@@mastaw My Razer Blade 17 has one so I put an extra 2TB 970 EVO plus in there for game storage. I just like having games stored off my boot drive. I used an external SSD on the laptop I had before that and it worked just fine for my needs when connected to the USB-C port.
@Ziv Zulander I use a very similar solution for my backup drive. I put a larger C drive in my laptop so I put the original SSD in an enclosure and partitioned it so that it has a windows ISO, my backup files and some important drivers to get me going in case I need to repair the system.
@@mastaw This is really worth checking. I upgraded the HDD in a notebook that was a few years old. Since it was to be a drive swap I just bought a Samsung SATA SSD and cloned the internal drive to it using the software on the Samsung website. When I opened the machine I discovered that in addition to the SATA drive there was a M.2 slot next to it. Now if I had known that I could have bought a M.2 SATA drive and kept the HDD as a backup or just to store movies and such. Now if your notebook has an M.2 slot then check just what drives it will support before you go shopping for one. In my case it only supports SATA drives. The slot has a tab that prevent you from even installing a NVME drive so you will know if you've got the wrong kind of drive as it won't even fit. If you have a machine with NVME support that's not the case. A SATA M.2 drive will happily slot into the slot and I think most if not all NVME enabled M.2 machines will support using a SATA drive, but it will mean that you are leaving some performance on the table.
2 years later and you are the ONLY youtuber who properly covered gaming on external hard drives. Everyone else just goes off features not even related to gaming.
Nvme's are just absolutely an out of this world concept to me. they can casually fit 8TB on them. if you truly want to be mindblown, look up DNA digital data storage. A single gram of DNA can theoretically store up to 215 petabytes (215,000,000 GB) of data.
@@afuturehoboAbsolutely, nature's engineering tops evrything. Truely mind* blowing how complex human brain, genetics, cells and all such minutely intricate god made bio engineered things are.
USB should just be designated by speed, throw away the annoying 3.x gen something bullshit. There's USB2, USB 5 Gbit/s, USB 10 Gbit/s, USB 20 Gbit/s. Just like ethernet everything is simple now.
As an engineer, I hate this naming scheme. Designations, along with technical reports, are for conveying information as *clearly* as possible. Someone didn't get the memo on that.
@@stenduginski2306 You might hate it but most of the engineers I'm friends with are completely happy pushing out what are basically internal identifiers into a public facing name, because they don't have the training or expertise to recognize the headaches this causes on the consumer's end. There needs to be oversight on naming conventions, especially when they are being used by literally hundreds of millions of people.
This isn't an engineer name, engineers wouldn't keep changing the names of previous revisions. This is a marketing name. That's why when you buy Gen 3.2 Generation 1 you're actually just buying USB 3.0. It stops the backlog of 3.0 devices that they still want to sell from becoming unsellable if you can just relabel them as Gen 3.2
SSD's seem to have got stuck at a certain price point and 2TB or above is really expensive in comparison to 1TB SSD's. Not sure why though. It seems that 4TB SSD's are not common enough to drive the prices down.
It's good to see that now you can get a 2TB M.2 SSD for $200. I can't wait to see how this comment ages when we start talking about how many cents you pay per TB instead of per GB. :)
Even at 2TB you're getting twice the storage of a 1TB for less than twice the cost. Not saying that's all there is to it but I don't think that's necessarly unreasonable.
Switched my PS5 external storage from a WD Black HD to an NVME SSD and loving it. For PC, I'm always going to store games on an internal SSD so I don't need to worry about the bandwidth limitations of the USB ports. A+ video
@@hachooo in ps5 specifically the external ports aren’t as fast as m.2 but in general thunderbolt 3 and 4 devices are faster then m.2 pcie 4 But it doesn’t really matter because nvme ssds can’t take advantage of the full bandwidth of m.2 anyway
Thanks for sharing! Me and my wife share a laptop and so I don't want to hog up storage with all my games and slow the system down. At the same time, I'm also in the market for an external drive to store photos and documents so this would seem like an appropriate solution.
Switched to full SSD recently : a 240gb corsair nvme drive (gen3, might go gen4 soon) and 2*1tb crucial MX500. I'll admit it was more of an aesthetic choice by getting rid of the drive bay, but I'm glad there's an actual difference with the chunky 7200rpm they replaced
I have crucial mx500 as well, but kinda disappointed to be honest. TBW on crucial ssds are joke compared to Samsungs one. particularly to evo 860 2tb which offers up to 1.200 tbw.
@@guillaumejoop6437 with 1tb crucial you get 300 - 350 tbw which is tbh a lot but my point is that while paying almost the same price as samsung, samsung offer better endurance which translates for me into better endurance, longevity and without worrying about driver failure.
I have been using a 1tb external SSD for a year now since my laptop only has 1 ssd slot. Its plugged in pretty much all the time and I dont see any major difference with my internal drive.
Great video. I'm almost a little curious as to how a SATA to USB interface hooked up to an internal SSD would perform. Maybe that could be something to include in a potential follow up video?
Great video. Very informative. I Love the presentation and the timings to jump to certain content. I am definitely going back to watch others you posted.
I have 1.5TB in NVME and 6TB HDD so all the games I don’t play often go on the HDD. With the introduction of Direct Storage this or next year could require high speed SSDs for some new games.
@@HardwareCanucks Which also means that USB won't cut it at that time... but NVMe (for internal), or Thunderbolt 3/4 (for external) will. It would be interesting to see you run the tests you did with an Optane drive.
