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Did anyone here install an HDD in their PS2?

Lightning Count

Lightning Count

Member
Jan 27, 2019
16,228
Fuck off
Been thinking about this the PS2, had a tray where a hard drive could be installed.

Of course it wasn't necessary since online downloads weren't really a thing and games just ran straight from disc, but for those players with hundreds and hundreds save files this is an alternative to memory cards and it did open up the option of installing games to the hard drive with 3rd party software.

Unfortunately doing this does require extra hardware, namely an official PS2 network adapter and of course a hard drive, your options were the official PS2 hard drive made by Sony themselves or a standard IDE hard drive.

I thought about this upgrade numerous times but never decided to do it. It wouldn;t be long until the launch of the Xbox and HDD's became standard for all consoles going forth save for Nintendo.

So, ERA, did any of you upgrade your PS2 in this way? If you did, please tell us about how improved your experience with the PS2.
 
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Dest

Dest

Has seen more 10s than EA ever will
Coward
Jun 4, 2018
15,071
Work
It improved my PS2 experience by letting me play FFXI.


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Laser Ramon

Laser Ramon

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,629
The best part about it was that you could store your PS1 and PS2 memory card saves right on the drive if you needed to free up room.
 
squeaky

squeaky

Member
Oct 26, 2017
74
I had a PS2 that I used the credit card disc swap with and some HDD loader. It was sick. Hard drives compared to the DVD drive felt so much faster.
 
The Albatross

The Albatross

Member
Oct 25, 2017
40,844
I did, and the network adapter. Side point, the Network adapter was so hard to find and such a wonky piece of shit. One of the worst add-on devices from a quality PoV that I remember.

@TheFriendlyBro said:
Hell yeah, slapped a 1TB drive on my OG PS2. Was it pointless? Probably.
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Could the file system even read a HDD that size? I thought even with modded HDD hardware the max was like 36GB or something.
 
Puggles

Puggles

Sometimes, it's not a fart
Member
Nov 3, 2017
3,165
Yes I had some software that let me install the full game to the HDD so I never had to switch discs. It was nice.
 
AdamKoy

AdamKoy

Member
Oct 28, 2017
424
I got in the FFIX beta and it came with the HDD. Was also in the Twisted Metal Online beta and it came with a network adapter. Free stuff!!
 
Bane

Bane

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
5,944
Yeah but I pretty much only ever used it for FFXI. I don't think I even ever transferred saves to it.

ECIT: I misread the OP.
 
nullification

nullification

Banned
May 23, 2022
63
You can place a HDD into a PS2, why wasn't I informed of such news? I wasn't and still not a fan of memory cards, especially when their were sold separately.
 
Teiresias

Teiresias

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,493
Lightning Count said:
Been thinking about this the PS2, had a tray where a hard drive could be installed.

Of course it wasn't necessary since online downloads weren't really a thing and games just ran straight from disc, but for those players with hundreds and hundreds save files this is an alternative to memory cards and it did open up the option of installing games to the hard drive with 3rd party software.

Unfortunately doing this does require extra hardware, namely an official PS2 network adapter and of course a hard drive, your options were the official PS2 hard drive hard by Sony themselves or a standard IDE hard drive.

I thought about this upgrade numerous times but never decided to do it. It wouldn;t be long until the launch of the Xbox and HDD's became standard for all consoles going forth save for Nintendo.

So, ERA, did any of you upgrade your PS2 in this way? If you did, please tell us about how improved your experience with the PS2.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I had the Linux Kit back in the day (still have the install and system discs actually, though I think the keyboard and mouse that were included have long since vanished), but didn't really use it much at all back when the PS2 was a current-gen console. Though I did eventually take Linux off of it and put whatever the homebrew HDD utility was for running actual games from the HDD back then (it's deprecated now by OPL and FreeMcBoot).

