Question Running PC games from an external HDD ?

[ReeDoK]

Hi! I have a lot of old PC games installed and I was thinking I could move them to an external HDD to save some space on my internal SSDs. I was looking at "WD Elements Portable USB 3.0", but since these are USB, I'm not sure if the read/write speed could affect performance, especially in open world games like Burnout Paradise or Grand Theft Auto IV. Would it be better to just buy an internal SATA HDD?
By "old games" I mean those from year 2000 to around 2012.

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

Sata is much faster than usb 3.0 .Usb is more for storage using a hd imho.

 

[Satan-IR]

Yes, an internal SATA HDD would be faster (faster load times, texture loading etc) and better suited to your use.

External drives are kind of not designed and meant to be used like internal ones for long hours with constant read and writes to them which is what happens if you use it for gaming for example.

This kind of use would cause the external HDD to probably age and die sooner than expected. They're meant to be hooked up, some files backup copied to/from them, then disconnected up to when the data they contain is needed.