Has anyone experienced the decreased performance for the Crucial X8 when its temp increases or when you try writing a lot of data? I've seen reports of these and am now hesitating to get it because of these.
I know this is random, but after 2 years since seeing your review on the Glorious Model O mouse, I've finally managed to convince my parents to buy me one in December last year! Hopefully I'll be able to get my hands on the other peripherals a bit faster than the mouse. :)
personally, i'm just gonna upgrade or add to my internal storage when I need more space. USB devices are great nowadays but I don't want the extra wires, or things sticking out of my pc lol. I still have room for 4 SSDs and already have two nvme SSDs on the mobo
There's also PCIe cards with up to eight M.2 slots, so you can keep adding storage for quite a while... The eight slot cards are pretty pricey though cards with two or four M.2 slots aren't that expensive.
you dont say. of course as long as you have the slots it will always better to up the internal. but what about those laptops with 1 SSD slot and they are near their full of storage? replacing that one slot with one bigger means the old storage end up getting wasted but by buying external ssd gaming they could keep the old one while migrating it to the new one to free up some extra space, nothing wasted
Fantastic video with great advice, including information on the speed realities of these devices on older and newer USB hardware. This video helped me make a choice to purchase the Crucial X8, something I can now use for multiple purposes and have great speeds when needed. I'll be using my incoming (today!) X8 as a quick fix for backing up my Android smartphone (S21 Ultra) sans laptop, use as a temporary external device for my aging laptop (internal SSD failed so X8 will be utilised for diagnostic purposes and running an OS), and later as a new storage source for my PS5 on occasion. Crucial X8 1Tb has the raw speeds I like for when I need it on USB 3.2 Gen 2 devices (or whatever the previous names were 🙄), but has storage capacity useful for older devices on short notice. Having the X8 preformatted in exFAT makes this option seamless across multiple devices in my home too. Thank you again! 😊
What about network attached options? I like the idea of downloading games onto a NAS and having them available on any device connected to the network. I think ideally it would act as a central cache for all downloaded games that each device can then install from as required so it acts more like a local steam server.
4:37 and 12:41 more details PLEASE! Why is that? How is it different from using 2 adjacent USB ports on the back panel IO? What about USB ports on hubs or on monitors (acting as hubs)? Same deal?
Im considering buying an 8TB drive from Costco, thoughts? Good for gaming? (I'm completely ignorant when it comes to these things, hence why im asking)
Here's a question. Gaming laptop. All usb ports are occupied by wireless:( gamepad, mouse, keyboard, soundbar) external monitor over high dataspeed DP cable So the only left slot is a thunderbolt 4.0 connector. Using the X6 (not x8) external ssd, would there be any bottleneck from having the other USB ports being taken? This being a laptop, and using the thunderbolt plug which logic would tell me, should not have interference from the rest of the regular USB connectors.
@@Thoth33 I don’t have early access. Plus I have made room on my C drive, which is a SSD, so will install it there once the game comes out. But there are bound to be people who will try it on external drives, so will be checking out their thoughts.
when it comes down to the game updates with I think internet performance has a larger effect, because i have an 8tb WD green drive that spins at 5400rpm and i downloaded the same updates and got the same times that the nvme got. I do get 50mb/s - 200mb/s as of internet bandwidth. Yet this could honestly be different with anyone with different HDDs
That ROG nvme enclosure you have,.. I have it and its a life saver.. I was using 1TB WD sn550 as a secondary storage for Multiplayer based games like Warzone, apex etc, along side 1TB 970 Evo Plus as boot and work app drive. I was able to score PS5 and needed a external drive for it. So i was looking to use the sn550 for ps5 and swap it with another drive but this time with good random speed one, and was got 2TB WD Black SN750 on deal so transferred many other games to that ssd.. Luckily, the ROG enclosure was on sale on second hand market, sealed.. So now this is now my PS5 intall for PS4 games and transfers are so fast.. This will serve well when we would be able to transfer PS5 Games too..
I know this is 3 years later,but I really want to thank you for this video,after a long time I have troubles with game space and my pc has 2TB and I cant have all my favorite games,I thought to get a portable drive and found your video about games,I want to thank you and tell I ordered a Crucia X6 of 2TB SSD and I cant wait to fill the bad boy for using it on my laptop and PC.
So I’ve been considering getting a USB SSD (Adata SE900) but I have a question about your comment on not having too many usb slots plugged in. Was that specifically for the front panel IO or was that overall as well? Like, should I not be using any usb hubs with one of them plugged in? I have my main peripherals and audio devices plugged into the back of the motherboard, and the front usb slots are usually reserved for my wired controllers or my midi piano keyboard. If I’m going to pick up an external ssd, will any of these split up bandwidth?
Why don't we use the type C input? Why do we put an adapter and put it into the conventional USB port? I dont get it? Are there large disadvantages to putting it on SS USB-C port if you have that port? Does it not work that way?
Just a quick question, some systems, like the one i just got, scar 17 g733 came in 1+1TB Raid 0 config... Does Raid 0 really matter in a gaming rig? Though it does show significant speeds (r/w)on benchmarking tools, how does it really compare on actual load and update times? (just asking coz i really don't have anything else to compare it to, and am looking forward to your insight coz i am preparing to upgrade to a 2+2TB either in the same config or a non-Raid) Btw, great comparison, thanks for sharing! 👍🏻🤟🏻
Hey there, great video! I just bought my m1 macbook and I wanted to ask if I install games on an external drive will it leave any "footprints" of temporary or otherwise game files on the internal drive? I don't want to "polute" and overload my drive with unnecessary stuff.
