Proof SSD upgrade is worth it for PS3 players...

[Ryios]

The momentus is a Terrrrrribllllleeee drive. Our work has them on 50+ computers and 40% of them have failed in the first 4 months of use. They have terribly high failure rates. And nothing would suck more than being mid turn 5 in bcb at 40% and you 90k and your ps3 says the game is corrupt and you have to change drives and reinstall.

Steer clear of seagate alltogether, they are not the company they used to be. Get a legit SSD, their not that expensive, or find a hyprid made by WD. WD makes solid drive especially if you can find a Black Version Hybrid. Black is WD's server grade drives.

[kanjitai]

Character loading is infinitely better with the SSD installed, from players to NPCs to even using the summoning bell to call my retainer. Now, due to in-game limitations, there's only a set number of characters that will load within your position on the grid at any one time no matter what, but they load VERY fast now for me.

Thanks Avalon. It's nice to know it will solve that problem. I also kind of figured that there was a character limit. XI on the PS2 had the same thing.

[rigormortis]

Just throwing in my 2 cents for how much of a difference a SSD makes on the PS3
Couple of days ago I installed the 120gb kingston SSD, like others have said, it was very easy, just took about 2 hours to backup and another 2 hours to restore the data to the SSD. In retrospect, I should have deleted all the games and movies I no longer watch that was on the PS3, would have sped that process up.
Anyway, FFXIV now loads fast, I'm one of the first people to exit out of cutscenes in dungeons, Fates are much less stressful as I can actually see the monsters now. I even turned battle effects back on, and still can see the monsters
If anyone is on the fence, I'd go for it, it truly makes a difference, even if the PS3 doesn't fully utilize the SSD.

[Keoeson]

So question from a non-techy guy: is this Toshiba 500GB Solid State Hybrid Drive PS3 compatable?

Also what was that about SSD's bricking PS3s? I cant really afford a new PS3 or afford/justify a PS4 until FFXV and MGSV are out lol.

Yes, there should be no problem, as any SATA 2.5" drive should work. I've put the Seagate 1TB hybrid drive in my PS3 and I'm very happy with it.

There was a problem with a firmware update some months ago, which people believe was related to drive size and it was fixed by Sony, so you don't have to worry about that. Any rumors related to this are more likely caused by faulty hard drives.

[kanjitai]

I got my SSD a day early and all I can say is I love it. And the fact that I can put it in the PS4 someday is just icing on top of the cake. I'm definitely sold on these things now. I will definitely have one in my new gaming computer when I get it. Maybe even put one in my current laptop.

[Jonathan12uiz]

Glad this is helping you guys out with your decisions!

[samfisher]

Any metrics on loading the game from character select? I've got a pretty speedy SSD (Vertex 4 256GB) and it takes 37.5 seconds to load from character select to ingame.

[LovelessG]

I went ahead and picked up this one for my PS3 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...FdJj7AodpCoANA I love it and it works great really easy to install. Like someone pointed out before the longest process is the backup/restore.

[Milmoko_Gemoko]

Upgraded my PS3 to a SSD drive earlier today and after reinstalling XIV I played it for a few mins during prime-time in New Gridania (1945GMT), load times were minimal few seconds from log-in screen to title, and few seconds from character select to my inn room. Did a quick trip to market and back, went very smoothly, normally minute loading screens were seconds and NPCs/players rendered quicker.
On a non-FF reason to upgrade (although given XIV's load times and FATES its reason enough, not anyones fault just old hardware) the load times on PSN games and big installs/games (MSG4 for me) are almost none existant

EDIT: I'll be able to judge the improvement more during a FATE event I suppose, but that will have to wait, havent had time/bandwith to play XIV since upgrade since im re-downloading game - currently several GB of Sleeping Dogs

[Jonathan12uiz]

I never did actual testing with the actual time of loading/rendering... all my observations were based of OEM comparisons. LOL!