2. Next, someone needs to break open the PSP, and solder up some sort of mini-usb pass-thru, so that you can use this mod, and still have that slot on the top free for other devices.
Also, how much battery drain does this mod create?
Posted at 12:15AM on Jan 4th 2008 by Kratos
4. are there no pictures of the actual drive inside the psp or am I missing something?
Posted at 4:54AM on Jan 4th 2008 by chris
5. Seems fishy to me. The PSP doesn't have the hardware to act as a USB host. He'd have to have both a hard drive AND some sort of microcontroller to act as a USB host to both the HDD and the PSP and somehow pass data between the two.
You'd think someone with enough skill to miniaturise that circuit to that level would be able to solder a decent connection to the internal USB header.
Also, the fact that he "Can't be bothered right now" about posting any details apart from the photos makes me very suspicious.
6. Yeah, I agree with babau. It seems very fishy...
Posted at 7:13AM on Jan 4th 2008 by daniel
7. I believe we posted how it was done we are using the hardware from an Ipod to drive it.
Posted at 8:10AM on Jan 4th 2008 by cyberpyrot
9. i dont buy it...
Babau, you can USB host using the correct firmwares and add ons...that is very possible.
There are a fe things i dont get. If he is using an older USB hard drive its not like that new one that can power themselves through USB...he said it was only 30GB.
Also he would have had to total gut the UMD drive and most of the battery bay...slim or fat...there is very little room in the PSP for the drive AND the USB IDE controller...
And why not just hack out the USB port and run the thinner cables along the top of the drive.
There are alot of things i do not understand aout this 'hack/mod'.
Personally. I feel this is a fake.
10. The psp has the ability to host other devices, but like you guys said it still looks fishy. I think back in 05 or 06 sony released a 1.3mp(I think)camera which could do 15sec video bursts and snap still photos too and a gps adapter with software map packs. I think they flopped and i haven't seen them since, probably still circulating in japan.
Note:That's why there a 2 screw mounts to the left and right of the usb interface as to hold devices in place.
Posted at 11:03AM on Jan 4th 2008 by PhilR
11. 1: space issue,
2: power issue,
3: cost.
its not practical, and the question is
DINT ANYBODY AT SONY THINK ABOUT IT?
Posted at 11:16AM on Jan 4th 2008 by atg
12. all the technology to do it is available, he just got it to fit in the space the UMD drive used to occupy. i don't doubt its real.
a tear down / how-to is called for, certainly. i would do this mod if i had the parts laying around.
a usb plug with a nice compact 90 in it would be a better choice. i'm sure its out there to be had.
this is a decent mod!
Posted at 11:49AM on Jan 4th 2008 by geekazoid
13. invalid hostname did you use one of those so called "free hosts" and it got shut down?
Posted at 1:48PM on Jan 4th 2008 by ejonesss
14. This is total BS and the people who called it fishy my hats are off to you.
http://www.acidmods.com/forum/index.php?topic=13380.0
Posted at 1:49PM on Jan 4th 2008 by PSP_WIZARD
15. I don't see how this would work. A 2.5" wouldn't fit. A 1.8" drive might just, but it would require some fairly extreme modding to the drive bay.
As far as I know, IRShell/usbhoststfs doesn't work in the way this guy is suggesting - it is designed for remote browsing of a PC running the server software (connected by USB or Wifi), not a directly-connected USB HDD. That's supposedly not possible without USB OTG.
Either he's using Wifi to browse a PC running usbhoststfs and pretending it's actually an 'internal HDD', or I'm misunderstanding the claim being made.
That said, the Datel 4Gb drive supposedly uses a special CF>MSDUO adaptor board and a CF microdrive. Since IDE and CF are pin-compatible, why can't we just hook up a similar adaptor (IDE > CF > MSDUO) and supply an external power pack for the drive?
Would there be file system limitations?
Hmm, you can pick those things up for about £40 now. Might be worth a play :)
Posted at 1:51PM on Jan 4th 2008 by George Wilkins
16. Posts from the original poster on that thread:
"cost me nothing to make because my friend gave me parts. should be around 50-80usd total. bear in mind that a 8gb pro duo cost 90-100usd"
"eh theres a lot of steps. ill do it when i feel like it. right now im working on making the psp a usb host"
"it has a solid state hdd"
This looking like a prank to me... $80 total with a 30GB SSD. Working on getting it to use USB host, but that seems to be the only way this could work.
Alexander: can you link the details on how to use USB host on the PSP? all I can find is USBHostFS, which runs on a PC to connect to the PSP, not using mass storage directly
Posted at 4:34PM on Jan 4th 2008 by tom61
17. tom61...
i was wrong about the usb host...well more confused then wrong mostly because i haven't used USB host for such a long time or very often.
Its called USB host in the PSP firmwares and add-on but they DO NOT make your PSP a host device.
using IRShell or M33 you can access a Hard Drive on another computer as a guest device (as you and a few other people pointed out) but you CANNOT directly connect to a USB drive. I have tried connecting my 160GB WD Passport drive (it is powered through USB) and guess what...nothing happens. The PSP can use the USB as an expansion port for peripherals, but it can't (to the best of my knowledge) put out the power the run my pocket sized wd passport.
Unless this guy is powering his drive, and i don't think it would matter if it was SSD or HDD, then it should drain the power on the PSP in about 20 minutes(or something).
Why it won't work...
the picture...come on'
The power...it would eat the 2600mh battery alive
the software...its simply not capable
the psp itself...even if you gutted the UMD drive and a few other components, it would still be like the to stuff Oprah into Anne Heche.
i keep coming back to this page to see if it has been demystified...but until someone puts out i am sticking to my first response that this is garbage.
18. Wow. He might have actually gotten this to work, and for the price stated too...
In a thread where he was humorously trying get a MemoryStick reader to work backwards (despite knowing about the differences between host and client USB), he posted this little tidbit:
"i should look at the Vinculum VNCL1 USB host chip, and the accompanying prototyping modules like the VDIP1.
The VDIP1 will interface to any microcontroller via a serial port and allow you to plug in and read a USB memory/storage device"
I keep forgetting about these fun little chips. The same chip used by car stereos to read USB pen drives could be used with the PSP by modifying the software that lets you use data from a PC (USBHostFS? IRShell?) to communicate with this chip instead. Official peripherals that plug into the USB port on top are not USB, they communicate via serial, so using that port makes sense now.
Posted at 6:53PM on Jan 4th 2008 by tom61
20. earljr: The memory stick bus is very doable, see: http://www.ic2005.com/shop/product.php?productid=24
I was briefly looking into using an adapter like the one above (more than likely I'd use the SD card adapter that can be had for $20), and, pending there was a card reading chip and another chip emulating the memory stick, replacing the reading chip with a USB host chip like the VNCL1.
Posted at 8:05PM on Jan 4th 2008 by tom61
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1. I read where the plug was necessary, but I would still try to find a right angle if possible to lower the profile a wee bit and reduce damage potential.
regardless it's an awesome mod.
Storage like that and I'd get a PSP again!
Posted at 11:56PM on Jan 3rd 2008 by strider_mt2k