Great video. Did you experience any overheating impacts on the external ssd? They run good on cold but after a few minutes some that are not well designed go to bottom speeds. Did you experienced any of that from the models you tested?
Would the newer versions of the Crucial SSDs work as well? I was looking at the X8, but it's at it's end of life and they're pushing the X9 in it's place.
my question is. is there any difference in latency for usb mouse and keyboard in the different usb types? like is it better to plug mouse and keyboard in usb 3.0 over 2.0?
Thanks for the video and advice! I stream video games and have a question: I have several peripherals plugged into my PC’s USB ports (camera, mic, joystick, rudder pedals, throttle, Track IR, keyboard, mouse), as well as a 1TB SSD in a SATA-to-USB enclosure plugged into the fastest USB 3.1 port on the back of the machine and things run well, though sometimes the camera, which is also plugged into a fast USB port in the back, lags in Open Broadcaster Studio. There are no devices plugged into ports on the front of the case. Could the lag be caused by the USB bus being overloaded?
Just use something like an Mx500 as a primocache L2 storage for a 5400rpm spinner.. it'll run as fast as the Mx after 2 runs but will self manage the cache so you don't have to constantly move game files around.. 6tb + 256gb cache will do for 80-90% of normal gaming scenarios out there
nah, don't you worry, I have 2 hdds and 3 ssds HDD are always slow especially when they are kinda full over 50% or more. I'd suggest you to go for 2tb ssd from samsung not crucial. cus 2tb samsung m. 2 SSD on Amazon for 220€ (250$) offers up to 1.200 tbw (terabyte written). on the other hand crucial mx500 2tb half of it, if you were lucky. I'd personally go for samsung even if it's few euros (dollars) expensive, but I'd for sure last longer, especially for gaming.
@@DarkAngel-vf4emin my country a 500gb ssd cost as much as a internal HDD of 4tb. That’s why I chose to buy the 4tb instead of a bigger extra ssd. I try to order games by age and speed , older games on older hard drive , newer in newer hard drive , and the few games that are made to run in ssd I try to put in my internal 240gb ssd or my old 120 ssd
I think about chaning my NVME Ssd in my pc. Then i would have a spare 500gb NVME SSD. How would a internal NVME SSD in a casing keep up against the other SSD's you used ?
How much free space did you have on the hard drives? Was the game install the only thing on the drive? If you have a platter full of files, the seek times may be higher for in-game loading possibly.
Can someone please help me? So my problem I have a external storage device, pretty’s simple. I have a razer gaming laptop and I for some reason my external storage does not want to work. I’ve gotten two already and they both don’t work. It works once but when I install modern warfare it doesn’t want to launch and after I unplug it and plug it back in it says there’s a issue with it. The drives are exFAT and I can’t fix it. Someone tell me what’s wrong please.
Two years later . Black Ops 6 take up 350GB. CRAZY ! I just bought a Zephyrus G14 with 500GB for $1500. I just purchased external hard drive worth 2TB. I just don't understand how to install updates to BO6 of the games downloaded on the laptop but the laptop doesn't have any memory available. Do I have to uninstall the game and redownload it on the external drive so I can make updates ? I didn't think I can use the storage on the external drive to make updates when the game is downloaded on the laptop itself .....
Host doesn’t understand the difference between theoretical and actual speed. He also doesn’t understand that USB 3.2 gen 1 is base 8 and Gen 2 is base 10 so different overhead. Actually transfer speeds: Gen 1: 450MB/sec Gen 2: 1000MB/sec
Just get a external M.2 drive enclosure. It's cheaper in the long run because you'll be able to upgrade drive size (1TB - 2TB) much cheaper using "Internal" M.2 drives instead of constantly having to buy a bigger dedicated external drive. This video shows that load times aren't that far off compared to internal drives. The only real difference will be if you use NVME {10GB} or SATA {5GB}) and even then unless it's a massive file, you probably won't be able to tell a difference.
everybody says that an external ssd can be put on a desktop but nobody talks about the length of the cables , for example the usb ports of my desktops are located very far and if i put the usb cable from the external ssd the cable will be hanging
how would you go on about building your own external ssd for games and etc. which ssd and enclosure would you use ? Would love your take on it. with the times we are in laptops are getting more popular but most of them come with a single drive bay
I have a question about the game data like game save files stored in system documents but what if we plug the same external drive to another pc will the game start from the start or will continue where you left
Seeing numbers that external drives can now beat good SATA SSDs, I have to question how long it'll be until SATA is considered legacy in the consumer market.
@@NormanLyon Maybe not for mass storage but as a primary drive it's more than common and affordable enough that most systems built or shipped in the last 2-3 years will likely have one, unless you're on a really tight budget. My 1TB 970 EVO NVME wasn't that much more than my 1TB 860 EVO SATA drive and prices have only come down since then.
@@TalesOfWar In principal, I agree with you, but the consumer market isn't buying nice Samsung SSDs: that's more enthusiast. I'm still seeing a mix between SATA and NVMe for consumer focused pre-builts. I just am remembering the shift from IDE/PATA to SATA, and the time when IDE was finally considered legacy, and USB storage was a joke. As long as SATA still has a mainstream place in the market for consumers, I'll still wonder how long it'll be until it will be the next legacy standard.