More recently though for my retro-gaming setup I have modded my network adapter to have a SATA interface rather than an IDE and have a harddrive in my PS2 for playing all my PS2 games. Between that (used with OPL from a FreeMcBoot memory card) and the noctua fan replacement mod the PS2 is completely silent when playing PS2 games. I still play PS1 games on it using discs so I get the native hardware PS1 support (putting PS1 discs on the HDD requires using a PS1 emulator instead).
 
RivalGT

RivalGT

Member
Dec 13, 2017
7,150
Few games support the hdd, some jp version of games have hdd support.

But yeah I would look in to OPL and a sata HDD. You are going to need a official network adapter, and a sata kit.
 

Polk

Avenger
Oct 26, 2017
5,166
Lightning Count said:
Unfortunately doing this does require extra hardware, namely an official PS2 network adapter and of course a hard drive, your options were the official PS2 hard drive hard by Sony themselves or a standard IDE hard drive.

I thought about this upgrade numerous times but never decided to do it. It wouldn;t be long until the launch of the Xbox and HDD's became standard for all consoles going forth save for Nintendo.

So, ERA, did any of you upgrade your PS2 in this way? If you did, please tell us about how improved your experience with the PS2.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Actually you don't need official PS2 network adapter. There are even ones supporting SATA HDDs, but they lack Ethernet port. FreeMC Boot with SATA drive (or even ssd) is godsend.
 
Jroc

Jroc

Member
Jun 9, 2018
6,964
I use mine with Open PS2 Loader to play games from the HDD. It also lets me use my Dual Shock 4 on the PS2.

Fun Fact: The original launch model PS2 didn't have an internal HDD slot. People had to buy an external HDD add-on that plugged into a port on the back.

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zoodoo

zoodoo

Member
Oct 26, 2017
13,661
Montreal
Since I have a slim ps2 , I was thinking about getting a fat ps2 and install a hard drive. But I went with the mc2sio solution instead. It was hassle free and the most annoying part was getting a micro sd card that was compatible. Here's a video explaining how it works:



For the micro sd card i went with this one
Sandisk micro sd are known for not working properly with it
 
TheWooniestWoona

TheWooniestWoona

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,756
I've got one in my PS2 right now.
The DVD drive died, so I ripped my games and put them on the drive. Nice way to keep it working and out of the trash.
 
eddiemunstr

eddiemunstr

Member
Jan 20, 2019
1,573
I had one for ffxi, and I seem to remember the long load times in the resident evil outbreak games were still pretty lengthy even with the game installed.
 
Ogawa-san

Ogawa-san

Member
Nov 1, 2017
1,686
I'll be honest, I installed one on my fat PS2 to have games running off it. Those were the days...

In the end, that PS2 was more of a "digital" console than my 360 that came after it.

I also used the modem (that you needed for the HDD) to play Socom online exactly once.
 
LewieP

LewieP

Member
Oct 26, 2017
18,767
zoodoo said:
Since I have a slim ps2 , I was thinking about getting a fat ps2 and install a hard drive. But I went with the mc2sio solution instead. It was hassle free and the most annoying part was getting a micro sd card that was compatible. Here's a video explaining how it works:



For the micro sd card i went with this one
Sandisk micro sd are known for not working properly with it
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

My one of these just arrived today! Looking forward to playing around with it.
 
Dr. Zoidberg

Dr. Zoidberg

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,707
Decapod 10
Of course! Just get one of those special memory cards, rip all your games to the HDD, and never have to fool with the discs again. This is the main reason I was never interested in the Slim model.

Only problem is that an OG PS2 + HDD is pretty damn loud, honestly.
 
Ashes of Dreams

Ashes of Dreams

Fallen Guardian of Unshakable Resolve
Member
May 22, 2020
17,447
Was the only way to play FFXI, so yeah of course.

Only thing that was annoying about it was that you couldn't use the save files on the HDD, you had to transfer them to and from the memory card. But it still saved me the trouble of ever having to buy a second memory card or delete save files or anything.
 
