Should I get an 8TB storage drive to avoid data caps?

[KaimArgonar]

My ISP gives two "courtesy" months where you can exceed the limit (an unlimited amount, I believe) which is making me consider getting an 8TB drive to store games and then transfer them over to my SSD when I'm ready to play them. A lot of AAA games these days are 100GB or more, so I can easily hit the limit especially living with other people and doing other things like streaming. Is it an easy process to transfer games between drives? I've only ever used my SSD with Steam before.

[Monk]

Is it not possible to simply increase your cap? Got to say I still find it odd companies get away with data limits on land lines, we've had unlimited in the UK for years.

[xSOSxHawkens]

yeh, its pretty simple, and to do what you want to do you have two options, A) simple drag and drop with discovery by steam (but can sometimes not work), B) steam backup of each game (compressed and a bit more reliable).

Same method can be used by those with limited or slow net and a laptop with ample storage at a coffe shop or similar with fast net.

[KaimArgonar]

Monk původně napsal:

Is it not possible to simply increase your cap? Got to say I still find it odd companies get away with data limits on land lines, we've had unlimited in the UK for years.

You can increase the cap, but it's $50 extra per month. It'd be $600/yr vs $152 or so for a WD drive.

[Monk]

I mean your plan will work, but it's an expensive and very limited approach, I'd weigh up the cost of going over your limit carefully.

KaimArgonar původně napsal:

Monk původně napsal:

Is it not possible to simply increase your cap? Got to say I still find it odd companies get away with data limits on land lines, we've had unlimited in the UK for years.

You can increase the cap, but it's $50 extra per month. It'd be $600/yr vs $152 or so for a WD drive.

Which only works twice a year. Also which 8TB drive is only $152?

I'm thinking of getting a second WD black 4Tb and that's about £200, hmm just checked they have dropped, only 160 now heh.

I don't know how much you already pay a month, but I pay about £70 a month for my line and phone etc, or about $90-100, so for the sake of convenience I'd probably just bump up my connection, would suck to use your two months then still need to go over due to patches and new games.

[KaimArgonar]

Monk původně napsal:

KaimArgonar původně napsal:

You can increase the cap, but it's $50 extra per month. It'd be $600/yr vs $152 or so for a WD drive.

Which only works twice a year. Also which 8TB drive is only $152?

I'm thinking of getting a second WD black 4Tb and that's about £200, hmm just checked they have dropped, only 160 now heh.

I don't know how much you already pay a month, but I pay about £70 a month for my line and phone etc, or about $90-100, so for the sake of convenience I'd probably just bump up my connection, would suck to use your two months then still need to go over due to patches and new games.

It's a WD - easystore® 8TB External USB 3.0 Hard Drive which apparently has either a white or red drive inside. It's that price on ebay from Best Buy if you use a 15% coupon that expires in an hour, but the deal might only apply to the US, not sure, though.

[MancSoulja]

Monk původně napsal:

Is it not possible to simply increase your cap? Got to say I still find it odd companies get away with data limits on land lines, we've had unlimited in the UK for years.

There's no competition in the US. Whole cities only have one broadband provider. I know how you feel, here in Manchester there's like 20 companies that offer broadband, all trying to outdo each other.

[emoticorpse]

KaimArgonar původně napsal:

Monk původně napsal:

Which only works twice a year. Also which 8TB drive is only $152?

I'm thinking of getting a second WD black 4Tb and that's about £200, hmm just checked they have dropped, only 160 now heh.

I don't know how much you already pay a month, but I pay about £70 a month for my line and phone etc, or about $90-100, so for the sake of convenience I'd probably just bump up my connection, would suck to use your two months then still need to go over due to patches and new games.

It's a WD - easystore® 8TB External USB 3.0 Hard Drive which apparently has either a white or red drive inside. It's that price on ebay from Best Buy if you use a 15% coupon that expires in an hour, but the deal might only apply to the US, not sure, though.

Pretty sure you don't need to raise the cap in order to hoard. I have like three 8 TB externals (+ another four 2-4 TB internal drives) and download like 30 GB a day the entire month (not exaggerating). I calculate how much I have to spare every day by dividing my limit per day of the month and just keep downloading. When I get close to the limit I slow down. I haven't gone over yet and I've been on Xfinity for like five or six months now. I can't imagine you needing to download more than me. You should be all right if you just do it carefully like I do.

I buy the Seagate external USB hubs for $179. Amazon has them for that price and Microcenter price matches even though I think the have them for that price now too. Regardless of brand on externals I urge you to be very very careful with them. Turn them off and disconnect when not in use because even if the drive lasts the enclosure's life span can introduce problems with the reading of the files on the disk.

[tacoshy]

If you want to store games on a HDD then don't go for a slow Pre-builds external. Especially with 8TB go for a WD Gold. It will be nearly trice as fast. Build it in your PC or use an 3.5" encasing.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

MancSoulja původně napsal:

There's no competition in the US. Whole cities only have one broadband provider.

We have 30 providers in my state.

OP... Also depends on what games you have, how big they are.

[rotNdude]

What is the data cap? A 8TB drive is pretty big. How much do you expect to download over a 2 month period for games/other that you haven't already purchased and downloaded to your existing drive?

[TehSpoopyKitteh]

Monk původně napsal:

Is it not possible to simply increase your cap? Got to say I still find it odd companies get away with data limits on land lines, we've had unlimited in the UK for years.

Some ISP's in the US used to datacap while claiming they were "unlimited"...and if you got flagged, they would throttle you for "piracy" even if you did not illegal download a single file. Comcast even got sued for it.

@rotNDude: With some services now providing 4K streaming, the bandwidth usage is increased significantly. Some Satelite and Cable TV services that provide 4K pictures actually require an internet connection through their internet service because it is strreamed.Sufficient streaming for 1080p for a single device is around 15 to 20 megabits persecond. 4k streaming requires about 100 megabits if you want to use it with cable TV for multiple cable boxes.

Needless to say, an 8TB data cap is possible to breach.

[[☥] - CJ -]

Unless a game actually makes use of the SSDs speed, theres really no reason not to just keep the game on the HDD.

Many games will be perfectly fine with the HDDs speeds

[EolSunder]

yep keep everything on the HDD except the operating system, basic files you use all the time (internet files, work files, etc) and the games you currently play. Store everything else on an external HDD and just use that when you want to get something. So easy. You'll find out that most of the time you won't ever drag the HDD out of your drawer, everything you ACTUALLY use will be on the SSD. Every so often just toss all the junk on the SSD that has built up over time onto the HDD and your good to go again.

I have all my movies, pics, videos, old games, etc on my 2tb external, and i dont think ive taken it out of the drawer for 6 months.

[Retro]

I use the external hd solution as well, I don't have a data cap, but I'm a bit of a hoarder of software and I like the convenience. Even if I rarely access it.
My wife has me save every picture of her pets, garden, etc she's ever taken, they all live on it as well.

[Birdman Jr]

MancSoulja původně napsal:

Monk původně napsal:

Is it not possible to simply increase your cap? Got to say I still find it odd companies get away with data limits on land lines, we've had unlimited in the UK for years.

There's no competition in the US. Whole cities only have one broadband provider. I know how you feel, here in Manchester there's like 20 companies that offer broadband, all trying to outdo each other.

Where I am at in Pensylvania we just got our data cap removed. I live just outside the closet large city which has providors galore. But in my area we only have either the local Cable company that's been around forever with good speeds or crappy DSL at 1.5mbps. The cable company charges rather high compared to those in town which is BS. They pretty much have a monoply in my area because they have some "non-compete" thing from back in the day so other ISP's cannot intrude in certain areas.