I have an incredibly rare piece of technology... an IDE SSD. It is installed into a USB 2.0 enclosure, and will NOT work in a USB 3.0 port. However, it a USB 2.0 port it is actually able to saturate the bandwidth, running at a pegged 480 Mbps. What this means is that it runs slightly faster than USB 3.0 flash drives in practice, but still quite a bit slower than any other SSD.
@@cnash5647 I do know the answer to this... but... uh... I can't answer. Honestly, as a piece of computer history it is pretty neat, but usefulness is pretty low.
Man this is really helpful a lot cuz tbh I am planning to invest for an external SSD cuz my internal SSD is almost dipping below I considered tolerable space (which is 150GB below) and I don't want to risk dipping below that hence why I'm planning to at least buy an external SSD. My laptop has usb 3.2 gen 1 with also having usb c 3.2 gen 1 too so ig I'm still fine even if I play games using my usb c right? Anyways I'm kinda shooting for SSK SD500 but I'm open for any suggestions that can outrightly help me to pick more better but affordable brand I can get.
Can you use a single external SSD for multiple devices to run programs? By this I don't mean simultaneously. So lets say I want to run a CAD program on my laptop through the SSD and then when I get home I want to plug the SSD into my more powerfull PC so I can run the program in 4K, would that work?
External SSDs are fairly affordable and a great option for gaming laptops if you don't want to have to replace the boot drive.
Also worth noting that many new Notebooks have an empty hard drive bay next to their nvme boot drives. So it's worth checking that first
@@mastaw My Razer Blade 17 has one so I put an extra 2TB 970 EVO plus in there for game storage. I just like having games stored off my boot drive. I used an external SSD on the laptop I had before that and it worked just fine for my needs when connected to the USB-C port.
@Ziv Zulander I use a very similar solution for my backup drive. I put a larger C drive in my laptop so I put the original SSD in an enclosure and partitioned it so that it has a windows ISO, my backup files and some important drivers to get me going in case I need to repair the system.
@@mastaw This is really worth checking. I upgraded the HDD in a notebook that was a few years old. Since it was to be a drive swap I just bought a Samsung SATA SSD and cloned the internal drive to it using the software on the Samsung website. When I opened the machine I discovered that in addition to the SATA drive there was a M.2 slot next to it. Now if I had known that I could have bought a M.2 SATA drive and kept the HDD as a backup or just to store movies and such.
Now if your notebook has an M.2 slot then check just what drives it will support before you go shopping for one. In my case it only supports SATA drives. The slot has a tab that prevent you from even installing a NVME drive so you will know if you've got the wrong kind of drive as it won't even fit. If you have a machine with NVME support that's not the case. A SATA M.2 drive will happily slot into the slot and I think most if not all NVME enabled M.2 machines will support using a SATA drive, but it will mean that you are leaving some performance on the table.
External ssd is a saviour for me. I have a macbook air with only 128gb and having a Bootcamp partition is no go. It takes too much storage space.
2 years later and you are the ONLY youtuber who properly covered gaming on external hard drives. Everyone else just goes off features not even related to gaming.
@@freedomisdead9638 An SSD can't overheat your CPU. If your CPU is capable of overheating, then it will do that regardless of a USB drive.
@@KonglomeratYTwill external ssd affect fps?
3 years later and it still is the best comparison. And considering the USB-SSD market, is still up to date.
@@joaquinneisso what would u get thus year?
Anyone else still mindblown that an external drive the size of a credit card can fit so much data into it?
Nvme's are just absolutely an out of this world concept to me. they can casually fit 8TB on them. if you truly want to be mindblown, look up DNA digital data storage. A single gram of DNA can theoretically store up to 215 petabytes (215,000,000 GB) of data.
@@afuturehobo How do I hook up my DNA to my skytech gaming pc? I am not sticking my penis into this one, not after last time dammit
im still mind blown you can run triple A games off an external ssd usb drive
Technology is incredible
@@afuturehoboAbsolutely, nature's engineering tops evrything. Truely mind* blowing how complex human brain, genetics, cells and all such minutely intricate god made bio engineered things are.
Can't wait for USB 4 gen 2x2 revision 2 gen 2 superspeed. Gonna be great!
When's that supposed to roll out?
@@HawkSea its a joke
@@Amogh-Dongre yeah, why can't they be like pci-e?
@@fhkkjjk9255 yeah that's true
USB should just be designated by speed, throw away the annoying 3.x gen something bullshit.
There's USB2, USB 5 Gbit/s, USB 10 Gbit/s, USB 20 Gbit/s. Just like ethernet everything is simple now.
even the first row he used, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, simple, without the gen 2+2=4 BS
@@JoLong the Problem is that 3.0 and 3.1 don't exist anymore with new terminology
@@tommihommi1 i know, should have been the name from the start, instead of renaming existing generation
The USB consortium really needs to have a non-engineer come up with the naming scheme.
As an engineer, I hate this naming scheme. Designations, along with technical reports, are for conveying information as *clearly* as possible. Someone didn't get the memo on that.
@@stenduginski2306 You might hate it but most of the engineers I'm friends with are completely happy pushing out what are basically internal identifiers into a public facing name, because they don't have the training or expertise to recognize the headaches this causes on the consumer's end. There needs to be oversight on naming conventions, especially when they are being used by literally hundreds of millions of people.
@@stenduginski2306 IEEE mafia to blame.
This isn't an engineer name, engineers wouldn't keep changing the names of previous revisions. This is a marketing name. That's why when you buy Gen 3.2 Generation 1 you're actually just buying USB 3.0. It stops the backlog of 3.0 devices that they still want to sell from becoming unsellable if you can just relabel them as Gen 3.2
@@jimmehjiimmeehh9748 that should be illegal, its clearly a scam. Its abusing people who is not tech savy and that is the mayority of the world.
