PS3: 120gb VS 250gb, any point?

Ragenrok

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My wife was going to get me a PS3 for xmas, when she got to the store she was confronted wiht the question, which one.

So she held off on buying it untill I tell her which one I want. So now I want to know if theres any need for the 250gb hard dirve when I plan on playing very little games, its going to be for blu-ray and media streaming, only games I'll buy will be in the cheap bins or atleast used.

Like can you transfer movies right to the hard drive? Or is the big reason just installing games to the system to decrease load speeds?
 
You can transfer to / play music, movies, pictures right off the PS3 hard drive, or just stream them directly off a local computer on your LAN.

I have used 50 of the 120 GB on my PS3 hard drive and most of that is comprised of the 25 game demos I have installed. I have 2 full games installed (Fat Princess and Trine).

Personally, I don't see the need for a bigger drive on the PS3, but if you are the type of person that has a ton of digital movies, and you don't want to stream them over your LAN, then I'd go for a bigger drive.
 
Very little point... especially given you can just buy a laptop HDD (for less) and throw it in there anyway should you run out of space.

I still have a ton of space left on mine though. I do have all my videos on my media server though.
 
I'm using about 20GB of space on my PS3. I only see the 120 or 250GB limitations an issue if you buy a lot of movies/games from PSN. If you don't plan on spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars on PSN, don't spend the extra for the 250. Use they cash to buy an extra game.
 
perfect thanks guys, I'll tell her to get me a remote for movies instead
 
I recommend the 250gb model if you are going to do digital movies from the HDD, as your space will fill up fast. Now Psycho recommended just getting the 120 and buying a bigger HDD for less. I agree with that stance somewhat.

But say you buy a 120gb PS, then run out and buy a 250gb HDD to replace your 120gb HDD. Can you get a 250gb laptop HDD for less than $50? Even if you can, you have to think about the money you lost by not using that new 120gb HDD that came with the PS3. Essentially you are just taking a brand new HDD (which has value) out of the PS3 and throwing it away.

I think for the extra $50 I would go with the 250gb model.
 
think about hpw much youll get for the 120gb on ebay aswell, youd probably get $25-$30 for the 120gb, you wouldnt just throw it away!! think for less hassle sake id get the 250gb if your likely to fill it with music/pictures/video/games
 
when you guys say didgital movies, do you mean downloading them from the PS store?

or can i transfer movies form my computer right to my ps3 hard drive?
 
think about hpw much youll get for the 120gb on ebay aswell, youd probably get $25-$30 for the 120gb, you wouldnt just throw it away!! think for less hassle sake id get the 250gb if your likely to fill it with music/pictures/video/games
...or you could buy a 500gb drive for around the premium you pay for the 250gb model (and still be able to sell the 120gb). Pointless.
 
I have 120GB drive in my PS3 Slim.

This drive currently has 50 demos installed, (using up majority of space right now)
~ 20 full games installed. (some large multi GB installs, others are only a few MB)
A bunch of videos downloaded onto it. (a few GB)

And there is stil 35GB of free space.

Everything else i stream from my multi TB NAS, over GigE. (so no need for drive space on the PS3 for this)

So in my opinion 120GB is more then enough Space for a PS3. I could have easily put in one of my spare 320GB laptop drives i have that is just lying around here doing nothing, but i dont think its necessary.
 
...or you could buy a 500gb drive for around the premium you pay for the 250gb model (and still be able to sell the 120gb). Pointless.

Selling a used (it's used because it's not in packaging any longer) PS3 120gb HDD on ebay, as well as shipping and time probably wouldn't be worth the hassle. For $50 right up front you are better off IMO.


when you guys say didgital movies, do you mean downloading them from the PS store?

Both.

I wouldn't go with 120gb because it will already be too small if you are putting digital movies on it that you buy from the PS Store and that you copy onto the HDD. I have filled up my HDD's in no time, literally.
 
If you're storing a lot of movies you might as well just use a computer and stream them to the PS3. You can get 1TB HDDs for ~$70 if you wait for a deal.

An extra 130gb simply isn't worth $50.
 
