Is My Drive Really SSD?

Hello everyone. I want to install "Baldur's Gate 3" to my external USB drive. Baldur's Gate requires an SSD to run.

Now, I was told several years ago at MicroCenter that the drive I was purchasing was an SSD.

If I open diskdefrag, It is listed as "Hard Disk Drive." That's that I guess. But I later learned that earlier SSD's might show up as "Hard Disk Drive" even though they are not.

I tried running a test:



Can you tell me, if possible, based on the above attached screen shot if my drive really is SSD?

Thanks!

Hello @RadCaz and welcome to ElevenForum.

If you know the make/model of the external drive, that would help.


Just open File Explorer and right click your C:\ drive and choose Properties and then click on the Hardware tab...
(make sure you have the external USB drive hooked up when you do this)

To post a screenshot on this forum...​

1. Take the screenshot, edit it as desired, save to your desktop as .png or .jpg (max. size = 2MB)
2. Left click in your post, where you want to place the screenshot.
3. Click the Attach Files button at lower left, browse to your pic and click Insert.
4. After clicking Insert, I usually choose the Thumbnail option.





This is my 2.5" slow internal SSD...



My internal 3.5" hard drive...



My old Corsair Voyager GT 3.0 USB thumb drive (USB stick)...


Same old USB stick (read)...






My new Corsair GTX USB stick...


Same new USB stick (read)...


Corsair GTX thumb drive - 256GB



Well, that was fun.

I just ran WinSat tests. These are the Disk Random 16.0 Write results:
On an internal M.2 Sata SSD, I got 80MB/s.
On an internal 2.5inch Sata SSD, I got 180MB/s.
On an external USB-connected M.2 NVMe SSD, I got 220MB/s.
Added later - for two internal Sata-connected HDDs, I got 2.8MB/s, 1.5MB/s
Added later - for three partitions on an M.2 MVMe SSD, I got 297MB/s, 274MB/s, 319MB/s.
On an external USB-connected HDD, I got 1.6MB/s.
On another external USB-connected HDD, I got 1.32MB/s.

So I think your 2.11MB/s test results are for an HDD.


Denis

Drive I is external SSD, Drive J is external HDD, both connected via USB.



Read results

Disk defragment will show driver type.

FreeBooter said:

Disk defragment will show driver type.

Click to expand...

But that's no fun.

You can also look in Device Manager under Disk drives. A true SSD should have SSD in it's description.

FreeBooter said:

Disk defragment will show driver type.

Click to expand...

The OP is trying to validate that entry because some doubt was cast upon it.

RadCaz said:

If I open diskdefrag, It is listed as "Hard Disk Drive." That's that I guess. But I later learned that earlier SSD's might show up as "Hard Disk Drive" even though they are not.

Click to expand...

All the best,
Denis

Corsair GTX thumb drive - 256GB

Baldur's Gate 3 requires an SSD because it needs the bandwidth to load the 'open world' environment and textures effectively, whether your external drive is an SSD or not it will be limited to the maximum practical read speed of the USB interface used, this may not be fast enough to allow a smooth gaming experiance.

As to whether the game's installer actually checks for a physical SSD on install (and how it does this) or whether it just performs a disk read/ write speed test for minimum requirements is probably unkown at this time, although I am sure there will be methods to get around the limitation posted in forums soon.

Thanks everyone! I didn't think about Baldur's Gate 3 functionality if running off an USB external drive. Skyrim and Witcher 3 seem to run fine.
I know that my C: drive is practically full because of Diablo IV, so again, I was hoping to put BG3 on my external.
I don't want to un-install D4 to make room.
What to do? What to do?
Should I get a new internal drive with larger capacity? Mind you, my budget is a bit limited... and last I checked Steam's Baldur's Gate is like, 60 bucks! Yowza!
Okay, so if I get a new internal SSD drive, you peeps will help me right? Like how to transfer D4 and other stuff on my current internal SSD onto the new one?
I've been tinkering with computers since the ol' Commodore 64 days, but in some areas I'm still a bit of a n00b.
Thanks again!

RadCaz said:

Should I get a new internal drive with larger capacity? ... Like how to transfer D4 and other stuff on my current internal SSD onto the new one?

Click to expand...

If you do decide to replace your existing disk, one reliable & fairly straightforward way of doing so is to:
1 Use a system imaging utility such as Macrium reflect to make a system image of your whole [existing] disk
2 Put the new disk in a USB enclosure and restore the system image to it in stages to ensure you make use of the entire disk size
- The procedure will depend on the chosen system imagining utility so tell us what you use so that somebody who knows it can guide you.
- - In essence, you'd restore the EFI system partition & the C:\ drive partition parts of the system image to it, then
- - Enlarge the C:\ drive partition to cover the rest of the disk except for a mere 520MB at its end, then
- - Restore the Recovery partition part of the system image into that 520MB section.
3 Fit the new disk. Windows should boot quite happily from it. Everything you've got now will still be on there and the extra space can be used to install that additional game.
It's best for somebody who knows your system imaging utility to guide you through this. My outline procedure can be improved upon.

In order to help your guide, please post a screenshot of Disk management so your current partitions can be seen.
- Be careful to drag around the column dividers in the upper half of the Disk mgmt window so all the text can be seen.
- Drag up / down the dividing line between the upper & lower parts of the Disk mgmt window to remove unwanted white space from the diagram.
- Drag around the edges of the Disk mgmt window so that all its contents are visible but a minimum of wasted white space is posted.
How to Post a Screenshot of Disk Management - TenForumsTutorials
[There isn't an ElevenForum equivalent yet.]

Your guide will probably suggest you use MiniTool Partition Wizard instead of Disk mgmt for the partitioning work. It is much better.


Best of luck,
Denis

RadCaz said:

View attachment 66924
Thanks everyone! I didn't think about Baldur's Gate 3 functionality if running off an USB external drive. Skyrim and Witcher 3 seem to run fine.
I know that my C: drive is practically full because of Diablo IV, so again, I was hoping to put BG3 on my external.
I don't want to un-install D4 to make room.
What to do? What to do?
Should I get a new internal drive with larger capacity? Mind you, my budget is a bit limited... and last I checked Steam's Baldur's Gate is like, 60 bucks! Yowza!
Okay, so if I get a new internal SSD drive, you peeps will help me right? Like how to transfer D4 and other stuff on my current internal SSD onto the new one?
I've been tinkering with computers since the ol' Commodore 64 days, but in some areas I'm still a bit of a n00b.
Thanks again!

Click to expand...

One consideration: the BC511 is a 2230 SSD, meaning that it's only 30mm long. More typical NVME SSDs are in the 2280 format, 80mm long.

It's possible your laptop could take a 2280 drive, but as you haven't told us the complete model number, it's hard to check.

If you're stuck with a 2230 drive, they are available up to at least 2tB. They're more expensive than the 2280 drives, though.

You could clone your 256GB drive to a larger one. There are multiple ways to do that, if you're up for the reading.

(I recently cloned a 1TB NVME drive to a 2TB one. The 2TB drive was in in external enclosure, with a USB connection, I used the paid version of Macrium Reflect. Easy, once I figured out the Reflect user interface.)

RadCaz said:

What to do? What to do?

Click to expand...

1. Enter the exact model number of your Dell laptop into your forum profile system specs. If it's the Dell G5 SE 5505, then your laptop has room for two internal NVMe SSDs.
2. What's your budget? Here is an example of an affordable (IMO anyway) NVMe SSD that is both suitable for gaming and won't generate so much heat inside a laptop that it only causes the whole laptop to run hotter than the sun while gaming on it. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MTQTNVR