got an m.2 that's 2tb cheap. So having more space than default is going to be nice in ps3

The main question I have is this: what kind of SSD did you purchase? Was it one with a DRAM Cache and high quality NAND? Or was it a cheap no-name SSD. Because some SSDs can perform worse than a hard drive if they’re made too cheaply.

I installed a ssd in my ps3 too. The big thing holding back the ssd speed is the ps3 sata controller which a sata I. The iops are way better than a spinning hdd.

The best way to play Infamous is mostly in order: Infamous, Infamous 2, Infamous: Festival of Blood, Infamous: First Light, Infamous: Second Son 😊

If you like Infamous 2 then you should try the DLC Blood Festival. I think at time of writing it is still able to be purchased/downloaded.

Interesting. I upgraded my PS3 Super Slim with a 7200 RPM HDD a few years ago. I didn't have a lot to spend and I wanted more storage. Also, I found some old Digital Foundry tests that suggested you'd get most of the potential benefits by upgrading to a better HDD and an SSD wouldn't be much faster due to the limitations of the system. I'd be curious to see the SSD compared to a faster HDD.

Definitely play the first Infamous before 2.

I have a sony Frankenstein backwards compatible ps3 with oc cfw and a 1tb ssd. Makes the ps3 run like you remember not like how it actually does

Would have been cool to see power draw as well, SSDs are a little more efficient as well.

I have updated my console with a 1tb hhd but the games cutscenes are glitching! Game runs perfect just cutscenes!! Do you think it's the new hhd and changing to a ssd would fix the issue?

hm Nice Video And Good Work but how it will take long to play GTA IV in a ssd from an hdd that would be epic

Considering how inexpensive SSDs are now, it's definitely worth it. Beyond improving loading times, it eliminates the lag that occurs when populating menu lists in both the XMB and in-game. No more disk seek!

That tired old HDD just wants to take a nap

there is uneven time stamp calculation between both version. on SSD you wait 5 more seconds when picking up main menu due "first time introduction info screen come up" on the HDD side you don't get this because you were played it before. so it should be 01:38+5 more second and on SSD side 01:07-5 second if you want to match with HDD version Edit: The part I point is here: 01:51

I've had a 1tb ssd in my ps3 slim for over a year. Makes a huge difference on mgs4

Pacific rift. Man I grew up on that game

I have only had the stock HHD in my ps3, and have never really even used it. I've always played my games from the disc. If you have the games saved on the hard drive, do you have to have the disc in?

Tekken tag 2 was pain in the ass of loading.

Anyone know if it has anything to do with BC PS2 Games . I installed ssd into my ps3 . Redownloaded ps2 data utility. Now the screen goes black . If I use component cables it will chirp sound blink the screen then nothing. Put the old HDD back and same thing now .

I have a question, which SSD did you use? Is it the one in the thumbnail, would love to know. Thanks. ( oups nevermind I just saw your previous video that answered my question )

i am curious to know if the SSD solves texture pop in - in games like BF3

what is the maximum size possible regarding internal SSD /HDD in the PS3 ??? 1To ? 2 To ?

I did put one in mine, a 120Gbyte one, once those were decently priced. And yeah, even with all the other hardware limitations the PS3 had. And it had many! An SSD just felt smoother. And loaded things faster. And if a game had a lot of smaller files, well... seektime 1ns vs whatever the HDD has right?

Makes sense with timing you could buy a Samsung Evo 860 500gb Ssd for $130 in 2018!

The two biggest reasons for switching is not only the size (8TB max) but they'll survive longer than a mechanical drive. A HDD's mechanical parts including the motor gain a higher fail rate the older it gets with most Laptop HDDs failing in less than six years. The biggest cause is due to the lubrication drying out. A good SSD can last from 8-10 years (heavy use) up to 20 years (light use) though it depends on the brand & model.

