lol Do you think that playing my ISOs off of an external hard drive causes slowdowns?

[joshsonic26]

I didn't want to clog up my measly 500GB hard drive with a bunch of ps2 games, and carrying around 20 discs in a disc case didn't seem fun, so I've been using an external hard drive to play all of my games. It uses the USB 3.0, but I'm still sort of wondering if I should just play them off of my internal hard drive, or does it not matter do you think?

[Koji]

I wouldn't even imagine a USB2.0 drive would cause any issues... You could always simply test to see if you have an issue, but you definitely shouldn't.

[Scootaloo]

I wouldn't even imagine a USB2.0 drive would cause any issues... You could always simply test to see if you have an issue, but you definitely shouldn't.

What about internal secondary hard drives?

I keep PCSX2 (the current stable version) installed on my main drive along with all of my games, and I always put the dev. version on my secondary drive then I browse for the game on my main drive.

For me, there is no speed difference. Both are just normal old fat drives (SETA I think), but they are internal.

However I don't think it is a good idea for you to run PCSX2 off a USB drive, because they aren't really built for that (as far as I know anyway), and are meant more for carrying documents/music or other lite weight files. If you are going to try an external hard drive (as the thread states ) then I am not sure what to tell you.

[Avastor]

Why not pull 1-2 games you want off the external drive and place it onto your computer and play it. There shouldn't be a reason to have all of your games on the computer's hard-drive at once (unless you are that type of gamer ).

[nosisab Ken Keleh]

I didn't want to clog up my measly 500GB hard drive with a bunch of ps2 games, and carrying around 20 discs in a disc case didn't seem fun, so I've been using an external hard drive to play all of my games. It uses the USB 3.0, but I'm still sort of wondering if I should just play them off of my internal hard drive, or does it not matter do you think?

No, but a slow computer might cause slow emulation

Depend on the game, that computer may run many with default settings and will need speedhacks in other many and may not achieve full speed at all in some.

PS: If the games are running from the ISO at the internal HD already, they will run OK from the external HD (all that's needed is windows it a drive Letter), the speed should be enough.

[Koji]

What about internal secondary hard drives?

I keep PCSX2 (the current stable version) installed on my main drive along with all of my games, and I always put the dev. version on my secondary drive then I browse for the game on my main drive.

For me, there is no speed difference. Both are just normal old fat drives (SETA I think), but they are internal.

However I don't think it is a good idea for you to run PCSX2 off a USB drive, because they aren't really built for that (as far as I know anyway), and are meant more for carrying documents/music or other lite weight files. If you are going to try an external hard drive (as the thread states ) then I am not sure what to tell you.

There is no difference in speed between two internal drives unless your mobo only has a certain number of SATA3 versus SATA 2 slots. Even then, the difference would be negligible for PCSX2 even using SSD.

PCSX2 won't care if you're running it off of USB or not. The program itself goes straight into memory when you load it. The program itself is only ever going to access the USB drive again after it's loaded to read/write to configuration files and saves (if it's set to save to USB as well).

As for PS2 games themselves... USB seek times should be on par with SATA 2 for data, so that number can be tossed aside. PS2 DVD read speeds clock out at 4x, or roughly 6MB/s. USB 2.0 read speed max out at 30-40MB, personally I've never owned a device that's written/read above 25MB/s still roughly 4x as fast as the PS2 drive. That said, there is never a guarantee you'll get the best results every time... so you could experience brief loading periods via it, but still likely faster than trying to read from the real disc.

[DaMan]

USB isn't the most CPU friendly interface, but it shouldn't make a difference.

[TBX]

I've test running FFX-2 from external 2TB HDD that only have USB 2.0 interface.
and I noticed a small stuttering of the BGM after I won the battle this is a bit annoying.
and I found the BGM stuttering will not happend if I put the ISOs in my internal HDD.

PS. When testing between Internal / External HDD, I use same setting in PCSX2 and I only use recommended speed hack.

[Zangetsu21]

Strange, I play all my PS2 games from an external as I also don't want to carry discs around, never had trouble with. Used to run it off my secondary internall HDD, no problems there. I recently switched to a USB3 external and the games run great, but I never had issues with USB2 external or a secondary internal drive.

[Topken]

Depends on weather or not the external is a 2.5 inch 5400rpm drive or if it's running at 7200rpm or higher. I had issues running my ps2 iso's from my external 5400rpm 2.5 inch drive which is using usb2. so yeah it's possible it's causing issues.