i have games i play from usb external.... some games you need to play internally

or you could just clean out the games you havent played in a while..

Originally posted by boo:

Hai. So I'm running out of storage for my laptop. It has ultimately only 1 TB built in storage and from my knowledge, it is not possible to add another internal hard drive. I want to add an external hard drive via USB, is it possible to download and install steam games there? I'm talking about story games like Baldurs Gate 3, The Last of Us Remastered, and like such.

Laptop: ROG Zephyrus G16 2024

Not recommended to use a HDD for modern games.

I used external drives for years.
Steam works great with them at this point. (Just restart steam when u plug one in.)

Wouldnt recommend it for newer games that list SSD as a soft requirement. (Depends on the game. Bg3 is fine on external. Something like hogwarts, will run like ♥♥♥♥ though.)

Anything that launched before 2020-ish should be fine... External SSDs also exist. As long as its a usb 3 ssd it should be fine for most games, including newer ones.

Edit: as for external SSDs. Dont cheap out. If thats the route you go, get one from a reputable brand and look up some reviews/tests.

do not use external media to install software with a non-portable file structure (99.99% of games)

it might "work," in the short term...but if the app is not self-contained, it's just an error time bomb


Actually, that's not entirely fair.

I should caveat that - IF you make a dedicated steam library installation on a removable drive, titles without massive streaming chunks will do okay, because steam itself does set up a semi-portable structure.

Still, the usb interface is nowhere near as snappy or stable as onboard sata, and even sata is on its way out, as more and more titles are assuming m.2 ssd performance.