If you know what you're doing and have everything properly setup, then the HDL is a godsend..... Just have patience and don't expect every game to work, just a small fraction of games don't work with HDL.
You'll love it....
EDIT: If you plan to play MGS 3, use the HDD. Reported skipping during codec messaging for many ps2 users with somewhat older ps2 systems. New ps2 systems run the game fine.
