PS3 - PlayTV and Hard Drives

[phykell]

Two questions really...

1) Has anyone here got the PlayTV unit?

2) The PS3 hard drive is replaceable yes? What spec is it, just a normal 2.5" SATA laptop drive?

[Psymonkee]

no

yes

:)

(little bit tired, will let someone else expand...)

[ElRazur]

Two questions really...

1) Has anyone here got the PlayTV unit?

2) The PS3 hard drive is replaceable yes? What spec is it, just a normal 2.5" SATA laptop drive?

Nope. But reviews is a bit mixed. Some say it is great and others [ a few I have seen] complained about PQ. On the plus side the interface looks sweet etc. You should note that it do not have twin tuner in the sense that you cant record two things at the same time. One turner is dedicated for recording and the other allows you to pause live tv - which is sorta recording.

It is the normal 2.5 inch laptop HD, I have changed mine and it was a simple job of removing the flap with a coin, unscrew the screws, raised the aluminium lock/flaps. Pull out HD. Insert new HD, put flap back into place, do the screws, cover the plastic pack back.

You will then need to format and then bob is your uncle.

PS: You will need to back up you item obviously, which is relatively easy to do.


Finally, you are better off sticking to the 5400rpm HD, instead of the higher speeds one. The higher speeds one makes a difference but not something that makes a massive difference in real life usage. ~1 sec or so.:)


Hope that helps.


More ps: Check out youtube for the DIY video.

[NokkonWud]

I know someone with it and he loves it. I quite fancy one myself, it seems very intuitive and the fact you can use the PSP seems like a cracking added bonus.

The HDD is just a SATA 2.5" drive, so it's easy to upgrade.

[Streeteh]

I've never heard a complaint from anyone i know that owns it, there are software niggles but knowing Sony there'll be software updates to fix most of these in the future. The most important issue i've heard of is the fact that recordings are absolutely huge with long films exceeding 4gig, you can however export your recorded films and shows to an external harddrive and then store them on your PC (obviously this will be impossible with films larger than 4 gig though as the PS3 is limited to only being compatible with FAT32 USB hard drives).

One word of warning, there are a very small percentage of 2.5" notebook hdds that are marginally larger than the 'standard' size and thus won't fit in the PS3. These are quite rare and only typically have large amounts of storage space (320gig+), iirc the samsung 320gig harddrive fits perfectly and i've only ever had good experiences with them so i would recommend that brand, but any that you're sure will fit in the PS3 is fine.

[NokkonWud]

Didn't know about the sizes of 2.5" being funny, thanks for letting me know. In the future I'll be sure to stick with Samsung then.

[Psymonkee]

Anyone know if the WD are funny sizes? :)

Is my preferred choice of HDD manufacturer...

[NokkonWud]

I hate WD, way too loud. Seagate make them their bitch :p.

[Streeteh]

I hate WD, way too loud. Seagate make them their bitch :p.

This tbh :D

However, if you have your heart set on Western Digital, as i will admit despite their loudness seem to be unbreakable, this particular model fits perfectly and has a rather impressive amount of storage for the price:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-184-WD

This would also lead me to believe all of the 2.5" 5200rpm harddrives they make will fit, though obviously this is my speculation and should in no way be taken as fact :)

[Psymonkee]

Got 4 WD drives sitting here that are inaudible :p

[Streeteh]

Got 4 WD drives sitting here that are inaudible :p

To be fair, i haven't owned a WD drive since the IDE days so my opinion on their noise levels is most likely completely null and void but yeah, see my previous post for a good PS3 WD drive.

[Psymonkee]

Ah I got a bunch of their green power drives over the last time I put bigger disks in and the first time I turned the thing on I had to put my ear to the drive to check it was running. :D

Very quiet now :>

[Mark]

WD GP drives are very quiet spinning, but seek noise is very noticeable. I've got four stacked up. My old WD drives are very loud indeed.

[phykell]

I tend to always buy Seagate as a rule - 5 year warranty, etc. As soon as I get round to it, I'll swap the drive out - 80GB isn't exactly going to store all my music and other stuff.

Not sure about the PlayTV now though as TBH I don't watch that much TV other than stuff I've downloaded.