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General discussion

playing games on an external HD?

Apr 29, 2005 1:07AM PDT

I'm a long time gamer who is quickly running out of HD space for games. With games coming out that take up a whopping 6-7 gigs of HD space, I find myself with only 10 gigs of HD space left and my motherboard cant handle another HD.

So I was wondering, is it possible to play games on an external HD with no "significant" loss to performance? I'm planning on getting an external HD with USB2.0 support, and a 7200 RPM drive. It's reported that these drives can read up to 480 Mb/sec. that seems proficient.

more importantly, will "modern" games like Doom3 and HL2 be significantly affected?

Discussion is locked

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Been waiting for replies..
May 8, 2005 11:34AM PDT

I've been tracking this topic just out of couriosity. I did see in another forum/topic that an external HD does not run or otherwise operate nearly as fast as the OS HD. FYI.
Ken

I was wondering for a similar reason! I dont game that much but have no room on my onboard HD so was thinking about adding games to the external one.

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Re: External hard drive...
May 12, 2005 6:00AM PDT

Hi,

I recently bought a Western Digital external hard drive, 80GB, 7200RPM for $70 (after rebates).
http://reviews.cnet.com/5208-7591-0.html?forumID=26&threadID=101004&messageID=1162329&tag=

It is USB 2.0 connected, and plugs into the regular house 110V through a supplied converter.

My 100GB PC hard drive was almost filled (mostly with games) so I plan on deleting many games from there and reinstalling on the new external hard drive. So far, I've only installed two new ones I recently purchased on sale....Men of Valor and World War II Sniper. I haven't transferred some of the high end games yet like Doom3, Half-Life2, FarCry, Halo, etc......, but believe the external 7200RPM drive will be just as good as the regular on board 7200RPM.

For several years I have been using an external 40GB 5400RPM USB 2.0 drive on another of my computers, a Pent III, 500MHz, GeForce 2 GTS Pro, loaded to the gills, and it plays great games (those like Wolfenstein, Half-Life 1....etc...

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highend games
May 12, 2005 11:07AM PDT

thanks for the info! let us know how it handles higher end games if you have the chance!

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Good news-thanks!
May 12, 2005 4:56PM PDT

Thanks for the info! Good to know I can go ahead and start loading up my ext. HD! Happy

Thanks again,
Ken