SSD's seem to have got stuck at a certain price point and 2TB or above is really expensive in comparison to 1TB SSD's. Not sure why though. It seems that 4TB SSD's are not common enough to drive the prices down.
It's good to see that now you can get a 2TB M.2 SSD for $200. I can't wait to see how this comment ages when we start talking about how many cents you pay per TB instead of per GB. :)
Even at 2TB you're getting twice the storage of a 1TB for less than twice the cost. Not saying that's all there is to it but I don't think that's necessarly unreasonable.
Lol 4 tb are now like 200 bucks... You dont need external drives anymore and i saw on amazon an internal sata 4tb not m.2 ssd for 150
Switched my PS5 external storage from a WD Black HD to an NVME SSD and loving it. For PC, I'm always going to store games on an internal SSD so I don't need to worry about the bandwidth limitations of the USB ports. A+ video
USB and thunderbolts have more bandwidth then the m.2 slot
@@SomeoneFighter What PS5 has USB/thunderbolt ports faster than m.2 slot?
@@hachooo in ps5 specifically the external ports aren’t as fast as m.2 but in general thunderbolt 3 and 4 devices are faster then m.2 pcie 4
But it doesn’t really matter because nvme ssds can’t take advantage of the full bandwidth of m.2 anyway
Been running my games off an external ssd for 3 years now. Zero issues so far lol.
@@thelonercoder5816 mx500 in an enclosure good enough or do u recommend any particular external SSD
(i have thunderbolt 4 in my laptop)
Thanks for sharing! Me and my wife share a laptop and so I don't want to hog up storage with all my games and slow the system down. At the same time, I'm also in the market for an external drive to store photos and documents so this would seem like an appropriate solution.
The MX 500 is just so competitive ... you see it in every review and tech channel for several years now. Legendary
It really is a legend.
@@HardwareCanucks Thank you E for the informative video
yes and no, also it has the least tbw among ssds out there.
I have bought six (three for myself and three for family) over a span of 3 years and its awesome
Plus it’s a great deal. Does it last a long time?
He has the taste and refined air of a sophisticated gamer.
I was going to make a joke about sophisticated gamer being an oxymoron, but I actually agree with you.
Interesting content as always guys. Definitely worth mentioning how much CPUs can impact game updates due to decompression though!
Switched to full SSD recently : a 240gb corsair nvme drive (gen3, might go gen4 soon) and 2*1tb crucial MX500. I'll admit it was more of an aesthetic choice by getting rid of the drive bay, but I'm glad there's an actual difference with the chunky 7200rpm they replaced
I have crucial mx500 as well, but kinda disappointed to be honest.
TBW on crucial ssds are joke compared to Samsungs one. particularly to evo 860 2tb which offers up to 1.200 tbw.
@@DarkAngel-vf4em even if the crucial are half of that, it would mean filling up my SSD 600 times. It's more than enough for non-server use
@@guillaumejoop6437 with 1tb crucial you get 300 - 350 tbw which is tbh a lot but my point is that while paying almost the same price as samsung, samsung offer better endurance which translates for me into better endurance, longevity and without worrying about driver failure.
I have been using a 1tb external SSD for a year now since my laptop only has 1 ssd slot. Its plugged in pretty much all the time and I dont see any major difference with my internal drive.
Do you play games with your SSD storage?
best video on the subject hands down you got a new subscriber. Shows test with loading games and explains everythings and compares the data.
Thanks. I'm getting a Crucial X8 for my more taxing games. Really appreciate your clear info on this subject.
This video was a crucial part of my day **winks**
The Western Digital Black & Blue beg to be noticed. ;)
@@HardwareCanucks I guess they are feeling a bit blue now
If anything you’d think WD would be a bit red from embarrassment.
Great video. I'm almost a little curious as to how a SATA to USB interface hooked up to an internal SSD would perform. Maybe that could be something to include in a potential follow up video?
Did you find that out?
I don't understand the setup that you're suggesting... care to rephrase?
You need to go for usb 3.2 and you can get speeds of 500mb/s
So nvme are not really good for this because you will be wasting money
Great video. Very informative. I Love the presentation and the timings to jump to certain content. I am definitely going back to watch others you posted.
I have 1.5TB in NVME and 6TB HDD so all the games I don’t play often go on the HDD. With the introduction of Direct Storage this or next year could require high speed SSDs for some new games.
Exactly. DirectStorage will be a big thing.
@@HardwareCanucks Which also means that USB won't cut it at that time... but NVMe (for internal), or Thunderbolt 3/4 (for external) will.
It would be interesting to see you run the tests you did with an Optane drive.
Has anyone experienced the decreased performance for the Crucial X8 when its temp increases or when you try writing a lot of data? I've seen reports of these and am now hesitating to get it because of these.
Did you ever end up getting an External SSD?
I know this is random, but after 2 years since seeing your review on the Glorious Model O mouse, I've finally managed to convince my parents to buy me one in December last year! Hopefully I'll be able to get my hands on the other peripherals a bit faster than the mouse. :)
personally, i'm just gonna upgrade or add to my internal storage when I need more space. USB devices are great nowadays but I don't want the extra wires, or things sticking out of my pc lol. I still have room for 4 SSDs and already have two nvme SSDs on the mobo
There's also PCIe cards with up to eight M.2 slots, so you can keep adding storage for quite a while...
