External HD or Micro sd card?

[Stroganoff My Beef]

I have a Microsoft surface pro 2 with 3.0 usb.
my goal is to have more games installed. stock is 126gb.

Would u guys rather have a External HD (WD passport 3.0) or a bigger micro SD card (126gb sandisk class 10)

And also would it be better / faster to run games though a external HD or a SD card ?
all help is appreciated !

[TeKraken]

External drive over USB3.

I'm pretty sure SD are slower than that.

Edit:

Not a fully scientific article but it compares the different speeds of a few cards...

http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-microsd-card/

[SilentHorizon]

Sd card will be compact, but a USB 3.0 Exclosure with a SATA II or III HDD will be waay wayy faster.

[_I_]

usb 3.0 and e-sata will be similar speeds with an external hdd
but a sd card even uhs1+/class 10 will be alot slower

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Yea even UHS MicroSD card, u'd be lucky to get around 20mbps read/write.
With USB 3.0 it will be closer to what you'd get from a SATA port off a motherboard.

If you want space, then go for External HDD.
If u want compact, go for WD Passport Slim; if you want high speed performance, go for WD Passport Ultra

I'd still consider an SD card, but use that for smaller localized files that u might need when u may not want the external HDD connected. But u certainly wouldn't want to run Windows games off an SD card. The internal storage on surface works like an SSD, so that storage space is fast.

[Azza ☠]

Don't use external for actually running the games on, but it's fine for static / backup storage. SD card would only be better for image storage, else ignore that.

Always install and run games on an internal drive - get a Western Digital Black Edition 2TB. Seriously, no external game drive, it will cause all sorts of problems and slow downs!

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Originally posted by Azza ☠:

Don't use external for actually running the games on, but it's fine for static / backup storage. SD card would only be better for image storage, else ignore that.

Always install and run games on an internal drive - get a Western Digital Black Edition 2TB. Seriously, no external game drive, it will cause all sorts of problems and slow downs!

U obviously can't read; he's using a Surface 2 (Tablet)
The max internal space they have is 128GB.

But TBO this should be plenty; just install a select few of what you play most.
Don't try to treat it like a Desktop/Laptop and install everything u own.

[Azza ☠]

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

Originally posted by Azza ☠:

Don't use external for actually running the games on, but it's fine for static / backup storage. SD card would only be better for image storage, else ignore that.

Always install and run games on an internal drive - get a Western Digital Black Edition 2TB. Seriously, no external game drive, it will cause all sorts of problems and slow downs!

U obviously can't read; he's using a Surface 2 (Tablet)
The max internal space they have is 128GB.

But TBO this should be plenty; just install a select few of what you play most.
Don't try to treat it like a Desktop/Laptop and install everything u own.

I skim read over that, didn't notice 'Microsoft surface pro 2' and just assumed, so my bad sorry. Ignore my previous post and thanks for the correction. Microsoft is a stop-word for my brain.

[SilentHorizon]

Originally posted by Azza ☠:

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

U obviously can't read; he's using a Surface 2 (Tablet)
The max internal space they have is 128GB.

But TBO this should be plenty; just install a select few of what you play most.
Don't try to treat it like a Desktop/Laptop and install everything u own.

I skim read over that, didn't notice 'Microsoft surface pro 2' and just assumed, so my bad sorry. Ignore my previous post and thanks for the correction. Microsoft is a stop-word for my brain.

lol, I was wondering about your comment because he only has 120GB of storage, and 40 of that is windows consumed so he could probably only install 2 10GB games if he has all his stuff on there too.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Win8 on Surface doesn't take up much really. Even with a few common/essential apps installed, you're looking at maybe 12-15GB on a new device with very little installed. 120/128GB SSD might not seem like much, but it actually is plenty if u learn to manage it.

Now if your games are like 20-30GB each, then yea that will be a problem. But installing a game to a USB 3.0 capable ext.HDD and running it off that shouldn't be an issue. U may get a little slow down, but overall it will have to do on such a setup as that. If a game seems to run into issues running off the ext. HDD, then free up internal SSD space and try installing/running to that and see how it does. Most games should run fine off of ext.HDD, long as it's not super slow, like a "Green" or 5000-5400rpm drive.