Copying files to an external HDD

[Deleted]

Hello. I am about to get an external HDD (1TB, USB 3.0 speed). My question is, is it fine to copy game files from my internal HDD (original that came with the computer (C) and play them from there?

I had one experience of this by copying the wow folder. Unfortunately once i played it from the pasted spot i couldnt patch it with new patches that came out afterwards because the game file was "temporary".


So basically 4 questions.

1. Is it alright to copy paste games and remove them from my original HDD and play them from the external (where it got pasted)? I know that it works to play from an external HDD, but is it possible to just copy paste them?

2. Are some files going to get "left behind", or will the files get damaged if i just copy paste them?

3. Should i copy paste them like that, or should i consider uninstalling them and just re-install all the games onto the external HDD from there, making the "original game file" being already in the correct spot.

Last question, is there any difference of a filled (around 60-70% memory taken) HDD? If its a filled 1TB external HDD, or a 2TB. Will there be any performance drop once i have a filled 1.5 TB on a 2TB (75%) disc instead of a 750GB fill on a 1TB (75%) drive?

Thanks!

[chaud]

Only some games will work like this. You can make a symlink for any game and it should work fine though. External drives have a higher latency and will be slower than any internal drive. The fuller a disk gets, the more files get closer to the slower part of the drive.

[Moinaldo]

Answers:

1- Chaud already answered.

2- Files are not going to be "left behind" you will copy exactly what you select. Files that wouldn't copy would be already damaged and unreadeable files. Files should not be damaged if you copy/paste them, that may happen if you have any power suply problem though.

3- You can always try if the game works fine while just copy/paste the files, it just depends, every game is different.

4- Theoretically you should get the same performance on two different drives if they are both at 75% of course that if only if both of them are rated the same speeds.

[lokii]

Well there is going to be a slight performance penalty if you load your games on an external harddrive. USB just is not as fast as an internal connection. As far as copying and pasting game files goes, I can see a myriad of potential problems, but it varies from one piece of software to another. Software assumes the C: drive by default when installing software unless you point it to a different file location. These defaults are set in the registry and configuration files associated with the software. You already ran afoul of this when you tried to do updates, the updates are trying to look for your files where they originally resided and now its failing. The only way to get all of these to play nice would be a reinstall and point the software to your new external drive when it asks you where to install. As far as your drive responding in relation to how full it is, it is not a concern unless the disk gets heavily fragmented or is almost full.