# Install Games on USB 3.0 Flash Drive?



## Eric_Cartman (Aug 2, 2015)

Newegg has these 128GB Corsair flash drives on sale for $30: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233566

I was thinking of grabbing me one or two and installing games on them on my main rig.

How do you think it would work?

I figure worst case, if running games off them doesn't work well, I'll still have decent 128GB flash drives. 

Win-Win I guess.


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## P4-630 (Aug 2, 2015)

Read/Write speeds?


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## Blue-Knight (Aug 2, 2015)

I don't think it is worth.


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## Eric_Cartman (Aug 2, 2015)

P4-630 said:


> Read/Write speeds?



I have no idea, I guess that is going to be the deciding factor.

I could not find any specs for these drives anywhere.

Not on newegg or Corsair's own site.

Which leads me to believe Corsair probably doesn't give solid specs because they use different flash chips in different batches and the some flash chips are slower and some are faster.

So they can't give sold read/write speeds.

I just ordered 2 drives, when they come in I'll benchmark and do some testing and let you all know.



Blue-Knight said:


> I don't think it is worth.



Why not?

Flash drives have lower latencies than hard drives, so they should be better suited for games that are loading a lot of different files.

I think, even with lower read/write speeds, games like GTA:V might actually run better off a USB flash drive than a hard drive simply because of how GTA:V is loading so many different texture files.


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## Blue-Knight (Aug 2, 2015)

Eric_Cartman said:


> Why not?


Price/Performance and Capacity.

Just my opinion. Sorry!


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## P4-630 (Aug 2, 2015)

Eric_Cartman said:


> I have no idea, I guess that is going to be the deciding factor.
> 
> I could not find any specs for these drives anywhere.
> 
> ...




Yeah why not! Just give it a try!


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## GreiverBlade (Aug 2, 2015)

i had a Steam folder for my laptop on a 64gb USB 3.0 sandisk well not as fast as a SSD but Quite enough (FFXIV or even Glyph Defiance and such)
tho i use mostly a external USB 3.0 enclosure with a 500GB 7.2k rpm hdd (which remind me i could also get a ODD slim 9.5mm adapter for that purpose)

didn't bother to try GTA:V i let that kind of game for those who like it  (tho i should try a heavy modded Skyrim for laugh .... even if my laptop would not run it, i think)


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## AsRock (Aug 2, 2015)

review on Amazon show you what people are getting with them
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2WMA3...l-glance&nodeID=541966&store=pc&tag=tec06d-20
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E3RHS4C/?tag=tec06d-20


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## Caring1 (Aug 2, 2015)

Eric_Cartman said:


> I have no idea, I guess that is going to be the deciding factor.
> 
> I could not find any specs for these drives anywhere.


Found this at Overclockers.UK
Unformatted Capacity: 128GB
Max Read (USB 3.0): 85 MB/sec
Max Write (USB 3.0): 70 MB/sec
Interface Type: USB 3.0


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## NeDix! (Aug 2, 2015)

well, i had played things from my external HDD 5400rpm :v 
and a friend of mine have an ssd on laptop and all steam game on an external HDD too :v

This should work, kinda


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## OneMoar (Aug 2, 2015)

I highly doubt you will see 70Mb/s write at least not sustained
if you want speed get the Patriot Supersonic Magnum


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## Deelron (Aug 2, 2015)

My wife's machine has some games installed on an USB 3.0 SSD, it's definitely faster loading then her awful laptop hard drive.


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## OneMoar (Aug 2, 2015)

a flash drive is NOT A SSD they use very different types of NAND and Very different controllers
most usb 3.0 flash drives are not rated for the same amount of write cycles as a desktop grade SSD


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## Steevo (Aug 2, 2015)

I had a Corsair 64GB that was capable of over 100MBps read, it would get hot during use though, and had some strange write issues with varying block sizes.


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## Eric_Cartman (Aug 2, 2015)

Blue-Knight said:


> Price/Performance and Capacity.
> 
> Just my opinion. Sorry!



If the performance is better than a HDD and the price is half that of a 128GB SSD, then it is a win.

It really only makes sense because the drives are on sale for $30, if they were at their normal price I'd agree with you.



OneMoar said:


> a flash drive is NOT A SSD they use very different types of NAND and Very different controllers
> most usb 3.0 flash drives are not rated for the same amount of write cycles as a desktop grade SSD



Sure, but once you install the game there really isn't any writing going on, it is just loading from the drive to run the game.

The saves might be the only thing being written to the drive, but those are tiny for most games.


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## tabascosauz (Aug 2, 2015)

For Minecraft / casual games? Sure. I wouldn't bet on a USB for more intensive games, even fast "SSD" flash drives. USBs use really cheap flash, and even the "SSD" USBs use NAND that nobody else wants for their SSDs.

I'd definitely grab one because it's at a good price. I wouldn't be putting games on it. My 2 32GB ADATA S102s don't host any programs; one is an installer for whatever OS I need to install, the other contains all my troubleshooting/stress testing/monitoring programs.


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## FordGT90Concept (Aug 2, 2015)

One of the Newegg Reviews:


> Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 119.665 MB/s
> Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 75.227 MB/s
> Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 6.994 MB/s [ 1707.5 IOPS]
> Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 0.801 MB/s [ 195.6 IOPS]
> ...


That's slower than your average 7200 RPM hard drive (faster access times of course).  You could put games on it but you might notice the drop in performance.  Also bare in mind that most games save their data to the operating system drive so only the game would reside on the stick, not the user data.


If it isn't plugged into a USB3 port, it is going to suck for gaming.

Internal SSDs are quite a bit more durable than external USB sticks.  They include a lot more metal and a better controller which is likely why they're more expensive.


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## Tatty_One (Aug 2, 2015)

Some of the very best can outperform hard drives by  a fair margin, many are crap, there is a huge spectrum of performance, many don't actually perform any better than USB2, I found this, might be worth a look, the best in that review is lighting, the worst, well an abacus would probably do a quicker job................

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/usb-3.0-thumb-drive-review,review-32737.html


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## Eric_Cartman (Aug 4, 2015)

The drives came in today, I'll post some results tonight!


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## Eric_Cartman (Aug 5, 2015)

Did some tests against a Western Digital Blue drive I have in my system.

The flash drive is about the same in sequential reads, but look at those random reads!

Way way way faster!

Writes are a little slower, but still not bad.

And GTA:V definitely loads faster, the stuttering I was getting is gone, and switching between characters is a lot faster now.


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## Delta6326 (Aug 5, 2015)

very interesting results, how the temp on the drive, does it get very hot?


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## Blue-Knight (Aug 5, 2015)

Eric_Cartman said:


> Did some tests...


Looks like it is worth if a bit of extra performance is all you want. Now we just have to know its reliability and lifespan...

Thank you!


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## Mussels (Aug 5, 2015)

the drives will wear out fast doing it this way, they're not designed for constant use.


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## QuantumBlade360 (Sep 13, 2016)

Wouldn't the flash drive overheat and get damaged?


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## OneMoar (Sep 13, 2016)




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## QuantumBlade360 (Sep 13, 2016)

OneMoar said:


>


wow..real frickin' helpful...


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## Mussels (Sep 13, 2016)

QuantumBlade360 said:


> wow..real frickin' helpful...



you replied to a thread thats been dead for a year.


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