An external upgrade that beats internal SSDs

In 2025, external SSDs are no longer just for backups. With USB4 and Thunderbolt 4, they reach speeds of up to 4,000 MB/s, meaning games can run as smoothly as on internal drives. This is the ideal solution for laptops and mini PCs.

Photo: Satechi

If your laptop or mini PC with 512 GB of space fills up after installing three modern games, upgrading is often difficult due to warranty void labels or the fear of plastic clips breaking. But in 2025, external drives are no longer just for backups. They can now run demanding games without any problems.

Thanks to USB4 and Thunderbolt 4, external SSDs can reach up to 40 Gbps of bandwidth (around 4,000 MB/s), which is almost the same as internal drives. PCIe tunneling provides similar performance, so you can play games like Cyberpunk 2077 or Starfield without any difference in loading times.

Since gaming performance stops at around 3,000 MB/s, external SSDs can easily reach optimal speeds, while internal Gen 5 SSDs exceed 14,000 MB/s. Pre-assembled external SSDs are expensive (around €185 for 1 TB), but building your own is cheaper: buy a USB4 NVMe enclosure (around €74) and a 1TB M.2 SSD (around €74). Upgrading to 4TB is easy, just replace the drive.

External SSDs also bring portability. You can move your entire Steam library between devices with a single cable, and mini PCs with a single M.2 slot get the only expansion option. For best results, format as NTFS (Windows) or APFS (Mac), as exFAT can cause game crashes.

Gone are the days of slow external drives. With USB4 or Thunderbolt 4, you get the performance of an internal SSD without opening your computer.