The eight slot cards are pretty pricey though cards with two or four M.2 slots aren't that expensive.
you dont say. of course as long as you have the slots it will always better to up the internal. but what about those laptops with 1 SSD slot and they are near their full of storage? replacing that one slot with one bigger means the old storage end up getting wasted but by buying external ssd gaming they could keep the old one while migrating it to the new one to free up some extra space, nothing wasted
Fantastic video with great advice, including information on the speed realities of these devices on older and newer USB hardware.
This video helped me make a choice to purchase the Crucial X8, something I can now use for multiple purposes and have great speeds when needed.
I'll be using my incoming (today!) X8 as a quick fix for backing up my Android smartphone (S21 Ultra) sans laptop, use as a temporary external device for my aging laptop (internal SSD failed so X8 will be utilised for diagnostic purposes and running an OS), and later as a new storage source for my PS5 on occasion.
Crucial X8 1Tb has the raw speeds I like for when I need it on USB 3.2 Gen 2 devices (or whatever the previous names were 🙄), but has storage capacity useful for older devices on short notice.
Having the X8 preformatted in exFAT makes this option seamless across multiple devices in my home too.
Thank you again! 😊
Great Review . Finally i know , i no need buy 2 x 1TB M.2 for my laptop . Toshiba 3TB 7200rpm are just 50% of the cost for 1TB M.2.
What about network attached options? I like the idea of downloading games onto a NAS and having them available on any device connected to the network. I think ideally it would act as a central cache for all downloaded games that each device can then install from as required so it acts more like a local steam server.
Banging video. Thank you so much, I was needing a bit of help!
the test at 9:12 all the drives are external right? for eg. the sata ssd mx500 is sitting outside of the system and connected through a usb cable..?
4:37 and 12:41 more details PLEASE! Why is that? How is it different from using 2 adjacent USB ports on the back panel IO?
What about USB ports on hubs or on monitors (acting as hubs)? Same deal?
wow this has been the best video on the topic so far. I've even learned something about USBs, thank you so much!
Im considering buying an 8TB drive from Costco, thoughts? Good for gaming? (I'm completely ignorant when it comes to these things, hence why im asking)
THANK U for the advises in the end of the vid . i was wondering what i should choose and now i know 👍
Here's a question. Gaming laptop.
All usb ports are occupied by wireless:( gamepad, mouse, keyboard, soundbar) external monitor over high dataspeed DP cable
So the only left slot is a thunderbolt 4.0 connector.
Using the X6 (not x8) external ssd, would there be any bottleneck from having the other USB ports being taken?
This being a laptop, and using the thunderbolt plug which logic would tell me, should not have interference from the rest of the regular USB connectors.
The lighting here is perfect
This channels production value is honestly seriously underrated!
Isn’t storage streaming exactly what developers are going to be implementing?
amazing video! thats a sub! any advice....i need to upgrade my nvme, should I clone it or run games off an external? would i notice much difference?
I got a Sandisk Extreme 1 TB external SSD. I'm happy with it so far. It's got a read speed of 550 MB/s.
Do you play games with that external SSD? Do you recommend it?
@@Vickimer21 yes. I recommend it. But now the version 2 of that is available which supports a read speed of 1000 Mbps.
@@dhilsiva thank you! I will buy one cause my laptop only have 512GB. It is possible to stream with no issues right?
@@Vickimer21 yes it's possible.
As Starfield requires SSD, I am looking at this option. Be nice if you could test it on an external SSD once it came out! 😁
Same here.
Did you try the external ssd yet?
@@Thoth33 I don’t have early access. Plus I have made room on my C drive, which is a SSD, so will install it there once the game comes out. But there are bound to be people who will try it on external drives, so will be checking out their thoughts.
when it comes down to the game updates with I think internet performance has a larger effect, because i have an 8tb WD green drive that spins at 5400rpm and i downloaded the same updates and got the same times that the nvme got. I do get 50mb/s - 200mb/s as of internet bandwidth. Yet this could honestly be different with anyone with different HDDs
That ROG nvme enclosure you have,.. I have it and its a life saver.. I was using 1TB WD sn550 as a secondary storage for Multiplayer based games like Warzone, apex etc, along side 1TB 970 Evo Plus as boot and work app drive.
I was able to score PS5 and needed a external drive for it. So i was looking to use the sn550 for ps5 and swap it with another drive but this time with good random speed one, and was got 2TB WD Black SN750 on deal so transferred many other games to that ssd..
Luckily, the ROG enclosure was on sale on second hand market, sealed.. So now this is now my PS5 intall for PS4 games and transfers are so fast.. This will serve well when we would be able to transfer PS5 Games too..
I know this is 3 years later,but I really want to thank you for this video,after a long time I have troubles with game space and my pc has 2TB and I cant have all my favorite games,I thought to get a portable drive and found your video about games,I want to thank you and tell I ordered a Crucia X6 of 2TB SSD and I cant wait to fill the bad boy for using it on my laptop and PC.
I've gotten rid of my hard drives. I have a 500gb m.2 boot drive and a 2tb 870 evo
So I’ve been considering getting a USB SSD (Adata SE900) but I have a question about your comment on not having too many usb slots plugged in. Was that specifically for the front panel IO or was that overall as well? Like, should I not be using any usb hubs with one of them plugged in? I have my main peripherals and audio devices plugged into the back of the motherboard, and the front usb slots are usually reserved for my wired controllers or my midi piano keyboard. If I’m going to pick up an external ssd, will any of these split up bandwidth?
