Question How Much Performance Will I lose on average with a decent External SSD Game Drive

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Gamefreaknet

Gamefreaknet

Commendable
Mar 29, 2022
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Considering that most USB/USB-C Game drives use the USB connection limited to:
USB-C: 10GB
USB 3.1: 5GB
USB 3.2: 10/20GBs (found an article listing USB 3.2 2x2 at 20GB and 2x1 10GB Link Here)
Some games will demand a lot of data transfer between the game and the drive it is stored on however where is the limit? How much performance should I expect to lose?
I do get that it will more likely affect larger games with more files to read and write to however I am not sure (for certain) if it will also affect smaller games?
Reference Drives I am currently looking at:
Link 1

Also is USB 3.2 to SATA good enough for gaming and will the SATA drive still need SATA Pwr?
 
First question - Why an external drive? Unless this is a laptop...go internal.
If it IS a laptop and you're short on drive space, get a larger internal.

Second - "How much..." is unknowable and variable. It depends on the game and what resources it needs to get from the drive, and how often.
"How much..." could be anything from "a little" to "a lot".
Those definitions don't help you much, do they...😉
 
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Really depends on the game. How it loads between maps/seamless map loading, how saving works, how much video and system memory you have.

That is Gbps not GB.

The higher end USB standards 5Gbps and up can exceed the typical 500MB/s that a SATA drive can do, so should be similar to that performance. If you have an NVMe SSD with good enough bandwidth, minimal change compared to your typical NVMe laptop or desktop experience.

Also depends on the drive's cooling and SLC mode and Dram Cache effects.

The other factor is how this USB is connected to the system. Via the CPU, pretty good. Via the chipset, may be sharing bandwidth with your other devices.
 
USAFRet said:
First question - Why an external drive? Unless this is a laptop...go internal.
If it IS a laptop and you're short on drive space, get a larger internal.

Second - "How much..." is unknowable and variable. It depends on the game and what resources it needs to get from the drive, and how often.
"How much..." could be anything from "a little" to "a lot".
Those definitions don't help you much, do they...😉
Click to expand...
Its for my Laptop. I already have both M.2. slots used by 2TB M.2.s and since processor is an 8th Gen (i7 8750H) I don't think it will like 4TB M.2.s (I have been told it could but I'd need to format the drives which I am not sure how to do). It does also have a SATA slot currently used by a 4TB SATA drive. Otherwise there are no other slots available. It does have a Thunderbolt 3 USB C port so if I used a USB-C external drive and tried to play GTA 5 on it (as an example) (GTA 5 is around 100GBs) does it make it easier to assume the performance I'd lose?
It has 32GB of RAM
Mobo: Alienware 03R2RY (link here)
 
Gamefreaknet said:
Its for my Laptop. I already have both M.2. slots used by 2TB M.2.s and since processor is an 8th Gen (i7 8750H) I don't think it will like 4TB M.2.s (I have been told it could but I'd need to format the drives which I am not sure how to do). It does also have a SATA slot currently used by a 4TB SATA drive. Otherwise there are no other slots available. It does have a Thunderbolt 3 USB C port so if I used a USB-C external drive and tried to play GTA 5 on it (as an example) (GTA 5 is around 100GBs) does it make it easier to assume the performance I'd lose?
It has 32GB of RAM
Mobo: Alienware 03R2RY (link here)
Click to expand...
You appear to have 8TB drive space in this laptop.
How much more do you need?

The SATA drive...is that HDD or SATA SSD?
 
USAFRet said:
You appear to have 8TB drive space in this laptop.
How much more do you need?

The SATA drive...is that HDD or SATA SSD?
Click to expand...
SATA 6Gbps. I am not sure how much more space but since I have "hit the limit" of internal storage unless I got an 8TB SATA (which costs at least £400) External drives look like a decent solution. I intend to keep this laptop as long as possible (it does have an RTX 2070MQ which is still doing the games I want to do just fine)
 
Gamefreaknet said:
Here is the Link to the SATA SSD I got for it: Here - Samsung 870 Evo 4TB
Click to expand...
OK, so a SATA III SSD.
No problem.

Still....how much space do you need in this laptop? You have 8TB total drive space.


What might I do in the case of running out of space....

Get a large external HDD.
Swap games in and out from the internal drives to the external and back.

Always play from the internal drive.
 
Gamefreaknet said:
Which cable are you using? I am finding a lot of USB 3.1 Gen 2 - USB C cables but not USB 3.2 cables
Click to expand...
I'm using the one supplied with the Orico enclosure. There are some specified at 20Gbps





Sometimes they prefer to refer to it as Thunderbolt 3 (and 4 would be good up to 40Gbps).
 
Have you considered removing 1 SSD from your laptop?
Perhaps 1 that you do not need every day and replace with new 1.
And then switch them as necessary.
It might be a a bit of a hassle, but it is worthy of consideration in my opinion.
 
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