Sony PS3 needs firmware update to support NTFS: over 4GB files
February 16, 2008 By Daniel
Filed under Gaming, Sony Playstation 3
Following our last post on the difference between external and internal hard drives on the Sony PS3, we had an interesting point raised by one of Product Reviews readers. If you have files that are over 4GB they are not supported on the PS3, this may include 1080p HD quality video that you want to play on your Playstation 3 and cannot because the current FAT file structure does not support files more than 4GB.
The answer would be a PS3 firmware update to support the NTFS file system, then you could play 4GB plus video files on your PS3.
Do you have files over 4GB that you would want to play from an internal or external drive?
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Simple use the program Swissknife http://www.compuapps.com/download/Swissknife/swissknife.htm
to format your external hard drive. This program allows hard drives up to 2 TB of space. It would be nice to have NTFS though…
Sony WILL NOT get in bed with Microsoft for NTFS support. They would most likely use an alternate journaling file system like ext3 or jfs.
I use ext3 for EVERYTHING, it works fine.
Sony does not need NTFS!
Wow, it took me 30 seconds to quick format my 250GB external to fat 32… Not an issue, Just educate yourself.
the best external hard drive is a … PC with TVersity !
With Sony’s announcement that future Blu-ray movies will include the same movie in a smaller format for download to your PSP, my thoughts are that they will offer an upgrade sometime soon…
I am fairly well educated in computing and all the readers are missing the point. It is easy to format a drive to FAT32 or create a partition for FAT32 on the external drive. I have done this and can watch my small divx anime episodes happily. But I have films in 1080p HD quality which are ver 4GB in size some are as large as 20GB, FAT32 does not allow you to store files over 4 GB so even though the PS3 supports playback of the files I cannot watch them from my external drive. I really do thick Sony should support the format though maybe it is not possible as its an MS thing.
So though it may take you 30 seconds to format yur HDD to FAT32 it still does not solve my, on a FAT32 drive you can’t watch large HD movies. problem
that sure will be a damn good thing. sine you can watch a lot of HD stuff that is usually >4gigs. this will be really helpfull.
Good article, had some god points. question though, why are using a 20gb ps3 in their picture?
You can play files larger than 4gb on the playstation.
It’s just a matter of finding something that will allow you to transfer files of that size.
If you try to use an NTFS format drive to transfer it’s a no go because the PS3 won’t recognise it.
You can use a the wireless connection (or wired) with no problem - transferring via wireless does take a long time though.
If you have HD H.264 file you can burn it on to a dual layer DVD and transfer from there.
I’ve done it and it works.
For your information the PS3 doesn’t use the FAT partion system - it uses a Sony propreitry partition system.
Thank you Dirk Bongo thats useful information, I still think it would be good if the PS3 could recognise NTFS but this is a good option. Do you know if you can format USB external drives with the Sony propreitry partition system. Is it possible using the PS3 format utility, if it is not that would be a good firmware update allowing you to create a Sony propreitry partition system partition on your external HDD.
I guess you could buy a 2.5 inch hard drive put into the PS3, format it, remove it again and put it into an enclosure.
It’s the only way I can think of getting the Sony partition system on an external drive.
My PS3 plays files over 4gb. Have only got it to work with VOBs, just change file extension to mpg.
Do you mean >4GB file on your external USB HDD or on the internal sony HDD. Because we know it play >4gb files on the internal HDD.
OK I get that Microsoft is a pain in the ass and who wants to deal with them to license NTFS, especially Sony. But cmon…FAT32 came out w/Windows 95. It slows annoyingly as its main inherent fault allows increasing fragmentation. And the 4GB file size limit is not workable moving forward. People say it’s only Windows users that have to deal w/NTFS (notwithstanding the Linux support), but anyone who has upgraded their Windows OS since 98 or ME probably has NTFS drives laying around. It’s completely retarded for Sony to ask us to go back and reformat (or format in the 1st place) with a 13 year old technology just b/c its not convenient for them.