Exactly what I wanted to know, super thanks!
I have the Crucial x8, so this was perfect.
Keep up the great content!!
Finally, a real world comparison of drives.
Hey, just want to say I enjoy your tech takes and thoughts on your channel.
Amazing video quality ! By content and production, you got a new sub !
Why don't we use the type C input? Why do we put an adapter and put it into the conventional USB port? I dont get it? Are there large disadvantages to putting it on SS USB-C port if you have that port? Does it not work that way?
Excellent coverage as always. Love your voice too.
Just a quick question, some systems, like the one i just got, scar 17 g733 came in 1+1TB Raid 0 config...
Does Raid 0 really matter in a gaming rig? Though it does show significant speeds (r/w)on benchmarking tools, how does it really compare on actual load and update times?
(just asking coz i really don't have anything else to compare it to, and am looking forward to your insight coz i am preparing to upgrade to a 2+2TB either in the same config or a non-Raid)
Btw, great comparison, thanks for sharing! 👍🏻🤟🏻
Great video. The speed difference between the x6 and x8 isn’t that much different. Sure the x8 is faster, but not by much. What an eye opener.
U know no idea how hard it is to find this info on TH-cam, I'm a beginner and that all made sense. So tank you very much!
Hey there, great video! I just bought my m1 macbook and I wanted to ask if I install games on an external drive will it leave any "footprints" of temporary or otherwise game files on the internal drive? I don't want to "polute" and overload my drive with unnecessary stuff.
literally I was waiting for this particular video.....
Hey guys! :D I hope you stay safe and have a nice day, God bless you!
Great video. Did you experience any overheating impacts on the external ssd? They run good on cold but after a few minutes some that are not well designed go to bottom speeds.
Did you experienced any of that from the models you tested?
Would the newer versions of the Crucial SSDs work as well? I was looking at the X8, but it's at it's end of life and they're pushing the X9 in it's place.
Awesome video Eiber!
Mind if i ask can you actually use your laptop with HDD card and include SSD card as external hard drive for gaming ?
Question regarding negative impact of shared bandwidth - will it still be the case if I use Bluetooth mouse and keyboard?
Best and most informative video on subject that I have found. Thank you! Liked and subbed
my question is. is there any difference in latency for usb mouse and keyboard in the different usb types? like is it better to plug mouse and keyboard in usb 3.0 over 2.0?
Does gaming on an external hard drive shorten its life or make it prone to having issues ?
Freaking awesome video, very informative and to the point. You gained a subscriber
Thank you for all this real world testing :)
Thanks for the video and advice!
I stream video games and have a question:
I have several peripherals plugged into my PC’s USB ports (camera, mic, joystick, rudder pedals, throttle, Track IR, keyboard, mouse), as well as a 1TB SSD in a SATA-to-USB enclosure plugged into the fastest USB 3.1 port on the back of the machine and things run well, though sometimes the camera, which is also plugged into a fast USB port in the back, lags in Open Broadcaster Studio.
There are no devices plugged into ports on the front of the case.
Could the lag be caused by the USB bus being overloaded?
Just use something like an Mx500 as a primocache L2 storage for a 5400rpm spinner.. it'll run as fast as the Mx after 2 runs but will self manage the cache so you don't have to constantly move game files around..
6tb + 256gb cache will do for 80-90% of normal gaming scenarios out there
Its like 250 for 2 2tb sata drives.
My fastest HDD has only 120mbs , most of them run at 90mbs , should I worry ? I never noticed much texture pop in
nah, don't you worry, I have 2 hdds and 3 ssds
HDD are always slow especially when they are kinda full over 50% or more.
I'd suggest you to go for 2tb ssd from samsung not crucial.
cus 2tb samsung m. 2 SSD on Amazon for 220€ (250$) offers up to 1.200 tbw (terabyte written). on the other hand crucial mx500 2tb half of it, if you were lucky.
I'd personally go for samsung even if it's few euros (dollars) expensive, but I'd for sure last longer, especially for gaming.
@@DarkAngel-vf4emin my country a 500gb ssd cost as much as a internal HDD of 4tb. That’s why I chose to buy the 4tb instead of a bigger extra ssd. I try to order games by age and speed , older games on older hard drive , newer in newer hard drive , and the few games that are made to run in ssd I try to put in my internal 240gb ssd or my old 120 ssd
@@3750gustavo ok, in the case you've done job already.
it's weird how ssds prices varies from country to country.
Best tech content on TH-cam!!!
What's your take on the WD Black series of external ssd
DO NOT buy the P50
This is a good test, except... as the hard drives become full they are going to be far worse than any SSD. You should retest it with that in mind.
Well at the same time performance degradation on SSDs is real too, though it'll be "felt" differently on one drive versus another.
@@HardwareCanucks Thanks for the reply! :)
I think about chaning my NVME Ssd in my pc. Then i would have a spare 500gb NVME SSD. How would a internal NVME SSD in a casing keep up against the other SSD's you used ?
How much free space did you have on the hard drives? Was the game install the only thing on the drive? If you have a platter full of files, the seek times may be higher for in-game loading possibly.
I grew up on 8 bit gaming. Load times don't bother me at all. I use a M.2 Type C external drive (1TB AData Sata M.2) steam drive with my laptop.
Nice video! Would've liked to see the same test with an external server connected via 10 gigabit ethernet ;)
Hey it has been 2 years and lot of games have released that pushed system hardware to its limits , could we get an updated version of this video ?
