Can I get more disk space with an external harddrive?

[Richard I]

If I buy a hard drive online that plugs in through USB, could I install games to it? I can only install about 5 games at a time currently before it says my disk space is full.

[Richard I]

UPDATED QUESTION: (If ya'll don't mind, I appreciate the help so far)

A 2.5" internal HDD or SSD fits in my laptop, a second one. I figure I keep my 256gb SSD and add another SSD. Can any 2.5" SSD fit? I was looking at the Samsung EVO 870 500GB for a good budget SSD. That would bring me up to 756GB. Or possibly higher.

Next question:

Does an HDD run the game slower, or just the boot time? If it's just the boot time, then I won't mind running an HDD if the game will run just as fast after it starts.

[Watermelon {JESUS IS LORD}]

ya my desktop has 256 gb ssd, 1tb hdd, 500gb hdd in it
while my lappy has 256 nvme and 1tb ssd in it

i also have 2tb external hdd i use between both for transferring

[Illusion of Progress]

If you give a model number, others here can confirm for you, but it sounds like your PC does have a spare SATA port.

You could use an HDD, yes, and while HDDs are fine for the majority of games (I actually have one that I play a number of my games from), you ideally want a 7,200 RPM and the reason for going for an HDD for games over an SSD would also partially be for larger sizes. If you're looking at sizes like 500 GB, I wouldn't bother with an HDD. HDDs are also arguably more prone to failure in laptops.

I'm not sure what your budget is but I'd probably look at 1 TB+ sizes (performance and endurance/wearing out improve with larger sizes in SSDs, and right now 500 GB is more of a budget option and even new models being introduced are using 1 TB as the entry point). For SATA, the Western Digital Blue 3D (I use this one), Crucial MX500, or Samsung Evo are all great options and I'd choose whichever is the cheapest among them. You could probably go with anything really, but the budget options in the SATA landscape don't really save you much so you may as well go with one of the more performant ones. The three I mentioned will all basically cap out SATA anyway.

And you can most certainly add it and keep using the current one for the OS. Since what you're adding is SATA anyway, you actually lose little to not use the new drive for the OS... UNLESS what you have now is eMMC solder storage. If it is, I'd absolutely move the system drive to the new SATA disk.

[Richard I]

Originally posted by Illusion of Progress:

If you give a model number, others here can confirm for you, but it sounds like your PC does have a spare SATA port.

You could use an HDD, yes, and while HDDs are fine for the majority of games (I actually have one that I play a number of my games from), you ideally want a 7,200 RPM and the reason for going for an HDD for games over an SSD would also partially be for larger sizes. If you're looking at sizes like 500 GB, I wouldn't bother with an HDD. HDDs are also arguably more prone to failure in laptops.

I'm not sure what your budget is but I'd probably look at 1 TB+ sizes (performance and endurance/wearing out improve with larger sizes in SSDs, and right now 500 GB is more of a budget option and even new models being introduced are using 1 TB as the entry point). For SATA, the Western Digital Blue 3D (I use this one), Crucial MX500, or Samsung Evo are all great options and I'd choose whichever is the cheapest among them. You could probably go with anything really, but the budget options in the SATA landscape don't really save you much so you may as well go with one of the more performant ones. The three I mentioned will all basically cap out SATA anyway.

And you can most certainly add it and keep using the current one for the OS. Since what you're adding is SATA anyway, you actually lose little to not use the new drive for the OS... UNLESS what you have now is eMMC solder storage. If it is, I'd absolutely move the system drive to the new SATA disk.

Thank you!

I currently have the ASUS TUF Gaming FX505DT, 8gb ram 256gb ssd. If the video I watched is correct, there is another port for a ram stick and second internal hard drive.

[_I_]

never use a hdd for portable (laptop or removable) storage

get a 1-2tb sata ssd, instead

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/internal-hard-drive/#A=960000000000,20000000000000&t=0&f=3&c0=di_sata.30,di_sata.60&sort=price&page=1

[GOD RAYS ON ULTRA™]

You could straight up add a second hdd to bay and keep your operating system on your SSD intact.

The negative side is you will be using a little more battery. Whether you notice this or not may depend.

It would be much safer than external storage. It would also load faster than USB drive.

I actually did this recently to my nitro 5 laptop. I got a Samsung nvme gen 3 drive for windows 11 and I kept my 2tb sshd hybrid firecuda for bulk storage and games. Now I have 3tb of space and I still have SSD performance.

I plan on treating it like a steam deck with a bag log of games installed to the sshd and a btle steam controller. The only difference is I'm going to use windows 11 instead of Linux.

[Meatball]

I've once used an external HDD for installing Fallout 4 on my notebook. I was able to finish my homework, study for math and take a bath during the loading screens.
Never ever. An external SSD on the other hand could be worth it.

[Frank Guertler]

Originally posted by Medication:

I've once used an external HDD for installing Fallout 4 on my notebook. I was able to finish my homework, study for math and take a bath during the loading screens.
Never ever. An external SSD on the other hand could be worth it.

i think the problem is the usb connection (too slow). internal ssd ist better by far...