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    steam games folder on external usb drive

    Discussion in 'Gaming (Software and Graphics Cards)' started by mattcheau, Sep 14, 2012.

  1. mattcheau

    mattcheau Notebook Deity

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    in the last few months i've had the pleasure of loading games from an ssd, my primary drive. but i'm curious, how noticeable will the obvious speed disadvantages of installing games to an external usb drive be? or will game files/resources be cached to the ssd while in-game? i'm trying to weigh this against keeping as much unused space on my ssd as possible...
     
    mattcheau, Sep 14, 2012
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  2. MegaBUD

    MegaBUD Notebook Evangelist

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    E-sata wouldnt be so bad... but USB2 or even USB3 would be painful...
     
    MegaBUD, Sep 14, 2012
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  3. saturnotaku

    saturnotaku Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Are you talking about on your Sager? Why not pull the optical drive, put a hard drive in its place, and use an external DVD-RW for those times you need one? Sagers are very flexible like that, and it takes a minimal amount of effort to remove the optical drive. Only in a few select circumstances is putting games on an SSD beneficial anyway.
     
    saturnotaku, Sep 14, 2012
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  4. mattcheau

    mattcheau Notebook Deity

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    cost, lack of a caddy w/ flush bezel for a reasonable price, and trying to work with existing hardware. strangely i like the idea of an e-sata over your recommendation, saturnotaku, which is something i've considered no less (and they'd yield the same speed i think), but again existing hardware. my sager's ssd is hands-down my favorite component so i guess i mean the pleasure of having it generally. even still i priced out a 7200rpm scorpio black for a very reasonable price, but the caddy kills it. so the consensus is that running over usb 2.0 isn't worth the space saved?

    Sent from my PI39100 using Board Express
     
    mattcheau, Sep 14, 2012
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  5. jaug1337

    jaug1337 de_dust2

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    Running over USB 2.0 would make a game like Crysis loading time to be more than 3 maybe more minutes, it SCREAMS pain. Also you will have lags at times.

    Running over USB 3.0 Crysis would work, but still be slower than actually on a 7200 RPM drive I do not know exactly why. Sometimes it loads faster though, confusing things

    SOURCE? I did it myself I could probably make a thread about it one day :)
     
    jaug1337, Sep 14, 2012
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  6. DEagleson

    DEagleson Gamer extraordinaire

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    I dont recommend using a USB 2.0 drive at all.
    My own external HDD is a Seagate Barracuda 3TB with a separate external cabinet, because i dont trust the build quality nor the speed WD MyBooks ect.
    Not sure what my read speed on it is but the write speed measured with Dxtory said it does around 140mb/s.

    So my recommendation: Use a 7200rpm drive over eSata or USB 3.0 if you cant use eSata.
     
    DEagleson, Sep 14, 2012
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