If you get a backup hard drive can you run steam games on it?

[rec_laratta]

And other games like Forza? My hard drive is almost at 100% full So I want to know if I should get a external hard drive...I was looking at the Seagate Backup hard drive

 

[rec_laratta]

MERGED QUESTION
Question from rec_laratta : "If you get a backup hard drive can you run steam games on it?"

And other games like Forza? My hard drive is almost at 100% full So I want to know if I should get a external hard drive...I was looking at the Seagate Backup hard drive

 

[ss202sl]

Why an external - it will probably be slower? But you can create a steam library on the new drive, and move some games to it freeing up space on the hdd.

 

[richardvday]

Short answer is Yes you can. Probably painfully slowly though.
If your going to get an external drive get the fastest interface you can, USB 2 will be dreadfully slow, USB 3 will depend on which variant you have, 5gbps vs 10gbps for example
You wont get that actual speed the drive will not saturate a USB3 connection for example unless its an SSD say.
Unless its USB3 or thunderbolt and you have the right ports on your motherboard I suggest getting and Internal drive instead.
7200rpm or an SSD