Looking to get an external storage for my gaming laptop and recently found that there are both hard drive ones and SSD’s. didnt know that you could have an external ssd. Im looking to get a 2tb and will be doing all my gaming off of the external so I need it to work well, any idea on which one would be better?
The SSD without a doubt, but it really depends on. how you are connecting it )i.e. type of USB port (2/3/3.2 etc) or USB-C / Thunderbolt. What ports do you have available on the laptop (and what specs it?)
it has two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C ports and two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports. Specs: AMD Ryzen 9 7000 Series, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060, 16 gb of ram, and 512 on the internal ssd.
That should work fine, I’d go for the 3.2 USB-C connections. With external SSD I always find the continuous writes (copying large amounts of data to the drive) to be very “peaky”. You’ll see a high burst and then it will drop right down and then burst again, so the initial move of data to the external SSD might take longer than you would think, but once its there, it should perform really well.
1 Like
I use the Samsung SSD at the link below for misc work/back ups and can get the full 1GB read/write speed with it connected to my USB 3.2 port on my PC. I highly recommend it as it is very rugged and comes with cables.
I believe that Samsung has recently come out with a faster one.
2 Likes
I can also vouch for the Samsung drives too, used them for 10 years without issues. I don’t have the newest versions but my T5 is still going strong after 5 years or so.
1 Like
does the speed of the drive matter? and if so what should it be.
Absolutely if you are using MSFS 2020!! 
The sim transfers an extreme amount of data to/from your drive.
As fast as you can afford. Given the max speed your USB 3.2 port is capable of I think the Samsung T7 is going to be close to as fast as your going to get (it has a PCIe NVMe interface so not your typical slower SSD interface).
Edit: This is the faster Samsung drive I mentioned above. It requires a USB 3.2 2x2 port to achieve the stated 2GB read/write speed which I don’t think is supported by your laptop. It would be a nice drive for the future or if you are going to use it with a PC with a USB 3.2 2x2 port.
1 Like
Would that drive function with my laptop though? like run as fast as my laptop allows it to run, just not its max?
Yes it will function with your laptop as these drives are backward compatible with older versions of USB. It will transfer data as fast as your USB 3.2 port will allow.
1 Like
heres my laptop btw, https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-zephyrus-g14-14-165hz-gaming-laptop-qhd-amd-ryzen-9-with-16gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-rtx-4060-512gb-ssd-moonlight-white/6535495.p?skuId=6535495
thats what I said about the 1tb lol
Also, it says my computer has a Thunderbolt 4, what is that?
1 Like
Lol that’s basically USB 4 so even faster yet but these drives are not as common and will cost more.
I was just looking at the specs of your laptop at the link you provided above - very nice!! I noticed it has a 512GB NVMe 4.0 drive - too small to support the sim however it is a FAST drive! What I would recommend is to swap out the 512GB NVMe and replace it with a 2-4 TB NVMe. My NVMe 4 drive can do 7.4 Gb/sec read and 6.8 Gb/sec write so MUCH faster than any external drive and will cost about the same as the Samsung T9 per gigabyte. Best Buy could do the swap for you easily if that is where you bought it. You can even by an external enclosure for your 512GB NVMe drive and connect it to your THunderbolt port or worst case USB 3.2 port.
As I was writing this I also remembered Microsoft may not allow the sim to be installed on an external removable drive. This is something you’ll want to research in the forum to ensure it’s doable.
I really do think the swapping of the existing 512GB NVMe drive for a larger one is your best path forward to run the sim.
That was my inital idea but I dont know what I would lose on my system, like would everything that came with the computer be gone?
You can back up your current drive (an image of your entire drive) onto an external disk, do the swap and then copy the image back to the new drive. I’ve done this myself and it is low risk. Best Buy Geek Squad could do it in their sleep if you’re not comfortable with it.
Yeah, Im really not… Im brand new to computers. Oh, and i just remembered, another reason I picked the external was bc it said the max capacity for the ssd was 1tb on the internal.
Also, thanks for all your help, youve spent some time on my rookie questions here lol
1 Like
1TB is the max capacity the manufacturer offers - at the end of the day it’s a standard NVMe drive which you could buy off Amazon or Best Buy and swap. I’m sure there are a hundred Youtube videos on how to do it but I respect your desire to steer clear of doing a swap yourself. You might want to get an estimate from the Geek Squad to do it - I’m sure they’ll have a standard price as they do it all the time.