simple question

[loco07]

Can I fly in AH using an SSD external hard drive. Keep in mind that I'm a real pilot with limited knowledge about this kind of stuff. May God bless you all!!!

[The Fugitive]

I would think there would be too much delay to an external drive. It is free to download and install the game so you could try it out an see if it works.

[BigR]

Can I fly in AH using an SSD external hard drive. Keep in mind that I'm a real pilot with limited knowledge about this kind of stuff. May God bless you all!!!

on a modern computer with a modern USB/Thunderbolt connection, an external SSD should run the game just fine.

[AKIron]

Another question may be lurking therein. Can you run AH without installing it? I don't know. Some programs you can, some you can't.

[AKIron]

I can answer the question I just posed. I copied the folder where AH was installed from a computer to a computer which has not had AH installed. I was then able to run the game normally.

Two assumptions here. One, you don't have enough space to install on a computer you want to run it which means the computer is likely old. It will run from an external drive but if it is slow don't assume it's because you are running from an external drive. Two, for whatever reason you don't want to install on a newer computer. In that case it should be fine.

To get it on an external drive you will still need to install it on a machine.

[Bizman]

I can answer the question I just posed. I copied the folder where AH was installed from a computer to a computer which has not had AH installed. I was then able to run the game normally.

Two assumptions here. One, you don't have enough space to install on a computer you want to run it which means the computer is likely old. It will run from an external drive but if it is slow don't assume it's because you are running from an external drive. Two, for whatever reason you don't want to install on a newer computer. In that case it should be fine.

To get it on an external drive you will still need to install it on a machine.

Never occurred to me that games of this magnitude could be made portable! Nice...

As a sidenote to #1, if I haven't understood something totally wrong, the game or at least the components needed for running it will load itself to RAM which makes the location of the storage media irrelevant to a degree. Obviously starting the game will take longer because of the port being slower than SATA or M.2 but that affects only the time to get started. The more important question is, will the skins of planes and vehicles be read from the disk only when encountered for the first time? That would cause major hiccups in a furball, then again showing custom skins can be disabled "which can be useful if you're short on memory" as the explanation says.

Another thing to consider is the port used for the external drive. Not even USB-C ports are similar by performance and for more confusion the naming of USB 3 generations has changed. And Thunderbolt is still faster than any USB.

[RotBaron]

Windows 10 and 11 use a lot more resources than Win 7

I resisted upgrading my gaming computer for as long as possible because Win 7 was a great OS comparatively. Upgraded to SSD too, and regret not going with full terabyte. It’s not faster to boot as it supposed “should be”, quite slower (on restart, wake-up and hard boot) and Win 10’s demand on resources IMO is the reason coupled with SATA only system board.

If your system board allows for PCIe/NVMe/PCIe-NVMe them move away from SATA connections… You need to verify your buying a SSD compatible with your system board and as already posted preferably running it on a “modern” computer. Ideally you do not want an external (USB) SSD running software, storing pics and data/files - fine.

Your original question, yes you can from “external” USB connection but I’d anticipate poor performance especially if your computer is older (8+ yrs).

GL

[AKIron]

If you want help with the process step by step sing out. We can provide.