Are modern external SSDs viable for wow and similar games?

[Zyrinx]

As the title suggests, I have a 2018 laptop with a 256 gb ssd (can't find thruput specs on it...).

Considering one of the many TB options that seem to support 1GB/s over usb3.

Anyone use these for gaming? Thx in advance!

[Twdft]

Yeah, no problem. I just tested it with mine, WoW is perfectly playable.

Left is my normal internal SSD with my games, middle the external SSD, right an external HDD. External both via USB3.

[Daedius]

Yeah, no problem. I just tested it with mine, WoW is perfectly playable.

Left is my normal internal SSD with my games, middle the external SSD, right an external HDD. External both via USB3.

You forgot an internal HDD comparison!

[Twdft]

You forgot an internal HDD comparison!

It's 2021, who even has an internal HDD anymore. The future is now, old man ;-)

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I use the Crucial X6 and it works fine for games. Will you be the absolute first one loaded into every game? No. But I never found it to be a disadvantage and it's a small little guy. I think the X8 is a bit faster but honestly its like an extra 100 bucks for like 1-2 second of loading speed into something like WoW.

[Promethieus]

I ran WoW on an external HDD for a few years, a few years ago. Loading times weren't bad at all. I think it'll be fine on modern day external SSDs lol.

[Kagthul]

People who like storage space so they don’t have to redownload frequently played games.

For which an external USB3 HDD would be completely fine. USB 3.0 can effectively provide the same speed from a SATA III HDD (because of overhead, you never really get the full 6Gb/sec anyway). You can get a WD EasyStore that has an 8TB WD Red in it for 139 (cheaper than the bare drive) from Best Buy.

[Afrospinach]

I ran WoW on an external HDD for a few years, a few years ago. Loading times weren't bad at all. I think it'll be fine on modern day external SSDs lol.

I am not sure when, but at some point an SSD became almost mandatory for retail. The loading times have just exploded. I think this started with legion.

[Kagthul]

I am not sure when, but at some point an SSD became almost mandatory for retail. The loading times have just exploded. I think this started with legion.

You could get away with an SSHD. That really helped with WoW a lot, and it responds well to it.

But given how cheap SSDs have become, an SSHD is really not worth buying.

[Promethieus]

I am not sure when, but at some point an SSD became almost mandatory for retail. The loading times have just exploded. I think this started with legion.

I believe it! I stopped using it during Mists of Pandaria.

[Twdft]

I am not sure when, but at some point an SSD became almost mandatory for retail. The loading times have just exploded. I think this started with legion.

Yeah, it was in Legion. Early Legion it took like 10 seconds to load into Dalaran, but at some point they must have changed the amount of data necessary before the game would show you anything and it took 2 minutes. And they also must have changed the amount of data cached, because from then in it always took 2 minutes even if you been in Dalaran shortly before. Bought a SSD then because loading times like that waste too much time and tilted me.

[exochaft]

You forgot an internal HDD comparison!

The read/write speed of an internal HDD isn't much different from the USB version, I've seen maybe 150MB/s read/write on a good internal drive, but you'd more typically seem them 100MB/s or lower. However, I haven't tested in a while, this was from roughly a year ago. But the basic gist is that the limitation of using a USB external HDD nowadays is the HDD itself, not the USB bandwidth.

[Atrea]

Once again the advice given here is disappointing.

Modern external drives aren't SSDs anymore; they're NVMe drives. SSDs are like people still buying VCRs when DVD players came out.
Utilizing a USB 3.1 port, these are the speeds I get:



Total cost difference is negligible, just get a decent enclosure and find a WD Black NVMe on sale. You'll thank yourself for it when it outperforms peoples' internal SSDs by an order of magnitude.

[Phantasmalicious]

I spent 5 months in another country for work and it didn't seem reasonable to take my desktop with me. But I wanted to play WoW so I ordered a used display from Amazon and a Samsung X5 external SSD. My laptop only has 2 ports, both Thunderbolt 3. So I connected mouse+keyboard+display+charger into one via a hub and the SSD to the other. If I remember correctly, my read speeds were around 2100-2500 which was slightly slower than my internal laptop drive, but the difference was negligible. As to if they are useable for gaming, absolutely! And the best part is that you can always use them on your next computer or I guess break down the enclosure and use it in your desktop if you ever plan to get one.

[Pann]

Once again the advice given here is disappointing.

Modern external drives aren't SSDs anymore; they're NVMe drives. SSDs are like people still buying VCRs when DVD players came out.
Utilizing a USB 3.1 port, these are the speeds I get:

Total cost difference is negligible, just get a decent enclosure and find a WD Black NVMe on sale. You'll thank yourself for it when it outperforms peoples' internal SSDs by an order of magnitude.

The difference between even the fastest NVMe drive and a standard SATA is - at present - negligible for gaming, at best it will a second or two quicker than a SATA drive on loading. Also USB 3.1 gen 2 has theoretical speed is 10Gb/s which is around 1200MB/s, about a third of the maximum speed of SN750, so it would be a waste to hook up a WD Black NVMe via USB.

[Zyrinx]

Thanks guys, seems any of the modern externals with 1GB/s thruput should be just fine.

Cheers.

[Bryntrollian]

Once again the advice given here is disappointing.

Modern external drives aren't SSDs anymore; they're NVMe drives. SSDs are like people still buying VCRs when DVD players came out.
Utilizing a USB 3.1 port, these are the speeds I get:

Total cost difference is negligible, just get a decent enclosure and find a WD Black NVMe on sale. You'll thank yourself for it when it outperforms peoples' internal SSDs by an order of magnitude.

NVMe is the name of the memory interface, but it is still very much an SSD...

[Temp name]

Once again the advice given here is disappointing.

Modern external drives aren't SSDs anymore; they're NVMe drives. SSDs are like people still buying VCRs when DVD players came out.
Utilizing a USB 3.1 port, these are the speeds I get:

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/K27tmc4.jpg[IMG]

Total cost difference is negligible, just get a decent enclosure and find a WD Black NVMe on sale. You'll thank yourself for it when it outperforms peoples' internal SSDs by an order of magnitude.

SSD: Solid State Drive
NVMe: Non-volatile Memory express

One describes a storage solution that doesn't involve moving parts
One describes an interface specification for how to communicate with non-volatile memory, generally attached to the PCIe bus.

NVMe drives are still SSDs.

Complaining that people are calling NVMe SSDs SSDs is like complaining that people are calling a computer case a cabinet.
One is just slightly less specific than the other.

Also to get something that outperforms SATAIII by an order of magnitude you'd need a PCIe gen 4 SSD, since SATAIII can generally do ~550MB/s, and good luck doing 5.5GB/s over USB which is capped at, currently, 40gbit/s for a 3.2 gen 2x2 port.