-=PCTechTalk=- Re: External Hard Drive

Patti,
    The full answer is "It depends".  It depends both on the game's damands 
for unimpeded data flow to the CPU & RAM and it also depends on the external 
drive's data transfer speed to the system.

    If the game doesn't need a constant stream of data from the installed 
files to the system's workhorses (the CPU & RAM), then you should have no 
problem running them from a USB connected external.  On the other hand, if 
the game needs loads of additional data in the middle of an intense 'scene', 
it may cause the game to stutter, stammer, stumble, skip and possibly even 
crash.  There's no way to tell you which games belong to which category, so 
I'll leave it to you to figure that out yourself.

    Some external drives have an eSATA port.  If the computer also sports 
one of these on the back, a special eSATA cable can be used instead of USB. 
A USB 2.0 connection is limited to a theoretical max of 480Mb/s transfer 
rate (the speed that data can move from one device to another).  An eSATA 
connection is just as fast as an internal drive (1.5 or 3Gb/s, depending on 
the type of drive).  An eSATA external will not have any of these 
limitations.

    Also, keep in mind that these are only theoretical speeds.  Actual 
speeds for both types are much slower due to overhead and other factors. 
The same thing is true of internal drives.  Also understand that none of 
this is a knock on USB connected external drives.  I have two externals and 
both have USB 2.0 connections.  I absolutely adore them and even make one of 
them my companion when I go out on house calls.     :O)

Peace,
Gman

"The only dumb questions are the ones we fail to ask"


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Patti Barr" <patken@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <pctechtalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2008 6:16 PM
Subject: -=PCTechTalk=- External Hard Drive


>I have bought myself a Maxtor 250 G external Drive.
> I just plugged in the power point and the USB and off I went transferring 
> stuff off both my laptop and the desktop.
> It seems to be doing the job.
> (I watched a MP4 movie straight off the drive)  Meet the Spartans :-)
>
> The only thing I'm not sure of is can I install and play my games from 
> this drive? I did a goggle and there were various opinions, some said yes 
> you can and some say no!
>
> I remember reading in a Big Fish Forum that one member played from her 
> external drive so I'm going to do a search in the forum to see what was 
> said there.
> In the meanwhile does anyone here know?
>
> Patti
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