Hardware

After formatting my “new” USB 2.0 hard drive I wanted to be able to plug it in any USB port while still being able to mount it automatically /etc/fstab. I was concerned that the device name might change if I moved it to a different USB port or booted with other memory cards or drives connected.

I’m using a FAT32 file system on this drive so it can be accessed from both Linux and the PS3’s XMB. I didn’t create a label when I originally formatted it.

To create a label for the existing FAT32 file system on my USB hard drive and have it automatically
mounted in the same location every time I boot, I followed this process (learned from this thread on fedoraforum.org):

0. Become the root user:

su -l root
[root password]

1. Confirm which device name to use with:

fdisk -l

This is how my drive shows up in the list:

Disk /dev/sdd: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7296 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes  

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdd1               1        7296    58605088+   c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

2. Use dosfslabel to assign a label (assuming drive is FAT32 formatted and there isn’t one already):

dosfslabel /dev/sdd1 apricorn

Where /dev/sdd1 is the current device name confirmed in Step 1, and apricorn is the label (this could be anything you want, but needs to match the LABEL used in Step 5).

3. Add the mount point:

mkdir /media/apricorn

It doesn’t necessarily have to match the label or be located in /media, but it does need to match the mount point you put in /etc/fstab in Step 5, below.

4. Check your username’s uid & gid:

id yourusername

(replace yourusername with your regular username)

5. Add this entry to /etc/fstab:

LABEL=apricorn /media/apricorn vfat sync,rw,uid=500,gid=500 0 0

Replace apricorn with the label you created in Step 2.
Replace /media/apricorn with the mount point you created in Step 3.
Replace uid=500,gid=500 with your uid & gid from Step 4 (probably the same).

The sync option causes data to be written to the drive immediately in case it is accidently removed without unmounting it first. The uid / gid option gives the user full access to the files on the drive.

6. Reboot.

Immediately after rebooting the drive should show up on your Desktop (if you’re using
Gnome) and be accessible from the mount point you created (/media/apricorn in my case).

I also used the same process for a FAT32-formatted Sandisk Extreme III 4 GB Compact Flash card on my PS3, adding more storage space that’s accessible immediately when I start up in Linux or the Game OS.

For further reference:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Persistent_block_device_naming

UPDATE:  I’m not sure yet, but I think the Game OS doesn’t like my FAT32 (LBA) partition — the USB drive isn’t showing up as it should on the XMB.  I need to try another device formatted as FAT32 (LBA) instead of just FAT32 to see if it makes any difference.

I had been considering upgrading my 60 GB PS3’s hard drive for a while. When I saw the Hitachi Travelstar 2-in1 Notebook PC Upgrade Kit in Best Buy I simply couldn’t resist. They have included a fast 200GB 7200 RPM 2.5″ SATA drive plus a USB 2.0 enclosure for your existing drive for $169.99. What sold me on it was the enclosure for using my existing drive, too, but the flashy packaging certainly didn’t hurt. The fastest notebook drive available. Rated best in application performance in PCMark testing. Up to 33% faster than 5400RPM drives. “Do I really need this right now?” Satisfy your need for speed. Low noise, vibration and heat emission. 16 MB Data Buffer. “Hmm… OK, I’ll take it!” Those clever marketing people know me too well.

So now I have a 200 GB Playstation 3 and a 60 GB USB 2.0 drive for extra storage and backups. Installation was simple — there are plenty of sites showing how to upgrade your PS3’s hard drive so I won’t go into it here. Of course I had to back up my existing Game OS and Linux data first and restore it after installing/formatting the new drive. I already had an old 40 GB USB drive to use for backups so I used that.

I still kept my Other OS allotment to 10GB, planning to use my network and the 60 GB USB drive for additional storage. When reinstalling Yellow Dog 6, the installer picked up on the new 60 GB USB drive (my old PS3 hard drive) and offered to partition it for me. I left it as empty space and later formatted it as FAT32 so both Linux and the Game OS could use it.

As seen here, my old hard drive was a bit dusty when I removed it. My Playstation 3 has been running almost constantly for the past year or so.

 

 

The original 60 GB PS3 hard drive all cleaned up and sitting in the new USB enclosure. Using another USB cable for separate power is optional — I just have mine powered by the one USB cable connected to the PS3.

 

For some idea of the speed relative to the original drive, I ran some very simple tests before and after replacing the drive. Here are the results (edited for readability):

The original 60GB 5400 RPM drive:
hdparm -tT /dev/ps3da
Timing buffered disk reads: 24.71 MB/sec (average of three results)

The new 200GB 7200 RPM drive:
hdparm -tT /dev/ps3da
Timing buffered disk reads: 36.60 MB/sec (average of three results)

That’s 11.89 MB/sec faster than the old drive — about 32% faster!

Copying a 500 MB file:

The original 60GB 5400 RPM drive:
[bill@localhost ~]$ time cp system7.hfv test.file
real 0m44.370s
user 0m0.104s
sys 0m9.244s

The new 200GB 7200 RPM drive:
[bill@localhost ~]$ time cp system7.hfv test.file
real 0m31.725s
user 0m0.115s
sys 0m9.529s

12.6 seconds better than the old drive — about 28% faster!

So it looks like the claims on the box were true, for once. I realize these are rather simple tests, but it appears I may get around 30% better performance with the new 7200 RPM drive. Since that’s where my swap partition is located it should help improve performance a little in that area, too.

Comparing the speed of the old 60GB drive in the USB 2.0 enclosure, hdparm shows an average of around 20 MB/sec — not bad, either.

So far I’m very happy with this upgrade!