What all can I do with a modded PS2?

[PSykomantis00]

Hey I just bought a PS2 and San Adreas today, its not the first ps2 Ive owned, I just never really used the last one I had and I sold it, about 2 years ago. Now I bought this one basically just for MGS 3 Snake Eater, San Adreas, and Resident Evil 4. I want to mod it tho, what all can I do with a modded ps2? I have a modded xbox, which I did all my self. Basically what I want to know is...

Can I put in a hard drive and put all my games on it like I can my xbox?
How do I check what version I have, I bought this one used at a pawn shop.
How hard is it to mod the ps2? I have no dvd burner to burn a bios loading cd (not sure if you need to but on xbox I got lucky and had a philips drive and it can read CD-RW's)

All info is greatly appreciated, and I look forward into joining the PS2 modding scene

[DLM']

yes, you can buy a hard drive and run games off it, but that would be the only thing useful to you, if you have a modded xbox, since the xbox is much further along in homebrew development. there are no dashboard apps like there are for the xbox either.

[ps2modder]

however, it is much hard to mod a ps2 than an xbox