Can someone please help me? So my problem I have a external storage device, pretty’s simple. I have a razer gaming laptop and I for some reason my external storage does not want to work. I’ve gotten two already and they both don’t work. It works once but when I install modern warfare it doesn’t want to launch and after I unplug it and plug it back in it says there’s a issue with it. The drives are exFAT and I can’t fix it. Someone tell me what’s wrong please.
So good video quality, amazing work good job
Two years later . Black Ops 6 take up 350GB. CRAZY ! I just bought a Zephyrus G14 with 500GB for $1500. I just purchased external hard drive worth 2TB. I just don't understand how to install updates to BO6 of the games downloaded on the laptop but the laptop doesn't have any memory available. Do I have to uninstall the game and redownload it on the external drive so I can make updates ? I didn't think I can use the storage on the external drive to make updates when the game is downloaded on the laptop itself .....
Host doesn’t understand the difference between theoretical and actual speed. He also doesn’t understand that USB 3.2 gen 1 is base 8 and Gen 2 is base 10 so different overhead.
Actually transfer speeds:
Gen 1: 450MB/sec
Gen 2: 1000MB/sec
You guys released this video on just the perfect time for me! I was _this_ close to ordering an external SSD to run games off of.
Just get a external M.2 drive enclosure. It's cheaper in the long run because you'll be able to upgrade drive size (1TB - 2TB) much cheaper using "Internal" M.2 drives instead of constantly having to buy a bigger dedicated external drive. This video shows that load times aren't that far off compared to internal drives. The only real difference will be if you use NVME {10GB} or SATA {5GB}) and even then unless it's a massive file, you probably won't be able to tell a difference.
What’s the issue
I don’t get it
everybody says that an external ssd can be put on a desktop but nobody talks about the length of the cables , for example the usb ports of my desktops are located very far and if i put the usb cable from the external ssd the cable will be hanging
how would you go on about building your own external ssd for games and etc. which ssd and enclosure would you use ? Would love your take on it. with the times we are in laptops are getting more popular but most of them come with a single drive bay
Good information, good presentation. Thanks!
What's the font used here? 3:04
very good video helped me a lot thank you.
Thanks for this video. This is a very interesting topic and a very nice presentation.
I have a question about the game data like game save files stored in system documents but what if we plug the same external drive to another pc will the game start from the start or will continue where you left
Subbed son! Quality info!
Seeing numbers that external drives can now beat good SATA SSDs, I have to question how long it'll be until SATA is considered legacy in the consumer market.
It kind of already is. It's all gone PCI-E now. It's a cheap(er) mass storage connector and thats about it now.
@@TalesOfWar with 1-3 M.2 slots on MBs, I don't think it's there quite yet.
@@NormanLyon Maybe not for mass storage but as a primary drive it's more than common and affordable enough that most systems built or shipped in the last 2-3 years will likely have one, unless you're on a really tight budget. My 1TB 970 EVO NVME wasn't that much more than my 1TB 860 EVO SATA drive and prices have only come down since then.
@@TalesOfWar In principal, I agree with you, but the consumer market isn't buying nice Samsung SSDs: that's more enthusiast. I'm still seeing a mix between SATA and NVMe for consumer focused pre-builts. I just am remembering the shift from IDE/PATA to SATA, and the time when IDE was finally considered legacy, and USB storage was a joke. As long as SATA still has a mainstream place in the market for consumers, I'll still wonder how long it'll be until it will be the next legacy standard.
I have an incredibly rare piece of technology... an IDE SSD. It is installed into a USB 2.0 enclosure, and will NOT work in a USB 3.0 port.
However, it a USB 2.0 port it is actually able to saturate the bandwidth, running at a pegged 480 Mbps.
What this means is that it runs slightly faster than USB 3.0 flash drives in practice, but still quite a bit slower than any other SSD.
Who the hell created that thing, I need to know..
@@cnash5647 I do know the answer to this... but... uh... I can't answer. Honestly, as a piece of computer history it is pretty neat, but usefulness is pretty low.
What about using an internal SSD with a USB adapter? How does that compare against SATA or even an external SSD?
Man this is really helpful a lot cuz tbh I am planning to invest for an external SSD cuz my internal SSD is almost dipping below I considered tolerable space (which is 150GB below) and I don't want to risk dipping below that hence why I'm planning to at least buy an external SSD. My laptop has usb 3.2 gen 1 with also having usb c 3.2 gen 1 too so ig I'm still fine even if I play games using my usb c right? Anyways I'm kinda shooting for SSK SD500 but I'm open for any suggestions that can outrightly help me to pick more better but affordable brand I can get.
My father bought a 1tb samsung t5 ssd just for his music collection and it still have 700gb free for my games i am so lucky
Can you use a single external SSD for multiple devices to run programs? By this I don't mean simultaneously. So lets say I want to run a CAD program on my laptop through the SSD and then when I get home I want to plug the SSD into my more powerfull PC so I can run the program in 4K, would that work?
Want to backup for long term. Which one is best?
Internal ssd sata vs External hard disk 5400 RPM
It's funny I just read of hard drive space because of games and was weighing the options I think I will go with m.2 gen 4.
What’s most confusing external ssds are actually more expensive than internal. For hard drives it’s the exact opposite
great video! good to know via usb, sata ssd vs nvme ssd load times are pretty much same on steamdeck as long as its not hdd lol
Hi Ibra, this is really informative! Just quick question regarding reliability of the external ssd connected to usb port all the time. Is this safe?
probably