Tech Help...

[Trivun]

Okay, this may be better off in Gaming Discussion, but I'm pretty certain it'll apply to non-game programs too, so I'll take a chance and post it here. If a mod reckons otherwise then they can feel free to move it as necessary...

Anyway, my situation is this. My laptop has really crappy memory, and with all the programs and files I have on there I have about 4GB left free (11GB when Medieval 2: Total War isn't installed as it is now). That's out of around 100GB that it's supposed to have in total. As I have a film project to edit, a trailer for a friend's play, in the next couple of days, I went out yesterday and bought an external hard drive with around 320GB of memory, which I also intend on moving most of my files (music, videos, etc.) to from my laptop to hopefully ease up on the memory a bit.

Now here's my issue. As the new hard drive has much more memory free than my laptop, I'd love to use it to install games and other programs onto the external hard drive instead of my laptop's own hard drive. But I'm unsure whether or not you can install games and programs and such onto an external hard drive like that. Does anyone know if it is possible, and explain it to me? For reference, here's the particular hard drive I bought yesterday:

 

[Trivun]

Huh, so does nobody have any clue whether or not games can be installed on this thing?

 

[The_Healer]

-snip-

Although I wouldn't recommend it, yes you can install things on an external drive.

Just specify your new drive as the install location whenever you are installing a game. You should just make a "Program Files" folder on the external and install the games or programs in there.

You'll just have to be extra careful not to disconnect your drive when you are playing something, otherwise it should be fine. The only other problem you might find is that loading times take a hit, but once you get into a game it should be fine.

 

[Worgen]

you can but it will probably be pretty slow to load things unless you have a usb 3 outlet, which you probably dont considering the size of the hd on your lappy

 

[DazZ.]

Expect a performance hit, possibly to unplayable levels. Externals aren't usually made for speed, just for storage.

I happily run Fallout 2 and things from mine though.

 

[SpAc3man]

I am pretty sure most programs won't let you do this. There are some programs that can be run off a USB storage device but unless it is a very simple program then the USB bandwidth is too low so you will be stuck with the worst load times ever.

 

[Trivun]

Okay, thanks. To be honest I just need to try and put some of the programs I use rarely (yet still need), like GIMP, on there, too free up space on my laptop for other stuff, or else have 2-4GB spare forever on it, which is hardly conducive to a working efficient computer...