PlayStation3 + SSD benchmarks

My guess would be that the encryption layer may be a bottleneck here? It's also extremely likely that the encrypted filesystem is based on ext3 I'm guessing.

Assuming that for each track (load-times include cars as well) the game is loading about 500MB worth of assets, you can deduce the average loading speed is probably around 15MB for the regular 2.5" and closer to 30MB for the SSD. it is definitely interesting to note that this could be down to 2-3 seconds for a load from SSD in more optimised circumstances though!

Thanks a bunch for sharing.

 

GT5's install is a series of thousands of tiny little files. Running the game on a debug system allows me to see exactly what's going onto the hard drive

So the phenomenal sustained reading and writing skills of the SSD aren't being put to good use here. However, the virtually instantaneous seek times of the SSD definitely are making a massive difference.

 

We know the PS3's filesystem is UFS (except for dev_flash__). Those mediatomb transfers look disappointing indeed, although I agree with your suspicion that it is something with your network since transfers over my 1gbps lan are around 20mb/s (which is still slow!).

 

An argument for a good chunk of flash storage in a console for small-file caching. Sounds like 8GBs of USB flash card might achieve the same faster loading times without costing the earth.

 

Someone else did the same thing:

http://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?t=135479

 

I have an old 320GB 7200rpm hard drive in my PS3, and I saw incredible loading time differences in Fallout 3 (about half) compared to the stock 120GB drive. Full GT5 install took 30 minutes instead of the 45-minutes or so they said in the reviews as well.

USB drives are nowhere near as fast as SSD's though...especially in write speeds, they suffer very badly.

 

I plopped a 320GB 7200RPM drive in my original 60GB PS3 almost 2 years ago. It definitely makes a huge difference on anything loading from the HDD.

I have a 160GB PS3 slim I got earlier this year in my bedroom and I can tell the difference in load times.

I'd imagine if it was optimized more for an SSD, we'd see a bigger gulf between that and regular HDDs.

 

About Mediatomb... don't use that, it's REALLY slow compared to others, like PS3 Media Server. I can stream 100mbit/s easily via my GBit connection, which doesn't work with Media Tomb.

Also, there's a HUGE difference when using Mpeg2 and AVC. It's pretty strange, like it buffers MUCH more with Mpeg2 or so...

 

DF should get an older JTAGged 360 from ebay/craigslist and put the same SSD in it that they used it in the USB storage article and run some tests. This would show whether the sata interface is any faster than the usb interface in the 360.

 

If I recall correctly, I believe there is only 1 or 2 models of a specific hard drive that can be used in a 360. After you break open the enclosure and load some files.

 

Phil: You're famous!

 

aren't the sata conections 1.5 instead of 3.0 ?

 

That's why I said "JTAGged xbox" which can use any hard drive. People put 2TB hard drives in their 360's with that method. Unfortunately, the only reason they do this is piracy

 

I wouldn't count on that. Even on PC with highly efficient controllers, level load times range anywhere from very slightly faster than mechanical drives to a bit less than 3x as fast as a mechanical drive with the average being a fair bit less than 2x as fast. Depending on games and drives used. 3x speed is when comparing the fastest available SSD to a slow 2.5" drive in a game that benefits the most. In other games, even comparing fastest SSD to a 2.5" drive results in less than a 2.x speed up. And comparing to a modern day 7200 rpm 3.5" drive is less than 50% faster.

So in that respect, GT5 on PS3 is doing very well on SSD. And since it appears to rely on thousands of small files it's already taking advantage of the largest differentiator between an SSD and HDD, random seek times. So it's already highly optimized to take massive advantage of SSDs.

Regards,
SB

 

Could a SSD improve the streaming efficiency of certain games? The Assassin's Creed games, at least on my PS3, constantly have those annoying micro-pauses when the protagonist runs around at full speed (and it's even worse on a horse). Sacred 2 seems unable to keep up with the data load as well.

Still, a 200€ SSD with 120 Gigs for a 300€ Console is a wee bit overkill.

 

I would imagine any SSD with low random seek times should perform similarly for this. As well, since you don't really need high write speeds, then you can focus almost entirely on read speed and random seek times. Even read speed shouldn't be hugely important as with thousands of small files, your seek time is going to far more important. But, other titles may have less and larger files so read speed is still something to look at.

That lets you potentially look at cheaper drives with controllers from Samsung or even potential early JMicron controller based SSDs whose problems mostly stem from the horrendous write/erase speeds. Although I'd still stay away from early gen JMicron controllers, although later ones which alleviated bud didn't entirely erase the problem might be suitable. If I had a PS3 I could test that myself as I have a couple JMicron based 128 GB SSDs as well as a 256 GB Samsung based SSD which I could then compare to my 256 GB Crucial C300.

Hmmm, although if the PS3 itself does a lot of writing to the HDD then the really old JMicron drives would definitely not be good. Although Samsungs should be fine, at worst they only dropped down to approximately 5400 rpm HDD write speeds unlike the old JMicron drives which could stall for up to a minute.

Then again looking at Newegg, the Corsair Force SSD is only 35 USD more than the cheapest 120 GB SSD, a Mushkin for 200 USD.

So unless you're willing to take a gamble on a used drive, it may or may not be worth it.

Regards,
SB

 

Somewhere between the 5 and 10 Gigabytes range I believe. It's still the 120 Gig HDD that came with the PS3 Slim. I doubt that has anything to do with it, though. The HDD was still fairly empty when I played Assassin's Creed2, and that game had similar issues as Brotherhood. Either it's just the way the game performs on the console, or the 120 Gig HDD was a piece of crap all along.