Over the years, the Steam client has become exceptionally flexible when it comes to managing your game files, and that includes game installations on external drives. It’s as simple as plugging in your drive, and adding it as a library under the “Storage” section of Steam’s settings.
“But why do that?” you’re probably asking, and that’s exactly why I want to introduce you to the wonders of portable SSD game storage for Steam.
Portable Gaming Freedom
I have a number of older SSDs that used to work as internal drives, but didn’t make the cut for my new computers because they are too slow by modern standards. This includes SATA SSDs and PCIe NVMe drives. While they might be mildly obsolete for internal use, they’re still plenty fast to make a USB port sweat, and there are plenty of games that run no better on a fast internal NVMe drive than they do over USB on these older storage devices.
So why let these drives go to waste? I have multiple PC gaming devices, and with my portable SSDs I can move my library around as I play between them. Not to mention that I can cycle between different libraries on the same computer. I especially like having the option to move the drives between my handheld PC and my main gaming laptop.
A Speed Boost Over Hard Drives
Just as with internal hard drives compared to SSDs, external SSDs are much faster than either internal or external mechanical drives. It’s why I use a USB SATA SSD as a PS4 game drive on my PlayStation 5. It’s at least 4–5 times faster than the spinning rust option. Using my old NVMe drives in external enclosures, I’ve clocked a gigabyte per second in transfer rate, which is twice what an internal SATA SSD can muster, and that’s fast enough for the vast majority of games, even some current-generation titles that aren’t open world and lean on data streaming.
Solving the Storage Problem
I guess it should be obvious, but if I had enough internal drive space to store all the games I wanted to have on hand, I wouldn’t need to use external drives in the first place. Sure, SSD prices have come way down, but I can’t just let my old SSDs rot in a drawer with all those juicy gigabytes unused.
This is especially true for my M4 MacBook Pro, which doesn’t allow for internal storage upgrading, and also true for my Lenovo Legion Go handheld PC, which can be upgraded with a new internal SSD, but honestly it’s more trouble than its worth at this point. Wait, did I say my Mac?
That’s right, I enjoy gaming on my Mac, but with Baldur’s Gate 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 installed on the main drive, that’s half my storage gone, and I have a long list of games that I like to enjoy on my ultra-portable that live happily on an external Samsung 500GB SATA SSD that was originally for video editing, but it was too slow now that we’ve moved on to a 4K pipeline. Here’s a snapshot of the games in question in Steam for Mac.
Steam Makes It Seamless
The only reason I even considered making fairly extensive use of external SSDs for Steam games is that it’s all so seamless and easy to do. Just add the external drive as a library under the “Storage” section of the Steam settings and install some games to it. Then eject and unplug the drive, connect it to your other Steam PC and add the library again. However, this time it will recognize and add the games already present, assuming they match the license of the signed-in user.
You could even take your drive to a friend’s house, or any computer with Steam installed on it, log in with your credentials, and play your games from your external drive straight away. It’s that easy.
The Few Trade-Offs
Obviously, it’s not all sunshine and shotguns—there are some tradeoffs. Which is why you need to be selective about the types of games you store on these drives. Anything designed for a mechanical hard drive or that doesn’t specify an NVMe drive as a minimum requirement should run well and at worst be playable.
It’s also less elegant and convenient. Especially with handheld PCs, and to a lesser extent, laptops. Also, you need a USB port that’s fast enough to do the SSD justice, and if you’re rolling your own external SSD using an enclosure, it’s important to know that they aren’t all made equal. The extremely cheap ones can cause issues like stutter or slow overall transfer speeds, so do a little research before simply getting the one that costs the least money.
- Storage capacity
-
500Gb up to 4TB
- Hardware Interface
-
USB
- Transfer rate
-
1050MB/s Read 1000MB/s Write
The WD 1TB My Passport is a portable external SSD with read/write speeds of up to 1050MB/s and 1000MB/s.
