Got malwarE
Royal Uhlans
Amarr Empire
27
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Posted - 2012.08.29 20:24:00 -
[1] - Quote
Computer / forensics guy here. Hopefully I can clear some stuff up about file systems and the "corrupted data" thing.
From doing a quick 2-minute Google search, the PS3 uses SPUFS, which is based off of the *nix EXT3 file system, and is also encoded. (which is why you can't browse normally with a Windows PC, among other things) There is some debate if it's a modified fat32, but since there is a single file-size limit in FAT (~4 GB, if memory serves correctly) and since it would not be the smartest to use the NTFS file system (Windows based), I'm leaning toward the modified ext3. So how does this help...
For Windows based file systems, whenever you write a file to disk, it writes it sequentially, such as "abcdef". if you remove c, you're left with "ab def", and the gap = size of file c. Now, if you have part g come in which is bigger, it will look like "abgdefg", where the trailing g is the rest of the file. (for sake of arguement) This is why, on smaller disks, fragmentation can affect performance. Now with newer drives, there is a speed decrease, but it's essentially negligible.
Let's take ext3, one of the *nix based file systems. For writing files, files are spread waaaay apart from each other. So for the same files, you would see something like "a b c d e f". And if you remove c and write g, it would look like "a b g d e f". You are less likely to have fragmentation to the extent of a Windows based file system, but it does happen. Typically, you will start to see speed degradations around 80% disk usage.
For the "corrupted data" portion, this happens when a device (PC, Mac, *nix) is shutdown un-cleanly while the device is writing shtuff to disk. This is where the master file table (MFT, keeps track of where files are) can have errors, and can cause problems. Luckily for ext3, there is a little program called File System ChecK, or "fsck". Typically with *nix based file systems, a fsck runs one of three ways: if it's initiated on command, after every 30 reboots (can be changed), or if the device is turned off uncleanly.
So for the "data corruption" error, this isn't Dust which is causing the problem, but rather the PS3 being shut down uncleanly. And if you have a smaller hard drive / more full drive, there is a higher chance for corruption. And remember, just because it crashes, that doesn't mean that your PS3 will blow up and be the cause for world hunger. It just means that your hard drive may need a good fsck'ing, and worst case scenario, blown away and wiped. :)
--GmE |