Anth0ny

Anth0ny

Member
Oct 25, 2017
50,116
I was going to…. But then I said fuck it and just got a micro sd mod for my ps2 slim. Absolutely beautiful having access to all my games on that beautiful hardware, no disc swapping required.
 
neoak

neoak

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,239
Lightning Count said:
Seems like a waste of time, there is no way the PS2 can leverage the throughput speeds on an SSD.
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It's never about the sequential reads, it's all about the random reads.

When the data was in other part of the disc and had to move the laser? Bam! Instant and as fast as the interface allows.

One reason why drive emulators are faster.
 
Dr. Zoidberg

Dr. Zoidberg

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,707
Decapod 10
Polk said:
I put SSD in mine. There's also mod to swap fan with Noctua one.
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Isn't the PS2 adapter for IDE drives only? So you're also using some sort of adapter I'm guessing? Also I'm sure the PS2 doesn't support TRIM for SSDs, but I guess since you are probably not deleting or moving data much, it's not such a problem.

The fan is the bigger problem, though. I don't care enough to disassemble it, however.
 

Polk

Avenger
Oct 26, 2017
5,166
Dr. Zoidberg said:
Isn't the PS2 adapter for IDE drives only? So you're also using some sort of adapter I'm guessing? Also I'm sure the PS2 doesn't support TRIM for SSDs, but I guess since you are probably not deleting or moving data much, it's not such a problem.

The fan is the bigger problem, though. I don't care enough to disassemble it, however.
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There are SATA network adapters like this. They lack ethernet connection though. If I add or delete game I'm doing it from my PC so I'm not concerned about lack of TRIM.
 
Ralemont

Ralemont

Member
Jan 3, 2018
4,558
Yes, except it died and I lost all my saves I had stored on there (and removed from memory cards to make room).

Was an awesome time returning from study abroad to find that out.
 
Jockel

Jockel

Member
Oct 27, 2017
747
Berlin
I recently got myself a white Japanese Slim, and was looking into the MicroSD Memory Card thingie and just couldn't get it to work. I'll try LAN booting next. There's a fat PS2 I could still fall back to for HDD loading, but it's ugly and noisy compared to the slim. Anyone got some experience with the LAN method?
 
neoak

neoak

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,239
Dr. Zoidberg said:
Isn't the PS2 adapter for IDE drives only? So you're also using some sort of adapter I'm guessing? Also I'm sure the PS2 doesn't support TRIM for SSDs, but I guess since you are probably not deleting or moving data much, it's not such a problem.

The fan is the bigger problem, though. I don't care enough to disassemble it, however.
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Click to shrink...
Technically all are IDE devices, PATA and SATA are the interfaces.

They use a SATA to PATA chip internally iirc.

TRIM isn't much of an issue with modern SSDs as they perform TRIM internally.
 
JaseC64

JaseC64

Enlightened
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
11,008
Strong Island NY
A long time ago when HDLoader was the best next thing.

Though I would say if you are using an Loader application for PS2, don't use the mechanical 3.5in drives. Use an SD card with adapter or cheap ssd with adapter. Heck even that Memory Card SD card adapter shown above.

Also mod the original fan out. Makes the PS2 so much better. God I hate the original release phat. I do like the one with the revised fan. Else get the fan mod or slim PS2.
 
Fisty

Fisty

Member
Oct 25, 2017
21,344
Yup FreeMCBoot and HDLoader baby

Originally got the network adapter for Socom 3 and Battlefield 2
 
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komaruR

komaruR

Member
Oct 28, 2017
3,531
i have the na fat ps2 with internal hd that came with ff11 package and also have a og jp ps2 with external hdd that i later found used at my goto gamestore back in the day.
 
Lord Error

Lord Error

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,769
With HDD and HDLoader software like OPL, PS2 if I'm quite honest feels more "next gen" in use than it has any right to be. Only issue is you can't play PS1 games that way (last I checked). I wish there was some way to mod a PS3 to be like that - that any game can be installed to a HDD.
 
KiKaL

KiKaL

Member
Oct 26, 2017
416
Yep, for I got it for Resident Evil Outbreak and then also used it for FFXI and Socom 2.
 
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