Tom's Hardware > Forum > Storage > General Storage > External HD <---> Internal HD PC Games

External HD <---> Internal HD PC Games

Forum Storage : General Storage - External HD <---> Internal HD PC Games

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vernont1128   09-23-2009 at 05:21:48 AM

Hey guys, new poster... I was searching around some google results for a solution to a problem I'm having and noticed you guys have a pretty good knowledge of PC's.

I'm no noob to computers, I actually have built all of my gaming rigs myself, but I came up with an idea recently and can't seem to get a straight answer from people... Nuff said, here's the idea

I play PC games a lot, and my collection is rather large. There are only a few games I play regularly (League of Legends, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress, WoW) that stay on my Internal HD permanently. The rest of my collection I don't play as frequent, but still would like to have relatively quick access to (Assasin's Creed, Batman, Resident Evil, Fallout 3, etc.)

I view it as a waste of space to keep all of those games on my internal at all times, but I play them a decent amount so uninstalling and reinstalling is a very annoying process. Especially the ones that I have digitally on Steam because you have to re-download them instead of installing, which takes way longer

So I came up with an idea to buy a TB of external memory to sort of act as a "vault" for the games that I don't play daily. This is how the idea worked in my head...

1. Install Game
2. Back it up / Transfer it to the External HD when I don't want to play it
3. When I do want to, Place it back onto my Internal HD until I've beaten it or gotten what I wanted out of it.
4. When done, Transfer it back to the External HD

I've asked around and some people said that idea would work, some said it wouldn't. It's quite frustrating because I don't want to waste 100 bucks on an External and have it not work like I intended... Anyone know about this? Thanks!

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mindless728   09-23-2009 at 05:42:11 AM

1. Install game to external
2. use the external to play the game
3. disconnect when not playing

this would keep it off of your internal even when you play

Reply to mindless728
vernont1128   09-23-2009 at 05:49:27 AM

ive heard that External HD's are horrible for playing game straight off of them, being the main reason I strayed away from that idea.

Reply to vernont1128
anamaniac   09-24-2009 at 11:05:04 AM

Using a USB 2.0 external HDD, yeah, performance will be far from great (something like a 62.5MB/s transfer cap I believe, and that's only theoretical).
However, if your motherboard has it, use a eSata port. External Serial ATA ports give you the conveniance of a USB external, but the performance of a internal drive. These are easy to find, and many modern motherboards upport eSata.

If all else fails, just plug it into your comp internally, and just use the second HDD for storage. =D

Reply to anamaniac
huron   09-24-2009 at 04:40:31 PM

Another +1 for eSATA - that was going to be my suggestion as well.

If your board doesn't have eSATA, you can always get a SATA to eSATA port for the back and then get the eSATA HDD.

My eSATA drive works great. This should work for you.

------------------------------ Antec 900, MSI P7N Diamond, E8400,
4 GB (2 x 2GB) Crucial Ballistix 4-4-4-12, 8800 GTS 512 SLI
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