I'm sorry if this isn't where this belongs, but I figured since it's about gameplay... I have a couple of questions about external hard drives.

1. Does anyone use them for their games?

2. If you do, do you have the game and ep's and stuff packs all loaded on the HD?

3. I currently have mine loaded on my computer's main drive. But I want to switch over to my external. Can I put one or two ep's and stuff packs on the HD or do they all have to be on the same drive? For example, I am probably going to purchase University tomorrow and I'd like to load it on my external drive instead of the computer's main drive. I haven't reinstalled all of my ep's or stuff packs yet because I was having issues with the game crashing due to memory.

4. As for custom content, can I put it on the HD and still be able to run it with the game on my computer's drive?

My thoughts:

1. I am using USB harddrives for my photo editing. But TS3 requires a lot of continuous loading, unlike my RAW photos (load once, stay in memory/scratch disk) so that may be a source of your lag/hiccup.

2. Is your concern about saving disk space (because your internal HDD is running out of space) or you want to enhance performance? Because if you want performance, I would load the game, EP, and CC onto an SSD (SSD is known for blazing fast read speed). Since base game data + EP, and CC are practically "read only" content while you play. If your concern is disk saving, I still suggest putting game data + CC onto internal, and leave CC on external.

3. There should only be 2 locations for TS3: the game folder and user data folder. Game folder is where you install your actual game (where TS3.exe and all the EPs go). User data folder is where your Saved games, CC, saved sims, etc... go (default is under My Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3). I don't think this really help with performance. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think you can install EP in different location than base game, however I remember it is usually not advisable for a number of reasons. My reason: why put all the EP scattered everywhere?

4. As with #3, you can decide where user data folder and game folder go, and they can be 2 different locations (they are always in 2 different locations by default).

My suggestion:
- If your HDD is USB 3.0, I think it may be ok, otherwise it may really hurt your performance. Imagine having to wait extra 30 seconds for a lot to load. Driving through town can be a real pain.
- But if this is the only way for you to play TS3, then ... as #3, you can install TS3 in 1 location, and have game data (CC, Saved games) on 2nd location, and install EP ... (assume I am still correct that EP can safely be installed in different locations) then ... do it. But it will not bold well.

P/S:

Like Nysha commented:
- External HDD likes to change drive letter, and it will be a huge problem.
- USB 3.0 is still far behind SATA.
- Thunderbolt? I dunno, ... didnt bother to look. I don't run TS3 on Mac.

I disagree on several points.

1. I would never put a sims game on an external HD myself. They already take far too bloody long to load over SATA; I would not want to experience sims loading times over the much slower USB connection. Even USB 3.0, although it's blindingly fast for USB, is still significantly slower than SATA.

2. See above!

3. Yes, you can install the basegame and various EPs in different locations. If you do install any EPs on an external hard drive, make sure that the drive's letter never changes, for example due to unplugging the external HD, plugging in other USB devices and plugging the external back in, as that will cause the game to not run. Having EPs in different folders does not affect performance per se, but tomomi is right - in terms of performance, software installed on an SSD will perform best, then an internal HD, then a USB device.

4. You can do this, but only by moving the entire Documents path for your user account to the external HD. If you do this, you really do need to make sure that the drive letter doesn't change. You should also back up your documents before attempting a move, because the process is stupidly picky. Putting your CC on your external will also slow down your loading times and increase lag.

Honestly, unless you are so low on HD space that you're running out of space for your paging file, I'd leave everything on the internal. If you are that low on HD space - delete stuff you don't need, or move files that you don't use very often onto the external.

If I can put the CC and few mods I use in a separate drive, that would most likely help. I am worried about performance issues. I'd love to have all the EP's, but right now I'm being real choosy of which ones I install. I have WA, Pets, Supernatural, Ambitions, and Seasons. Right now the only EP's I have installed are Ambitions and Supernatural.

That's why I'm asking if it'd be ok because of memory and performance issues.

I understand your reasoning. It really doesn't make sense to have all the games scattered everywhere. My cousin has all of her stuff on an external hard drive for her laptop and she said it works great. So I went and bought a 1tb one with a 3.0 USB.

Well, bear in mind that with moving user files to an external, it's all or nothing. Either you move all your CC, mods, sims3packs, saves, everything, plus everything else in your My Documents folder to the external; or you leave it all where it is now. You can't pick and choose.

You guys make extremely valid points. I'm constantly deleting files (pics, etc) from online that I only need for a few moments. I think I will put my more important files on the external just to save space and as long as I have the external, I'll always have the files.

I'm on my laptop right now, so I honestly have no clue what my desktop is running with right now.

You didn't state why you are choosy on EP? I presume you have already purchased them. Is diskspace a problem? Or performance? (because you are on a slow computer?). Because installing all EP you have does not seem to really affect the performance. Stuff not loaded doesn't affect you. Well, maybe Seasons will, when it starts snowing and raining.