Making my prediction before the video even gets going. Yes, it will be a noticeable difference, but not enough to really mean anything special. Also, I know the PS3 came out in 2006, but my first experience with the console wasn’t until my freshman year of college in 2011. The only console I’ve ever had when it was still new was the Switch. I still haven’t gotten a PS5 yet, every time I have the money to get one everywhere I try is sold out and I have to use the money for something else before they come back in stock again. At this rate I’ll be able to get one when the PS5 Pro model comes out likely next year and it will be the first pro model console I’ve ever owned.

hell yes it is, but I noticed some drives have issues with the PS3. I use cheaper SSD's on it. They seem to have better compatibility.

I think with the release of God of War 3 and how much of a technical marvel that game is, developers realized what the ps3 was truly capable of. Which is why 2010 to 2013 had much bigger games and by extension longer load times. Before it was making games with the 5200hdd in mind to be fast, but now it was understanding the cell processor and throwing everything at it. So while better games came out, loading times suffered. That's also why upgrading to a faster drive was so crucial and why you see a such an improvement in all the games shown in this video. It's why videos like this are so important because people who want to go back and play these games or mod their ps3s want to see if there's any improvement and there obviously is. Games that take advantage of the hdd to stream assets also take advantage of a faster drive. Gta 4 helps when speeding through the city, and while performance is only slightly improved, it's not a smudge of textures and the motion blur is more manageable. With Killzone 2 on a standard hdd, when moving to a new section, the game will completely stop almost like it freezes to load into a new area. With just a 7200rpm hdd, is enough speed to completely eliminate that stop and the game just becomes smooth.

are you playing using the disc with hdd/ssd or iso off hdd and ssd cobra cfw style

Ssd all the way.

one thing we notice is that there is less pop in in games

I'd make a note that those old laptop hard drives have virtually no cache on board, part of what makes it so slow in comparison. A modern one with a large cache would be less overkill. At that point both an SSD and HDD would be capable of saturating the SATA I connection, the only difference would be a negligible decrease in seek times and those percentages would be much tighter. It's these old crummy drives from this era that give Windows Vista a bad rap.

Not too bad, but you can see that the console is unable to fully utilize the SSD.

SSD is a massive upgrade over platter.

Sonic 2006 would be interesting to test.

I did this to both of my original ps3s but didn’t do it to my super slim because it runs cooler than both and runs fine with the hard drive it has “500gb”

You are a brave guy, you openly demonstrate and acknowledge that u use a jailbroken ps3

MotorStorm is great game

While an SSD does make a marginal difference in speed alot of these comments are from ppl or have no idea what they're talking about 😂

It's important to note that HDDs often degrade over time, so for this to have been a fair test both drives should have been somewhat new with not too many read/write cycles.

I used a Kingston hyper x ssd in my ps3 from 2018, seems a little but faster but the differences are not so big like yours. Anyway, the life of an ssd is a lot longer and the capacity is all we need after all, the system is old anyway and can't use all the speed of an ssd.

I dont care loading times , thats when you drink beer. :)

I noticed a similar difference just upgrading to a newer, larger HDD. The HDDs they included in the PS3 were notoriously slow, even by HDD standards! I don't like the idea of using an SSD with an OS that doesn't support TRIM.

why is the ps logo on your ps3 missing? just wondering

Does the SATA SSD reduce or eliminate system freezing issues the PS3 is known for?

Well, i don't think it would be a meaningful boost to the performance but, i've changed my PS3's HDD with an SSD and the loading times in games are by all mean massively improved however although u can put a 2TB SSD on that console but i recommend to stick with 1TB or lower duo to u have to install a CFW in order to modify the PS3 if u need a higher capacity And also 1TB was more affordable to me so, i just went with a 1TB WD Blue which is acceptable for consoles of this era I've also run Multiman and backed up my games on the internal SSD so the games should be running much faster and smoother

Using a special cli tool to hide the last 300GB I have 1.7TB available of a 2TB SSD. Absolutely worth it