An External SSD for GAMING vs HDD & SSD - What You NEED to know

The debate about the best game storage drive between HDD vs SSD vs NVMe has been raging forever but in this video we look at how external SSDs can be used for modern games in 2021. How does an external drive perform against the internal drives in game load times, game updates and stability? Also which USB ports should you use for the best external drive performance?

Buy items in this video from Amazon at the links below:

Timestamps:
0:00 - External drives for gaming Intro
1:27 - USB Interfaces EXPLAINED
3:37 - How to Choose the BEST USB Port
4:36 - WATCH OUT for Front Panel Connectors
5:11 - How we Tested External Drives
7:34 - External vs SSD vs HDD Performance
8:10 - Game UPDATE Times
10:23 - Game LOAD Times - External vs SSD vs HDD
11:42 - Game FRAMERATES
12:20 - External vs SSD vs HDD Conclusion

Review unit provided free of charge by the companies listed. This video is sponsored by Corsair. As per Hardware Canucks guidelines, no review direction was received from manufacturer. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Gear list (Available on Amazon):
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[Piketom]

External SSDs are fairly affordable and a great option for gaming laptops if you don't want to have to replace the boot drive.

[RossOnTop]

2 years later and you are the ONLY youtuber who properly covered gaming on external hard drives. Everyone else just goes off features not even related to gaming.

[derptyderp]

Can't wait for USB 4 gen 2x2 revision 2 gen 2 superspeed. Gonna be great!

[hachooo]

Switched my PS5 external storage from a WD Black HD to an NVME SSD and loving it. For PC, I'm always going to store games on an internal SSD so I don't need to worry about the bandwidth limitations of the USB ports. A+ video

[Napsteraspx]

Anyone else still mindblown that an external drive the size of a credit card can fit so much data into it?

[ghjong]

The USB consortium really needs to have a non-engineer come up with the naming scheme.

[tommihommi]

USB should just be designated by speed, throw away the annoying 3.x gen something bullshit.

There's USB2, USB 5 Gbit/s, USB 10 Gbit/s, USB 20 Gbit/s. Just like ethernet everything is simple now.

[BelofBabylon]

The MX 500 is just so competitive ... you see it in every review and tech channel for several years now. Legendary

[Mopantsu]

SSD's seem to have got stuck at a certain price point and 2TB or above is really expensive in comparison to 1TB SSD's. Not sure why though. It seems that 4TB SSD's are not common enough to drive the prices down.

[kyzersoze]

Thanks for sharing! Me and my wife share a laptop and so I don't want to hog up storage with all my games and slow the system down. At the same time, I'm also in the market for an external drive to store photos and documents so this would seem like an appropriate solution.

[BrohemianLifestyle]

He has the taste and refined air of a sophisticated gamer.

[Horatio]

Thanks. I'm getting a Crucial X8 for my more taxing games. Really appreciate your clear info on this subject.

[rossmpostpro]

Interesting content as always guys. Definitely worth mentioning how much CPUs can impact game updates due to decompression though!

[guillaumejoop]

Switched to full SSD recently : a 240gb corsair nvme drive (gen3, might go gen4 soon) and 2*1tb crucial MX500. I'll admit it was more of an aesthetic choice by getting rid of the drive bay, but I'm glad there's an actual difference with the chunky 7200rpm they replaced

[paulpaganetto]

Great video. Very informative. I Love the presentation and the timings to jump to certain content. I am definitely going back to watch others you posted.

[uzon]

Great video. I'm almost a little curious as to how a SATA to USB interface hooked up to an internal SSD would perform. Maybe that could be something to include in a potential follow up video?

[TheOneInYellow]

Fantastic video with great advice, including information on the speed realities of these devices on older and newer USB hardware.

This video helped me make a choice to purchase the Crucial X8, something I can now use for multiple purposes and have great speeds when needed.
I'll be using my incoming (today!) X8 as a quick fix for backing up my Android smartphone (S21 Ultra) sans laptop, use as a temporary external device for my aging laptop (internal SSD failed so X8 will be utilised for diagnostic purposes and running an OS), and later as a new storage source for my PS5 on occasion.

Crucial X8 1Tb has the raw speeds I like for when I need it on USB 3.2 Gen 2 devices (or whatever the previous names were 🙄), but has storage capacity useful for older devices on short notice.
Having the X8 preformatted in exFAT makes this option seamless across multiple devices in my home too.

Thank you again! 😊

[decoymanic]

Great Review . Finally i know, i no need buy 2 x 1TB M.2 for my laptop . Toshiba 3TB 7200rpm are just 50% of the cost for 1TB M.2.

[BRWednesday]

Banging video. Thank you so much, I was needing a bit of help!

[hiimapop]

I know this is random, but after 2 years since seeing your review on the Glorious Model O mouse, I've finally managed to convince my parents to buy me one in December last year! Hopefully I'll be able to get my hands on the other peripherals a bit faster than the mouse. :)