I doubt your cousin had "all her stuff" on external HDD. I am not going to discount her technical ability, but likely she decided to install TS3 on External HDD. But her User data is still (and likely) on C:\...\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3. If I am right, then she only had Game data on External HDD, user data still on internal HDD. Nysha is right, you may have to move the entire "My Documents" folder onto External HDD... and what if you unplug the drive when you don't play TS3? Windows' link to My Documents still points to that External HDD ... you will cause Windows to bork up. Ok, Windows is very resilient, I bet it will create a new My Documents on drive C: to compensate. But then, next time TS3 plays, it will seek your User Data on the new My Document path ... and not found, there goes all your saved games and CC. You will have to repath "My Documents" each and every time.

Too much headache just to be able to play TS3 each time.
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If I am correct about your problems, then here is my suggestions:
- MOVE other stuff on your laptop (photos, video, etc...) to make room for TS3. Typical laptops have 500Gb, TS may take up only 20Gb at best? Maybe 30Gb ... counting CC and saved games.
- Archive your old Saved games to External HDD (if you have about 30+ saved games like me, acting as backup). You will have to manually move them back to User data folder, but it is ok because you don't always need those old saved games.
- Be more choosy about your CC. When I first started, everything interested me, and ... my CC folder alone went up to 10Gb. Unless all CC work together perfectly (It's IMPOSSIBLE), having 10Gb of CC is suicidal.

I don't have THAT much content. I'm choosy because a couple of months ago I had all the expansion packs installed and then installed Movie Stuff. After playing for 30 minutes, all the content in the game would go gray and the game would shut down. So I uninstalled Movie Stuff and everything worked fine until I decided my Sim wanted to go on vacation. When she came back from Egypt, the game would crash. Then later I uninstalled everything so I could install a non-Sims game. I hated that game, so as I was reinstalling, I was picky about what was going to be installed because I found out that my computer is a 5 year old piece of crap even though it runs the Sims very well. Now without WA, it's running great with no issues at all and everything is on my computer's main hard drive.

All reasonable points, although, being less than choosy with my cc, does mean my EA/The Sims folder (granted, with some saves in it, but not a LOT of saves) is currently at ~55 GB. not huge, but not 10 GB. And honestly, while seemingly suicidal, it runs just fine, at least until my saves, with tons of user generated sim populations all decked out in lots of cc begins to hit the dreaded ~3.5 GB limit that TS3 enforces.

As to external HDs, I do use USB 3.0 drives, and my external drives are spec'd to spin at 7200 rpm (most spin at 5400 rpm, which slows read speeds) and I can assure you, there's no way you want to keep your "live" data or program files on one to execute for a run. The load times are still just too slow.

However, some pc's do offer an eSATA option. This allows for a full speed SATA external drive. They were originally mostly used for DVRs to expand recording space, and as eSATA is far faster, it is an option. Unfortunately, most eSATA drives and interfaces are limited to v1.0, so the best they can do is a 1.5 GB/s throughput. Modern internal SATA v3.0 ports allow for transfers as fast as 6 GB/s (kind of simplifying here, but the principle is accurate). I'm running with 2 internal drives, a C drive of the OS and programs, and a D drive just for data, and all the Documents stuff like the documents EA/Sims folder, and both drives are 7200 rpm SATA 3 rated drives. A replacement SSD for my C drive was on my Xmas list, but Santa was spread a little thin on the rest of the family, so that upgrade is on hold for another month or two.

So, while USB 3 external drives are great for storage, they are not, IMO, suited to running a game from. An eSATA external drive might do the trick, but it still won't be as fast as an internal drive using the newer SATA ports on more contemporary machines.

Sorry, my number is a bit off. My grand CC moments were in 2011. Now I am back to TS3 playing with minimal CC (not that minimal, but minimal enough comparing to my past). I am glad you are running as much CC without much problem. The advice for OP (and general TS3 players) is TS3 is not a problem free game. CC are created by all kinds of users, from the famous creators like Twallan, to folks who dabble at it like me, we do not have a central QC process to make sure all the CC out there really work together. Heck, even EA's own DLC content have so much problem, and they are supposed to be well organized development team who get paid doing their jobs. For instance, I came back to TS3 downloading the first window CC on MTS to quickly find out it no longer works for 1.66 and game crashed right upon starting. CC is a time bomb and a double edged sword, if you think about it. Thus, once problems arise, finding the root cause can be digging for needle in hay stack.



eSATA drives are still a concern as Nysha brought up. OP runs a laptop, and can't be expected to have a drive dangling off the laptop the entire time. Having My Documents moved onto it is simply unsafe practice due to drive letter changing. Now, install TS3 on the external drive, be it eSATA or USB, may be ok. No, I will not recommend doing it. But technically, it should work, like OP's cousin did. So for OP, if you really have to, give it a try, but if it does not work so well, don't say I didn't warn you.

I am glad your 5 year old laptop still runs TS3 well. My computer runs everything well beside TS3. Maybe because I must play with max sim and object details (to see the great custom skins). Anyway, if you have to spend a couple hours to try installing different configuration, go right ahead. Who knows, running TS3 on the USB HDD may work for your liking (I doubt, but who am I to say it is impossible?). So give that a try.

But I still really hope you clear some diskspace to keep the entire TS3 on your internal drive.

before i got a new computer last march...i had all my games installed on my external harddrive....worked like a charm...had no problems with it...

only reason i dont know is because my new computer has a terabyte harddrive...