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Hi,

I have 2 sandisk extreme (3.0?/SSD?) 64gb external flash drives. I am currently running out of space on my main ssd-/operating-system hard drive(well I have been told that 10% must always be free for best PC performance, with 25% being best, and I am now at c.10.5%). I could upgrade from 1Tb to 2TB, but want to wait until the new volta graphics cards etc. are released to the public. Anyway, I would like to install and run full, large pc games from my flash-drives and have read claims that such flash drives would quickly get worn out/ruined by such a practice due to extensive read-writes done while pc gaming, that the game would slow down in performance to some extent, and that I would be unable to play on other computers as the pc game would have to get registry keys on the main PC registry on the operating-system hard drive, in order to work. All the above claims were just that, and was wondering if people have actually done what I plan re using external flash drives/hard drives to install and play large pc games(whether old or current), and would like to hear from them as regards the rough average drop in performance of such a practice etc.. Thanks!
If you can redirect the writes to your SSD, I guess it could work but I also suspect it depends on the game how easy it would be to setup as most games expect to be on a certain partitition/disk. Best to block all writes to the stick with the game on it.

I am sure you have a lot of stuff on the main disk that you certainly do not need to keep there like documents, downloads, old logs and such. One example: A friend's mobile got full and half of the space waste was Skype history. Are you like some of us (cough cough) that always keep way too many games installed all the time? Maybe try to remove something...Is your rubbish bin's size constant? Decrease it then as there is no reason for that to be say 200GB in size. Do you have something that makes backups of the system automatically, ie system restore in Windows; shut it down or tell it to only keep 1-2 restore points, not 100.
Post edited November 21, 2017 by Themken
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CromCruachan: Hi,

I have 2 sandisk extreme (3.0?/SSD?) 64gb external flash drives. I am currently running out of space on my main ssd-/operating-system hard drive(well I have been told that 10% must always be free for best PC performance, with 25% being best, and I am now at c.10.5%). I could upgrade from 1Tb to 2TB, but want to wait until the new volta graphics cards etc. are released to the public. Anyway, I would like to install and run full, large pc games from my flash-drives and have read claims that such flash drives would quickly get worn out/ruined by such a practice due to extensive read-writes done while pc gaming, that the game would slow down in performance to some extent, and that I would be unable to play on other computers as the pc game would have to get registry keys on the main PC registry on the operating-system hard drive, in order to work. All the above claims were just that, and was wondering if people have actually done what I plan re using external flash drives/hard drives to install and play large pc games(whether old or current), and would like to hear from them as regards the rough average drop in performance of such a practice etc.. Thanks!
Well, the read/write access is a thing. Denuvo for instance was also once thought to extenuate this further. Drives have only a limited lifespan, measured in read/writes, although it is quite large. I can't be anymore definite on that, although would assume its much like and internal drive.
As for running games from an external drive, this depends on several factors:
- Game in question, older games need less resources
- Speed of drive
- Speed of port (USB 2.x or 3.x for example)
- Computer speed, a game which wont run well on the machine, is only going to be worse from external

Now the game it self may have specific requirements and linkages. For instance registry entries, specific c++ extensions, DX version or Direct Play, or anything else really. Whilst you may get your machine to recognise this and have the requirements, another machine may not. Portabilising an application can be anything from simple to really complicated.

Unless you have a really good reason, I would be careful about gaming from an external, doesn't hurt of course to test it. Why is your main drive so full up, I personally am really anal about keeping my system clean, but some housekeeping now and again is not too difficult. Remove software you don't use (fully), expurge the temp folders, archive documents you don't work on to external media (as you ill have a back up anyway).
I have a 500gb ssd now, but barely scratch a fifth of that with windows and a couple of apps installed.
Hmm. Thanks for the above answers, which have helped somewhat. Though, I still have not heard from anyone who has acrtually tried installing on and playing from a usb flash-drive, and would be keen on finding out what happened.]



As regards the previous answers, good to know. I had no idea that my rubbish bin occupied c. 47-48 GB even when empty of data, and have reduced it to 5GB. I had previously thought that the rubbish bin merely expanded from 0 to whatever was in it, up to a certain limit.

System restore has saved my life in the past and previous shutting down of system restore(without my direct knowledge(due to virus?)) has made life hell for me previously. I anyway cannot seem to reduce the system restore slider to less than 1%(18.65GB). I don't want to waste time on constant manual removal of restore points.


The issue re too many PC games installed is only recent as I just downloaded 40 old and new PC games onto the 30 others I had already installed. Uninstalling them is not an option as I love adding mods, however absurdly time-consuming it is, and don't want to constantly repeat the process each time I want to replay a PC game. Also, I like keeping all the most important savegames so that I can replay a particularly interesting game-scene. Plus, I like to keep all the levels gained as a result of having played through the whole game previously.

