Gaming on an external SSD

Dattelis

Recently I found myself just re-organizing things on my pc while also potentially buying a laptop (just a basic, not a real 'gaming' one). Anyway, I was thinking of instead of just downloading games I frequent constantly on both, if gaming on an external ssd was decent. Just for like basic single player games, not really co-op/mmorpg titles. I just wanted to know people's experiences and what they might recommend. Thanks in advance for sharing.

Nanfoodle

Internal this is what I bought and it's awesome.

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/B0B25ML2FH?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

Need it external. Works best on a 3.2 or the lesser brother 3.1

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/B0BGS3NZ4C?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

Vrika

External SSDs are fast enough for gaming.

But the issue is, most games don't support being moved like that. If you try to move games like that you end up with some games that work, some games that require tinkering (what exactly is needed varies from game to game), and some games where you just have to give up and install them separately on both computers.

Sovrath

Vrika said:

External SSDs are fast enough for gaming.

But the issue is, most games don't support being moved like that. If you try to move games like that you end up with some games that work, some games that require tinkering (what exactly is needed varies from game to game), and some games where you just have to give up and install them separately on both computers.

True it’s not like the old days when one could just drag and drop a folder.

 I think uninstalling and installing on the external drive would be the option.

Scot

Hmmm, I use an external SSD for data and it small programs run from it like PDF editors, but all my games run from the internal C: SSD. Not sure that would be a good move.

mitech616

Vrika was spot on. You COULD do this for many games, but not all.support it. HOWEVER, if you're using Steam, you have a higher probability of success, as long as you set Steam on both computers to recognize that drive as a "game drive/folder". It would probably help to give it the same call letter as well (F: etc.).

If you're NOT using Steam, you may run into various issues, including registry and save/documents files mismatching. Steam isn't just a good library, it also tends to handle that stuff for you. So, if something IS missing, click that "repair" button and you should be good!

Dattelis

I was wondering if I tried to go the internal route, how good might this work for gaming at least short term: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FN3YZ8P/ref=sspa_dk_detail_0?pd_rd_i=B07FN3YZ8P&pd_rd_w=qs9Vw&content-id=amzn1.sym.8c2f9165-8e93-42a1-8313-73d3809141a2&pf_rd_p=8c2f9165-8e93-42a1-8313-73d3809141a2&pf_rd_r=59S1DFGM4WTCCKWXR5WQ&pd_rd_wg=H7XE2&pd_rd_r=b504194d-ebb3-4748-8b08-ba9c10341b42&s=electronics&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9kZXRhaWw&smid=A36DOQ8QSJXCYP&th=1

Vrika

Dattelis said:

I was wondering if I tried to go the internal route, how good might this work for gaming at least short term:
 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FN3YZ8P

It will work well if your motherboard has free slots with high enough bandwidth.

Be aware that some motherboards share PCIe -lanes between two of the PCIe slots or a PCIe slot and M.2 slot. If you install devices to both slots where the bandwidth is shared, it's always equal split so that both of those slots will get 50% of that bandwidth.

Usually the motherboard's manual and specs have clear warning when that happens, something like
   "PCI_E3 slot will run at x2 speed when installing device in the M2_3 slot"

I'd recommend checking from your motherboard's manual how much the slot you're thinking has bandwidth and whether there's warnings about bandwidth being shared. But if the motherboard has a free slot with enough bandwidth, then something like that will work well enough.

Also another warning: Old BIOSes (installed on old motherboards) often can not boot from a drive installed like that. The drive will work when you're in Windows/Linux even if the motherboard doesn't support booting from it, but you should not try to install a drive like that as the only drive on an old computer

Sovrath

For what it’s worth I have the predecessor of “this “ and it’s great.

I plan on getting another one.

https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-BX500-NAND-2-5-Inch-Internal-dp-B07YD579WM/dp/B07YD579WM/ref=dp_ob_title_ce?th=1