# If I want to play games of an External Hard-drive...



## matt-h (Apr 30, 2006)

My laptop is 3 years old and has a 35GB HD, and with games taking up more and more HD space, I can only have a couple on at a time.

So until I get a new laptop, I think an External Hard-drive is the answer. Searching the web though, I can't find much information about doing this. Is it recommended? What specs should I be looking for (type, formatting, speed etc)?


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## bhahar84 (Jan 1, 2008)

Hi matt-h!

It is actually not recommended to play the games that was installed on the external hard drive. Not only this would make the hard drive work hard, but it might also make the external hard drive to performing excessive activity which might shorten the lifespan of the hard drive itself. 

The external drive usually can be used as a data backup destination, also to place all the important files, or files that you might want to bring to other computer. For a gaming purpose, you might want to consider purchase a new hard drive which you can connect inside the computer as a slave drive


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## dannyn (Nov 9, 2007)

> For a gaming purpose, you might want to consider purchase a new hard drive which you can connect inside the computer as a slave drive


yes.. 
but most laptops will not support that.
i dont know how you would install it on an external drive because most games require you to install the games on the drive that boots the computer..
but i am sure it can be done and probably someone on here knows how.


> It is actually not recommended to play the games that was installed on the external hard drive. Not only this would make the hard drive work hard, but it might also make the external hard drive to performing excessive activity which might shorten the lifespan of the hard drive itself.


i dont think that accessing the external hard drive would be an issue..
i steam music off an external hard drive all day long and it hasn't failed yet..


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## bhahar84 (Jan 1, 2008)

dannyn said:


> yes..
> but most laptops will not support that.
> i dont know how you would install it on an external drive because most games require you to install the games on the drive that boots the computer..
> but i am sure it can be done and probably someone on here knows how.


my mistake, missing the *laptop* part now. so, the options now, only to purchase a new hard drive with a bigger capacity or maybe consider purchasing a new computer with a better gaming performance 



dannyn said:


> i dont think that accessing the external hard drive would be an issue..
> i steam music off an external hard drive all day long and it hasn't failed yet..


me too steaming the music off the external hard drive. what i mean by my previous post is when there is a excessive usage like a games or programs, this might cause the hard drive to high activity, rather than accesing a single file like a song. and most of the games nowaday can be installed in drive other than the drive than boots the computer, you just have to change the destination when installation process (i have a special partition just to install all the games on my own, so that it won't clutter with the system boot drive and causing the computer performance dropped).

but, its very unlikely that someone install the game or any program on external drive as the program or the games will take a much greater time to load. i'm sure you won't want to install any programs on external drive too


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## dannyn (Nov 9, 2007)

he would probably be fine until he bought a new computer.. which he said he was planning on doing in a previous post..

oo and by the way your second link dosent work..
the one that says power supply.


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## Hughv (Jul 22, 2006)

For a lot of games, an external drive may be far too slow.
I don't believe the comments about too much access and making the disk work too hard. These are the same drives that are installed internally, and it's the same work load.
I admit to not being up on gaming, but I've never seen one that requires it be installed on the boot drive.
Replacing a laptop drive with a larger drive is a fairly simple task, and would be the best answer.


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## dannyn (Nov 9, 2007)

i must have just gotten an odd game..
it was just one that i recently installed..
yes you can get a new hard drive and use something like norton ghost and get all the data off of the old one.


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

Many games play just fine from an installation on an external drive. But it depends on the game. Games that load into memory and then run with little need to access the drive for game resources work very well and you probably would notice no difference.

But games that require a lot of disk access will run slower simply because externals are not as fast as internals. I have Fable and The DaVinci Code installed to an external and they work normally, but they are not graphic- or resource-intensive games.


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## bhahar84 (Jan 1, 2008)

Elvandil said:


> But games that require a lot of disk access will run slower simply because externals are not as fast as internals. I have Fable and The DaVinci Code installed to an external and they work normally, but they are not graphic- or resource-intensive games.


Yup, thats why its not recommended to install the game on external drive, just because the USB or Firewire connection, would not meet the transfer rate as it is on the IDE or SATA. 



dannyn said:


> oo and by the way your second link dosent work..
> the one that says power supply.


i'm editing some links, still searching for a best on net article


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## Absent_Kid (Jun 7, 2008)

dannyn said:


> i steam music off an external hard drive all day long and it hasn't failed yet..


hey all im new to this site, i have recently bought a new external hard drive 200gb and it is connected up into a network of 4 computers, and i have put my extensive music collection on to it, i was wondering how to access these files via WMP or can i not?? also do i have to open each individual folder/album to get WMP to regognise it or can i "scan" my network for music files??

thanks x


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## jamesx121 (Apr 23, 2008)

Absent_Kid said:


> hey all im new to this site, i have recently bought a new external hard drive 200gb and it is connected up into a network of 4 computers, and i have put my extensive music collection on to it, i was wondering how to access these files via WMP or can i not?? also do i have to open each individual folder/album to get WMP to regognise it or can i "scan" my network for music files??
> 
> thanks x


Absent_Kid----

this question doesnt pertain to playing games with a external harddrive.

it will probably be ignored by the posters on this thread.

to get a response please repeat/start your question as a new thread.

that this the best way to get a response.

a lot of people only look to see what the thread question is ---
to decide whether they open the thread or not


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## dannyn (Nov 9, 2007)

The answer is yes, though


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