Flash drive for games - need advice

[lsstefan]

Greetings.

I own a laptop that I use to play on at work. Sadly, the laptop is 7 years old and works like crap. At work I have a very good PC that I can't install games on (secrets...bah). So I was thinking of using a flash drive (3.1 Gen 2?) to bring my games to work, thus spending 40$ instead of 500$ for a better laptop. I read that most games create registry files when installed on the PC, so plugging them into another one might not work. I play only World of Warcraft, which I read that doesn't create anything. I have experience with DotA (Warcraft 3) that was playable only by copy paste. I don't own a stick 64+ to test this, so maybe someone here can shed some light.

I also need some examples of good flash drives to buy. The game is 50gb+, so I assume a 64 is cutting too close. I also read people complaining some get very hot when used over a long period of time. Considering the game will run between 4 to 12 hours, I need something that won't damage the stick due to the long uptime.

I found Patriot Supersonic Rage 2 as a good example because of the transfer speed, though maybe the speed is not such a huge deal after the game loaded at start. 

What's your take on this?

 

nb: I don't care if the game appears in logs at work, nor if it installs files. I just can't install stuff because recently they put a password for that.

 

Thanks 

[Br3tt96]

3 minutes ago, lsstefan said:

Greetings.

I own a laptop that I use to play on at work. Sadly, the laptop is 7 years old and works like crap. At work I have a very good PC that I can't install games on (secrets...bah). So I was thinking of using an external hdd to bring my games to work, thus spending 40$ instead of 500$ for a better laptop. I read that most games create registry files when installed on the PC, so plugging them into another one might not work. I play only World of Warcraft, which I read that doesn't create anything. I have experience with DotA (Warcraft 3) that was playable only by copy paste. I don't own a stick 64+ to test this, so maybe someone here can shed some light.

I also need some examples of good flash drives to buy. The game is 50gb+, so I assume a 64 is cutting too close. I also read people complaining some get very hot when used over a long period of time. Considering the game will run between 4 to 12 hours, I need something that won't catch fire.

I found Patriot Supersonic Rage 2 as a good example because of the transfer speed, though maybe the speed is not such a huge deal after the game loaded at start. 

What's your take on this?

 

nb: I don't care if the game appears in logs at work, nor if it installs files. I just can't install stuff because recently they put a password for that.

 

Thanks 

Corsair 128gb  Survivor Series is real nice

[lsstefan]

Just now, Br3tt96 said:

Corsair 128gb  Survivor Series is real nice

Yeah my GF has that from work and is very happy with it, but I think it's 3.0, not 3.1, correct?

[Br3tt96]

1 minute ago, lsstefan said:

Yeah my GF has that from work and is very happy with it, but I think it's 3.0, not 3.1, correct?

3.0

[WereCatf]

5 minutes ago, lsstefan said:

I also read people complaining some get very hot when used over a long period of time. Considering the game will run between 4 to 12 hours, I need something that won't catch fire.

Getting hot and catching fire are two different things, and what one thinks is hot is relative. It's not really anything out of ordinary for certain SSDs to go all the way up to 60 degrees Celsius, even. In my laptop, the SSD typically goes to around 50C when it's been actively doing work for a longer period of time, and it's still perfectly healthy.

[WereCatf]

2 minutes ago, lsstefan said:

Yeah my GF has that from work and is very happy with it, but I think it's 3.0, not 3.1, correct?

USB 3.1 Gen 1 == USB 3.0. They are literally the same thing. USB 3.1 Gen 2 is faster.

[Streetguru]

7 minutes ago, lsstefan said:

 

Use one of the M.2 to USB solutions, install a portable version of linux on it, or install windows to the external drive on that PC. Or linus recently showed off that mobile windows 10 OS thing

Or just buy a better laptop with like a 940M for maybe $300 depending on sales .

[lsstefan]

17 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

Getting hot and catching fire are two different things, and what one thinks is hot is relative. It's not really anything out of ordinary for certain SSDs to go all the way up to 60 degrees Celsius, even. In my laptop, the SSD typically goes to around 50C when it's been actively doing work for a longer period of time, and it's still perfectly healthy.

I meant to not damage the internals due to heat, I wasn't thinking of literal fire.

16 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

USB 3.1 Gen 1 == USB 3.0. They are literally the same thing. USB 3.1 Gen 2 is faster.

Yes, I was referring to Gen 2. I am thinking of getting that since it's more future oriented. 

16 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

Use one of the M.2 to USB solutions, install a portable version of linux on it, or install windows to the external drive on that PC. Or linus recently showed off that mobile windows 10 OS thing

Or just buy a better laptop with like a 940M for maybe $300 depending on sales .

I'll look into what you said, but sounds kinda overkill. Regardless of how much a laptop will cost, I won't use it that much since I mainly play at home. This was just a workaround because my current laptop is a bit old, but I still use it if needed.