I also have a 2TB hdd internal hard drive, so I could use that, especially since all the other hdd drives are 5400, not 7200 like the 2TB one, and I have a c.30GB tiny ssd drive as well but I am setting the latter aside for the installation of the bwp project of the Baldur's Gate Trilogy.It is just that I want to avoid installing any more modern PC games onto a non-ssd hard drive, given the still absurdly long loading-times, and definitely want my main ssd 1TB drive to be at least 10% free re space, to prevent slowdowns.

Good idea re dealing with excess music etc. It seems I have a vast c.10GB pictures folder full of desktop landscapes and animated desktop themes, most of which could be shifted elsewhere, with just 1 small subfolder working at any one time. Plus, the download folder could be empited mostly.

I would have thought that directx ,registry keys etc. would be installed on the main operatingf system hard drive, so should not be an issue???
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CromCruachan: Hmm. Thanks for the above answers, which have helped somewhat. Though, I still have not heard from anyone who has acrtually tried installing on and playing from a usb flash-drive, and would be keen on finding out what happened.]

As regards the previous answers, good to know. I had no idea that my rubbish bin occupied c. 47-48 GB even when empty of data, and have reduced it to 5GB. I had previously thought that the rubbish bin merely expanded from 0 to whatever was in it, up to a certain limit.

System restore has saved my life in the past and previous shutting down of system restore(without my direct knowledge(due to virus?)) has made life hell for me previously. I anyway cannot seem to reduce the system restore slider to less than 1%(18.65GB). I don't want to waste time on constant manual removal of restore points.

The issue re too many PC games installed is only recent as I just downloaded 40 old and new PC games onto the 30 others I had already installed. Uninstalling them is not an option as I love adding mods, however absurdly time-consuming it is, and don't want to constantly repeat the process each time I want to replay a PC game. Also, I like keeping all the most important savegames so that I can replay a particularly interesting game-scene. Plus, I like to keep all the levels gained as a result of having played through the whole game previously.

I also have a 2TB hdd internal hard drive, so I could use that, especially since all the other hdd drives are 5400, not 7200 like the 2TB one, and I have a c.30GB tiny ssd drive as well but I am setting the latter aside for the installation of the bwp project of the Baldur's Gate Trilogy.It is just that I want to avoid installing any more modern PC games onto a non-ssd hard drive, given the still absurdly long loading-times, and definitely want my main ssd 1TB drive to be at least 10% free re space, to prevent slowdowns.

Good idea re dealing with excess music etc. It seems I have a vast c.10GB pictures folder full of desktop landscapes and animated desktop themes, most of which could be shifted elsewhere, with just 1 small subfolder working at any one time. Plus, the download folder could be empited mostly.

I would have thought that directx ,registry keys etc. would be installed on the main operatingf system hard drive, so should not be an issue???
Well, I did have a big long text ready to reply, then lost connection. Anyways, simply put storage space is still, even though its coming down, a very expensive thing. My backup system is 4 * backups with > 8tb of information on each. Unless your loaded, having that all installed would take up around 5 10tb hard drives at £300 a pop. It really isn't a good idea to keep it all installed. I have plenty of mods, and saves too, but I need these to be as small as possible, and they can also be installed really easy too. BWP I actually used a copy of that for a while, but it is 30gb, now I keep the individual files which were downloaded, and the installers for each game, far smaller, and I can simply install on any machine. It should run off an external drive, don't think that has any specific requirements which wont be met by most modern machines.

So, keep your SSD with OS and minimum apps on it, this is fast, but cost per gb is high. Then keep all your files in small form (installers, zips etc. including mods and saves) on a HDD, then you have them available on cheaper storage, and your backup solution will also be cheaper (as mirror of two HDDs is going to be way smaller than two SSDs).

A final note on installing things, normally it should be pretty quick to install from installer, stick that on your SSD and run from there. For mods, yes, getting sort orders and such like can be a pain, hence why I export sort order lists and install instructions with the mods in question. Simply follow the steps then, not too mention that if a new version of mod comes out, uninstalling an old version of a mod may cause problems with an installed copy - which is why a lot of mods recommend installing the mod over a vanilla install.
I simply do not have the time or energy to waste installing a 100+ mods to a single pc game every time I want to play it again. I am aware that, instead of downloading and installing a vast dvd archive to my external standard hard drive of 16tb(well, 8TB in a 16Tb double-drive, so as to protect against failure of drive), I could just go in for a netflix monthly payment nad daily stream videos to my PC BUT I hate paying monthly, and most such sites anyway only have mostly modern dvd titles, with few if anything rare, especially old dvds and non-US dvds. Solution is to store my games on GOG, mostly, and remove current installation-game-files from my 16tb external hard drive, and since, in 6-9 months, I will anyway be upgrading to a new PC with a 2TB operating-system hard drive, instead of a 1TB one, things will eventually resolve themselves....
I've done it but that was back in the XP days, maybe once on win7, but speedwise in those days it wasn't the best option.

