Exterenal hard drive

[healeyd622]

I’ve been told you can only run steam and battle net on a 3.5 external hard drive, but I currently can’t afford that so is it possible to run them on a 2.5?

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Yes.

It isn't so much the physical size of the drive, but the speed that matters. If you are running on a USB 2.0 adapter it is going to be slow, but workable. It is much better to run it using a drive capable of USB 3.0 on a USB 3.0 port. That will give you better results.

 

[healeyd622]

The one I’m looking at is USB 3.0 and it’s 2.5 inch, should that be strong enough to run most games?

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Well, it isn't ideal, and it won't be fast, but it will work just fine. USB 3.0 is plenty fast for a mechanical drive, but going through the USB controller hurts latency. Load times will be slow.

All those disadvantages aside, it will work. A lot of hardware reviewers keep their Steam libraries on external drives so they don't have to download their games onto every new system, so there is precedent for what you want to do, and if it works for people testing high end hardware it will work just fine for you too.

 

[USAFRet]

I’ve been told you can only run steam and battle net on a 3.5 external hard drive, but I currently can’t afford that so is it possible to run them on a 2.5?

You can run Steam off an external drive. 2.5" or 3.5" makes zero difference.
As long as it has a drive letter, you can run Steam games off any drive. I've even run Steam games off my NAS box that lives across the room. Mapped drive letter, and the Steam client knows no different.

Performance won't be great, but you can do it.

Steam games location
In the steam client:
Steam
Settings
Downloads
Steam Library Folders
Add library folder

To move an already installed game
Games library
Right click the game
Properties
Local Files
Move Install Folder