Chat with Sony re: partitioning hard drive

[haxen]

Here is the online chat between me and Sony support:

Joe: Hi, my name is Joe. How may I help you?
mark: Joe, I want to partition the 60gb harddrive in half, instead of the 10gb for one OS, the rest for the other.
Joe: Please allow me to research that for you, I?ll be just a moment.
Joe: Thanks for your patience, Mark. At this time the, functionality to partition the harddrive is not available. Please feel free to check back with us in the future for possible updates.
mark: is that a standard answer or do you know if they are working on support this?
Joe: We have not received any information on this. It is possible that this feature may be available in the future. We just don't have information at this time.
mark: has anyone asked about this?
Joe: Yes, we have had others request information about this.
mark: ok, so will the PS3 OS be able to access external HD for game saves, movies, pics?
mark: You do know that the PS3 DOES support partioning of the internal HD?
Joe: Yes. Keep in mind that your movies and pictures must be in the appropriate format for the PS OS to recognize.
mark: what are the supported formats, and what is the required directory structure of the external hard drive?
Joe: The PLAYSTATION(R)3 computer entertainment system will support the following video formats.

- MPEG
- MPEG-2 PS
- MPEG-2 TS
- MPEG-4 (.MP4)
Joe: The PLAYSTATION(R)3 computer entertainment system will only support digital image files saved under the the following formats.

- JPEG (.JPG)
- GIF
- TIFF (.TIF)
- PNG
- BMP

mark: ok, what is the directory structure that I have to set up for folders and directories in the external hard drive or will the PS3 provide navigation window for me to point and choose the file I want (e.g. video file)
Joe: I will research that for you.
Joe: At this time, we have limited information on the directory structure for setting up folders for external harddrives. We can tell you that if the external harddrive is recognized by the PS3, you will be given a 'display all' option on the PS3 OS which will show all the information you will need.

[Zoned]

Sony is still figuring it out, they really don't want anyone touching their OS though so they will leave the partitioning just the way it is for now

[Goblinlord]

Actually... I think that will probably be updated sooner rather than later if they relaly do plan on it. It isn't that difficult. They could just allow you to adjust a range between min and max for other OS partition. Min being 10GB for other OS and max being 10GB for gameOS. I think if they do add it it will be under an "advanced" option so as not to confuse the less technically inclined people.

[Zoned]

Technically feasible, I just don't see Sony supporting it, they want their OS protected and will not allow possible errors in partioning to affect their OS.

[Goblinlord]

?

There isn't really any room for any error... It isn't like you would have to enter a number they would probably make it a slider. There is already partitioning... and other than having a range to work with... I don't see how you could add anything else. The partitioning of other types of file systems and such on the otherOS partition space should (and can easily) be taken care of by programs within an otherOS. They don't need to impliment anything of that sort... there is simply no need to. But I definitely see the range for partition space as very safe and no room for error.

[ksoh624]

Here is my setup.
250gb Maxtor drive in an external usb case. Two partitions, 60gb formatted to fat32(for ps3os) and the rest of the drive is formatted to ext3 for Linux(where I dump my iso's to)
Everything works great for me.

[ninjallo]

no se the thing of it is sony know's exactly how to access the partitions but its a complicated process in can take a long time simply as trying to take your 60gb hdd and replace it with a computer formate 400gb it takes a long time to do and i had to do it liek a million times you need to force your computer to copy all of its contents partitions and and to the new 600gb thats the simplest way to explain it but it is possible jsut most the time the computer doesnt copy partition info so you must do it a few times

[Gajer]

Put your videos in a folder in the root of your ext hard drive called VIDEO and music in MUSIC and pictures in PICTURE, it is set up the same way as the psp...