I've only skimmed through some here but I could give you my pointers;

1. You could tell windows to use your external as a common drive, so you don't loose too much speed (SATA vs USB).

2. Format the external and mount it into a folder, that way the games will think it actually is on the same c drive as the system, and should eliminate any problem with libraries and such

Ex like this:
C:/games/disk1/Shadowwarrior
c:/games/disk2/Deponia

3. Not sure about win10, but you can set windows to use pagefile, tmps, etc (maybe also the profile) on a separate but internal SATA HDD, to minimize some wear and tear. But that's debatable.

4. (from 3.) Install large amounts of ram to shove tmps over to a virtual drive. (also debatable).

That said, every game and computer is different, but that would be the best way to install to an external drive, and you could take a speed test to see the difference between having it on an internal SATA vs over USB(3).
Post edited November 21, 2017 by sanscript
Part 2:

I might have misunderstood you, but IF your'e thinking of having a portable HDD with games to move around with:

1. It would be a nightmare, unless you actually set up, let's say two computers the same way, and mount the HDD into same directory, like I wrote above That might work.

2. I've tried several times to have both windows and games on an external drive and it was slow.. The first time windows will nag a bit after the new drivers on the new computer, but it works.

The best you could to is to install, setup and experiment with it. I'm sure you will learn much by it. Good luck :-)
Post edited November 21, 2017 by sanscript
Thanks, sanscript, that was what I was waiting for ...


OK, I will stop buying/downloadng pc games until well after I start upgrading my old PC when the new volta graphics cards come in. Once that happens, I will have a new 2TB SSD operating-system hard drive, instead of a mere 1TB, and a much faster PC(ie 8700K Intel) as well.
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sanscript: 4. (from 3.) Install large amounts of ram to shove tmps over to a virtual drive. (also debatable).
I used for 4 years now a 6 GB RAMdrive, using the great ImDisk, and it's just wonderful. I set the temp folders, the browsers' cache on this drive, I do all downloads under 5 GB here, pack/unpack archives, etc.. Sometimes I test or play games directly from it.
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CromCruachan: ...c.30GB
...c.10GB
....
I'm guessing that it's an Austrian thing, but does the "c." mean?
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sanscript: 4. (from 3.) Install large amounts of ram to shove tmps over to a virtual drive. (also debatable).
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ariaspi: I used for 4 years now a 6 GB RAMdrive, using the great ImDisk, and it's just wonderful. I set the temp folders, the browsers' cache on this drive, I do all downloads under 5 GB here, pack/unpack archives, etc.. Sometimes I test or play games directly from it.
Thanks for the sw tip. Been awhile since I tried it, it's actually quite fast and also fun.

There's also just 1 downside to it if the power goes off, but that's something that rarely happens anyway.
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sanscript: Thanks for the sw tip. Been awhile since I tried it, it's actually quite fast and also fun.

There's also just 1 downside to it if the power goes off, but that's something that rarely happens anyway.
There are actually two downsides, the one you specified and the one when the system is not perfectly stable and may crash. But luckily for me, that rarely happens, when dealing with some buggy game, and I'm on a laptop connected to a UPS, so no power issues.

However, a smaller RAMdrive (like 1 GB) for browsers' cache, I think is a must for any SSD user. That will reduce the SSD teardown significantly.
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CromCruachan: ...c.30GB
...c.10GB
....
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MadalinStroe: I'm guessing that it's an Austrian thing, but does the "c." mean?
It's English, not Austrian. Well, actually, originally it comes from Latin."c." is short for "circa", meaning "roughly", "approximately", or, more literally, "about"/"around".
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MadalinStroe: I'm guessing that it's an Austrian thing, but does the "c." mean?
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CromCruachan: It's English, not Austrian. Well, actually, originally it comes from Latin."c." is short for "circa", meaning "roughly", "approximately", or, more literally, "about"/"around".
I've never seen anyone use it when referring to disk space, so I assumed it was a regional thing. In Romanian we have the exact word "circa" used with that exact meaning. Thanks.
Post edited November 23, 2017 by MadalinStroe