1 hour ago, cobalt said:

I created an MSFS2020 folder on the new drive, placed the Official and Community folders in it, and changed the last line in User.cfg to the new address -- simple as that. (I had first tried the alternative method, which is to use the "move" function in Windows 10, but found that it did not work in this case).

Which means that you moved the content, not the sim.  That may explain the performance..🙂

Not sure what you mean. All of the files needed to run MSFS are in Official, are they not? Moreover the address of MSFS is now my external drive. So what part of the "sim" remains on the old drive?

Edited June 4, 20242 yr by cobalt

6 hours ago, Bert Pieke said:

Which means that you moved the content, not the sim.  That may explain the performance..🙂

OK, I think I see what you are referring to. There is a very small Xbox Games folder (2.5 GB) remaining on the C  drive that contains files used by MSFS2020 -- which is normal when the sim is moved to another drive, according to multiple sources on the Web.. But all of the operational files of MSFS (324 GB exclusive of add-ons) now reside on my external drive. Bottom line: I (and others, see above) are running MSFS2020 on an external SSD with no loss in performance. This is the main message.

 

3 hours ago, cobalt said:

OK, I think I see what you are referring to. There is a very small Xbox Games folder (2.5 GB) remaining on the C  drive that contains files used by MSFS2020 -- which is normal when the sim is moved to another drive, according to multiple sources on the Web.. But all of the operational files of MSFS (324 GB exclusive of add-ons) now reside on my external drive. Bottom line: I (and others, see above) are running MSFS2020 on an external SSD with no loss in performance. This is the main message.

 

Nice try, but you are running the MSFS Content on an external drive.. which is fine..

But the sim is still running off the C drive, in your case.  😉

7 hours ago, Bert Pieke said:

Nice try, but you are running the MSFS Content on an external drive.. which is fine..

But the sim is still running off the C drive, in your case.  😉

All I know is that 99.23% of my MSFS files are now located on the external drive, and the other 0.77% are on the C drive. If that nevertheless means the sim is "running on the C drive", fine. I don't follow the logic, but I will take your word for it. What matters to me is this: I have gained a huge amount of space (on the external drive) to accommodate future updates on MSFS2020 as well as room to install MSFS2024, if I acquire it at some point, without sacrificing anything in performance. Call that whatever you want to -- I am happy..  

4 hours ago, cobalt said:

All I know is that 99.23% of my MSFS files are now located on the external drive, and the other 0.77% are on the C drive. If that nevertheless means the sim is "running on the C drive", fine. I don't follow the logic, but I will take your word for it. What matters to me is this: I have gained a huge amount of space (on the external drive) to accommodate future updates on MSFS2020 as well as room to install MSFS2024, if I acquire it at some point, without sacrificing anything in performance. Call that whatever you want to -- I am happy..  

It may well be a "distinction without a difference"... but in case others would like to try the same thing, it is worth noting..  MSFS loads up most (if not all) it needs to run into RAM at the start, so after that is complete, it may not matter where it loaded it from..  Not sure if MSFS cares which drive "the sim" is installed on, but it may just use that as a reference..  🙂

As a matter of fact, a number of others have done what I did, and successfully (see earlier posts in this thread, and elsewhere). The current availability of very high-speed external SSDs is a game-changer that invalidates the old notion that you can't run MSFS properly using an external drive. It is time to update this topic.

13 minutes ago, cobalt said:

The current availability of very high-speed external SSDs is a game-changer

That's an important caveat.

*If* people are using fast SSDs and USB 3 or greater to connect them, then the data transfer is the same or higher than the SATAIII connections that a lot of people use for their internal drives.

Seeing the age of the tech some people are using for their PCs, that's not a given.

Nonetheless, good to hear you have found a storage that works without an expensive upgrade.

Absolutely true, and you may have noticed that in my original post I said that a USB 3.2 Gen 1 type C port is required for the particular SSD I use. (It is interesting that my 4 year old computer has this port).

Edited June 5, 20241 yr by cobalt