[SOLVED][GUIDE]Using External SSD / HDD / microSD for Applications & Games

[MattWeed9]

Hello fellow T100 owners,

I was wondering if anyone else has used or is using an External SSD with their T100. Was thinking of getting a 128gb 3.0 drive for use and wanted to know if anyone else was using it for hosting applcaitons and if they seemed to run alright off of it. I've read a lot about people using class 10 64gb micro SD cards for this and not having much of a problem, just wondering if this might be a better/faster solution. This is the only downside to my tablet, disk size. If this works and works well, I could seem myself using it until it falls apart lol.

[azazel1024]

Sure, it should work just fine. Just need to do a symbolic link to the drive so that you can install programs on a removable disk.

Its half the reason I am hoping that the HDD dock becomes available at some point, as I'd love to throw a 60-120GB SSD in there for stuff I'd only be using with the dock attached anyway.

The Mushkin Atom thumb drive seems almost as good...except lower speed of course than a true SSD and a little on the small side. It might still work for me for the few games I'd want to load anyway (Medieval Total War 2 I'd like to try on the T100. I've heard many reports that it worked fine on old Cedar Trail based netbooks, so it should be great on the T100. Downside is, full install + expasions is like 14-18GB). Downsides are, ~21MB/sec writes and only 32GB.

If there was a 64GB version that was a bit faster on writes, I'd be a lot more interested. Though for $30 and the fact that I NEED another thumb drive (my last free one was taken up by my Win 8.1 boot drive), it might be the perfect option.

For me anyway.

If you need more storage, your solution might be the way to go. Even faster.

Note: One of my reasons for kind of wanting the keyboard dock with HDD in it and swap a 60/120GB SSD over just an external drive, or the Atom thumb drive in the USB3 port, is because it means using up the USB3 port. With an internal SSD, I could use my USB3 ethernet adapter to pull down files from my sever at 100MB/sec+, instead of the 20-30MB/sec I am limited to now by internal memory/memory card max write speeds. A hub isn't an option for me. Also for the Atom, it means leaving the USB3 port free for my mouse transceiver, as I don't have a bluetooth mouse (and the bluetooth MS Arc Touch, is really expensive right now. I have the transceiver version of it, which is cheap). Which makes it akward to have the transceveiver plugged in to a 4" long micro USB to USB adapter.

[MattWeed9]

Fantastic news

I was already considering upgrading my USB hub to 3.0 for this reason, and I don't mind having one as it is mostly used at my home anyways at my desk. I do light stuff around the house, but wouldn't need the SSD for that. Sadly, I should have just waited for the 64gb model to be back in stock, but I didn't lol It will be nice to have all the apps I would like to have installed, all installed at the same time. Some I do not use often, but it is a pain making room to install an app for 30 minutes worth of work. Plus, who doesn't want to have a few games installed for break time I had installed Neverwinter Nights, but removed it to save room for work applications.

[azazel1024]

If the T100 was my main computer, or it was it and a laptop, I'd probably do the same. Its my main computer in terms of use, but I have a desktop taking up my desk and also a laptop, so I don't have a convenient place to leave a hub and I have enough stuff crammed in drawers and stuff. In general, just one more thing for me to have to setup. As is, more convenient to generally just load the stuff on my 500GB external USB3 drive to carry with the T100, not that I'd run apps from it (personally).

The USB3 GbE adapter has come in handy though. I used it the other day to setup a new router I got, as it was a lot easier to plug in to the LAN port to do the setup than try to join to it wirelessly before it was setup. Also, I haven't used it yet for it, but also a lot faster if I am transfering a boat load of pictures stored internally after a trip if the T100 was my main machine for photo editing. ~100MB/sec upload to my server is a lot better than 8MB/sec or so over wireless.

[azazel1024]

But, yeah I deffinitely know what you mean. The 32GB micro SD card in my T100 is mostly fine for me...but there are times, like you said, with a really big game or program, beyond taking up the space, if it isn't used much it is kind of wasting space and a real pain to reinstall everytime you might want to use it.

I am really hoping in the next generation or two of tablets, that 64GB becomes the normal entry level and there is at least an option for 128GB at the same kind of premium people are paying now to go from 32 to 64.

I won't complain though. Between mine being 64GB + a micro SD card slot, ignoring all of the other expandibility options with USB ports, it blows my iPad2 out of the water big time. When I had it, I'd generally have 2-3GB free on a good day of the 16GB. Now I have ~25GB free on the eMMC and ~26GB free on my micro SD card. It won't stay that much forever, but sooooo much room.

[Thorburn]

Done a lot of game and application tests with an SSD in a USB 3.0 caddy, including looking at speeds for both ports.

Forgot to reupload this video after losing my previous channel, so thanks for the thread serving as a reminder.

[MattWeed9]

Awesome, thank you for the video.

[suspencer83]

I am looking to buy an SSD to store games like World of Warcraft and the like. Is this possible? If so, would this work? Amazon.com: Seagate Backup Plus Slim 1TB Portable External Hard Drive with Mobile Device Backup USB 3.0 (Blue) STDR1000102: Computers & Accessories

Thanks in advance.

[janner43]

Welcome to the forum

I see no reason why that external drive wouldn't work on the T100 for general data storage. Whether you can install to it I would n't know. But I am confused as to why you havn't posted this in the T100 Games section?

I've moved the thread there for you.

[suspencer83]

Thank you! I'm just new and wasn't sure where to post. Thank you for the contribution! Are there any hard drives known to be able to install games to and play from?