Selling a used (it's used because it's not in packaging any longer) PS3 120gb HDD on ebay, as well as shipping and time probably wouldn't be worth the hassle. For $50 right up front you are better off IMO.
Or like I said... for $60 or so you could get a 500gb HDD and have a 120gb drive spare.

Next to no-one I know is even close to filling their 120gb drives. It's only the people that obsessively keep demos and films on there that feel the need for massive drives. If the PS3 could play MKV files off the HDD it would be another story, but it can't, so it isn't.
 
Or like I said... for $60 or so you could get a 500gb HDD and have a 120gb drive spare.

Next to no-one I know is even close to filling their 120gb drives. It's only the people that obsessively keep demos and films on there that feel the need for massive drives. If the PS3 could play MKV files off the HDD it would be another story, but it can't, so it isn't.

It doesn't need to, videos are transcoded and stored in a mp4 container.
 
Well, if you ever wanted to upgrade the hard drive it would cost you roughly the same amount as buying the 250GB now. So, there's no advantage or disadvantage to buying either model, it just depends whether you want 250 now or later. Honestly, i think the 250 GB model is a good deal since they are not raping you on price; i.e., if you bought the 120GB, you would have to buy the 250GB for $50-60 more anyway.....you would just end up with an extra 120 GB hdd on the side.
 
Or like I said... for $60 or so you could get a 500gb HDD and have a 120gb drive spare.

Next to no-one I know is even close to filling their 120gb drives. It's only the people that obsessively keep demos and films on there that feel the need for massive drives. If the PS3 could play MKV files off the HDD it would be another story, but it can't, so it isn't.

Hmm, in my instance and many of my friends we have no demos, minus the movies, minus the psp backups and still theres over 120gb worth of psn downloads consisting of about 90+ ps3 (not bought any in a while since psp go lol!!) games 20+ ps1 games.
Another thing to note is if you plan on getting Play TV (i know the op is not going to as not in UK or AUS but just in case something similar comes out in the US) that will use shit loads of hard drive space.
 
If you're storing a lot of movies you might as well just use a computer and stream them to the PS3.

Streaming is nice, and I do streaming. However, I would rather have them on my HDD and not rely on the network. Granted, I am running at gibabit network, so streaming on the PS3 is near flawless.
 
theres over 120gb worth of psn downloads consisting of about 90+ ps3 (not bought any in a while since psp go lol!!) games
I'm sorry, but that's not even close to being normal. Shit, there's not even 40 PS3 games worth buying on PSN, let alone 90+.

It doesn't need to, videos are transcoded and stored in a mp4 container.
Seems time consuming and awkward when you could just run it from a networked media server.

But anyway... it's just my personal opinion that there's no point buying a 250gb now when you could just as easily wait until you were getting close to filling it (if ever) and then buy something even bigger for around what you would have paid in the first place. Money now > money later.
 
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Good info here, am in the same boat, when you say streaming over the network, anything special needed? or just a network share and off you go?

with mkv files, do you need to encode it to play out via the ps3 or will it nativey play it over a network share.
 
think about hpw much youll get for the 120gb on ebay aswell, youd probably get $25-$30 for the 120gb, you wouldnt just throw it away!! think for less hassle sake id get the 250gb if your likely to fill it with music/pictures/video/games

According to the Sony RMA thread you need to keep that drive in case you ever have to warranty your ps3 or they will replace your new bigger drive with the original smaller one. If you send it in w/o a drive they apparently won't touch it.
 
If you don’t care about if its a fat PS3 or a slim. You can get a 80gb and upgrade the HD for about the same price as the 250. I have about 4 games installed and 20 ps3 games, I’m using about 60gb of space on my fat PS3 80. I also stream all my music and videos.
 
with mkv files, do you need to encode it to play out via the ps3 or will it nativey play it over a network share.

I use PS3 Media Center, and it auto-transcodes every video I've thrown at it on the fly. I haven't seen how it handles 1080p yet though, but I'm sure that if you had a strong system you would be fine.
 
wow, forgetting I had made this thread.

Wife got me a 120gb PS3 for xmas, All my movies are on the PC and I have very few HD rips my network cant seems to handle. The ones i do I will just put on drive.
 
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