In reply to a post by Lt_Swan:

Parp!!!!!!

Said with true style.

Been reading the PS4 reddit forum thread article but just came across this post on another thread:

Thanks for posting! Gathering data has taken so much longer than I anticipated, but I've been working on it. Here's a quick preview...

There is a performance difference between drives when launching a game, but it's a narrow gap.

Installing a game to the hard drive was identical across all drives 5400/7200/SSHD/SSD, which I thought was interesting. That tells me the optical drive is the gating factor, which makes sense.

The other big question was physical drive size. Sony recommends 9.5mm max height, but my calipers agree with the German site that did an early teardown and said up to 12mm will fit. It would be very snug and may affect air flow, but it will fit.

The 7200rpm/killer heat myth has been debunked too. Peak exhaust temp is typically 44C under load, and the drive cage was about 10C lower. Changing drives had no meaningful effect. (The 7200rpm drive was barely warm after hours of downloading)

Performance wise, there is no dramatic difference between drives. I think the sweet spot will be 7200rpm drives, because you can get up to 1.5TB at a very reasonable price.

I should be able to finish up the spreadsheet tonight, to share load times so people can judge for themselves. AtariXL

Another guy links to this article though: PlayStation 4 (PS4) HDD, SSHD and SSD Performance Testing

Seems there's quite a bit of hold up going on with optical disc based games (despite installation to hard drive). This, the author speculates, is likely to be some kind of constant disc checking DRM authentication going on that's slowing things down and reducing the speed potential differential between the three drives tested: stock 5400rpm HDD as supplied, Seagate SSHD and SSD. In short, if you really want the most out of a change in storage drive you'd be downloading your games directly from the PSN store.

There might be more up to date articles out there. For me, I can't be bothered with it all anymore. Though, in conclusion, it looks like SSHD does confer some smallish advantage in performance. I'm getting some serious deja-vu now that's telling me (reminding me more like) Timey isn't gonna read this anyway.

Essentially, you want capacity buy a larger drive and don't worry about performance too much.

Very interesting. I think I would personally just go for a standard 2 TB HDD also.

In reply to a post by mrnelster:

Some of the latest drives have firmware mechanisms that reportedly negate the need for TRIM operations, but they are prohibitively expensive for most enthusiasts, let alone the average gamer. The SSD technology at the affordable and hybrid end of the market, requires firmware support for TRIM.
Without it you could end up with the drive's capacity halved or worse, within a couple of years.

I'd love some info on a £150 SSD or Hybrid that specifically states TRIM firmware support is not required, if you have it to hand. Then I would be sorely tempted to purchase one myself.

no ssd requires trim to function.

modern ssd's should still work reasonably well (and much better than hdd's) in a trimless environment.

As I already said a fair few people already use ssd's now without trim, anyone on an old motherboard will be no trim, raid0 unless a bios version from within last 12 months = no trim. Using ide/sata mode instead of ahci mode = no trim.

If trim was required it would be put in the manual, on the box etc, it isnt.

zfs has only just got trim support yet people have been using ssd's on zfs for years.

There may be 'some' ssd's that cope badly, so yes best to research, but I expect modern samsung and intel ssd's to be fine.

A article here.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-trim-firmwar...

Bear in mind the torture test is not the load expected in a console.

Edited by Chrysalis (Fri 06-Dec-13 23:15:45)

Will read these posts through tomorrow mate when i have a bit more time,just been giving Nelly a lesson on Twitch streaming service on the playstation 4 how to play a FPS timey style

I got confused after the first 2 lines you certainly up on the technical stuff Chrysalis well above my pay grade

I know who to ask when i want technical answers thats for sure,yourself Nelly and Spooky

Don't get me wrong i know certain stuff regarding PC and Consoles but its always best to ask fellow gamer there thoughts and opinions when thinking of other drives and upgrading.

I now have less than 300 gig left on the playstation 4 after installing Battlefield 4 this evening,providing the playstation 4 pulls its socks up and don't start giving me [censored] again i will be soon wanting to order a replacement hard drive so post the links of whats best and where from as long as its not SSD and has to be SATA 2 and around 2TB or just under�..Hybrid me thinks is the way to go.

Seagate 1TB SSHD Solid State Hybrid Drive SATA 6Gb/s 2.5" 5400RPM 64MB

£89.99 inc VAT & del pre order but lots of stock incoming at Ebuyer (Trance's heads up)

In stock but £99.99 at Overclockers

Cons:

only 5400rpm (there used to be a 750GB version with 7200rpm spindle speed tho it seems to be discontinued (I think you can still get this on Amazon but will have to pay an inflated price and there's probably no point)
only 1TB (which appears to currently be the largest capacity for laptop sized 2.5" hybrid drives)

There's also a slightly cheaper Toshiba Hybrid drive for £89.99 but I don't know if it's any good at all.


Remember - you need to get 2.5" laptop drives not 3.5" as that won't fit!!
SATA 3 is backwards compatible. You don't need to only look at SATA 2 models.


Two 2TB drives at Ebuyer

Lots of 1TB options at Ebuyer

Just one 1.5TB drive at Ebuyer

All these drives at higher capacities are 5400 rpm only. Dunno how much of a difference that will make in practise. There are other important parameters to consider when buying HDDs that reading the conclusion at geeky hardware sites and comparing some simple graphs will show. If you're not in a particular hurry I'd wait. 2 reasons: one) people (esp gaming sites etc, will start recommending stuff and two) there should be more choice and hopefully a little cheaper at that.

I don't know but does the PS4 support external hard drives as an extended game installation directory? They may do in future? USB3 has got to have enough bandwidth all things (like seek times etc) being equal. Definitely seems like a bad idea but we're all used to USB2 so maybe it's not such a daft thing to contemplate? Any info out there about that?

Dabs and Scan are two more places to look at (as well as googling). Be sure to double check the HDD's 2.5" not 3.5" before ordering. Check the 'Green' HDDs especially as they're designed to be more energy efficient (ie - slower).

In reply to a post by SPOOKish:

only 5400rpm (there used to be a 750GB version with 7200rpm spindle speed tho it seems to be discontinued (I think you can still get this on Amazon but will have to pay an inflated price and there's probably no point)
only 1TB (which appears to currently be the largest capacity for laptop sized 2.5" hybrid drives)

I heard that the speed isn't really noticeable and that the faster ones run much hotter so you're better off with the 5400

yeah thanks for pointing that out, my ssd in my pc is a sata3 model yet I use it on a sata2 interface.

I heard that the speed isn't really noticeable and that the faster ones run much hotter so you're better off with the 5400

Sounds sensible to me.

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1tb-seagate-momentus-...

£79.18 in stock