Steam has a move function built into the library settings. You can also just copy the files, tell steam you want to install the game, and then select the folder where the files are, and it will “discover” rather then download them.
Probably need to be USB 3.2 Gen 2 (Blue USB-A or USB-C).
And some games require the drive be formatted in the operating system’s preferred high-performance filesystem, rather some variant of FAT.
I think that’s still much, much slower (2.5 GB/sec) than a fast SSD (maybe 10 GB/sec or faster). Good enough for slower drives, though.
The sources I read say that Gen2 is 10 gigabits per second. On the same order of magnitude as SATA3
Gen 3 2x2 is 20 gigabits per second (2.5 gigabytes/sec), but that’s much slower than the 14+ gigabytes per second of PCIE 5. SATA is pretty obsolete now for (gaming and high performance) SSDs.
I mean, it’s not the end of the world, as @Disinfectus shows. Just adds a few more seconds to startup and level loads.
But if you don’t have too many games (or don’t mind downloading and swapping them out), the internal NVMe drives are much much faster. Not orders of magnitude faster, but still way bigger of a difference than, say, the recent measly increases between graphics card generations.
Interesting. I have yet to run into that. Granted, I’m not exactly playing the latest and greatest games, but something like Red Dead Redemption 2 is completely playable off of my external drive.
Having said that, since I have a more powerful GPU now, I decided to download the enhanced version of GTA 5. That one I put on the SSD.
Damn, prices have gone up dramatically recently. A few months ago, I bought a 9800x3d, 5070, 32 GB, 2 TB desktop at Costco for $1500. That same desktop is now $2300! That’s a 50% jump in less than half a year…
Yeah. The PCPartPicker list I put together in early 2025 is currently a nightmare.
The $200 RAM I originally chose is now listed at just over $1200.
The $300 SSD I originally chose is now listed at over $1100.
$2300+ should buy an entire system, not just two of the “cheaper” components.
Super frustrating.
Holy shit. That’s even worse than I thought. By a lot.
The 64gb of ram I bought in late 2024 was $165 when I bought it and the exact same product is $900 today.
Thank you, AI data center crunch.
Dude, talk about timing, congratulations. Color me jealous.
Well, it’s dumber than that, actually. One of the ram sticks was dead on arrival. And I thought - ugh, I could send it in for a replacement, but they’re going to want both sticks. That means my new computer is out of commission for a couple of weeks while they wait for my return and send me the new one. Is it even worth it? I can live with 32gb for now. I’ll grab another 32gb stick later when they go on sale or something. 32GB of ram met 95% of my needs so I wasn’t feeling the limitation. Edit: I also cannibalized parts from my old system to build the new one so I couldn’t fall back on my old system in the meantime. I’d just have no desktop.
And then .. I didn’t get around to doing that for a few months. And then ram prices went insane and I could no longer do that.
Now I’ve recently started doing some stuff that could recently benefit from the extra ram, and now I want more. I thought… I can’t return it to the store where I bought it (the return window is long closed) but the ram comes with a lifetime manufacturers warranty. So I can still send it in and get it exchanged, right?
But… same problem. The sticks are a matched pair. they want you to send in both. They also may take over a month to receive yours, and ship you a new pair. RMA processes are often very slow. Do I want my PC to be out of commission for over a month? (I have no backup DDR 5) - no. Do I want to pay $400+ for an extra 32GB of ram? No. So… I’m just trudging on with 32GB, annoyed at myself when I didn’t exchange it earlier with the merchant, who would’ve been quicker than the manufacturer RMA.
Heh, I did about the same. When Trump came into office and started on about tariffs, I figured I’d pull the trigger on 64GB before any additional price increases. I had no idea that the AI data center boom would happen and just got super lucky.
Steam Machine pricing:
(Mahaloth started a separate thread for that too: Steam Machine - interested? not interested?)
Mahaloth also posted it here, heh.