Can I play games off of external storage on my laptop?

Hello, Cameron D. I'm Arturo, and I'll be glad to provide assistance with your inquiry today.

Yes, you can install games on an external a hard drive and play them without problems on your PC.
Please be aware, that if maybe you plan to install some Microsoft Store / Xbox app game to a new drive, make sure it's formatted as NTFS.

So, as you plan to get an SSD, the waiting time between loading screens will be reduced significantly compared to an HDD.

By checking each SSD listing you shared and if money is not an issue, you could purchase the SanDisk SSD because it's the one that can reach the highest speed MB/S rate.
However, I think the difference when using this drive vs. the others you shared will be very noticeable, but if you want to save some bucks, you can choose either the Samsung or Crucial SSD, both are great drives.

Regards,

Arturo.

Well it is news that a game takes up such a sizeable chunk of a consoles default storage. That you can pay more for external storage doesn't do away with that.

Randver has it spot on, he and IceStorm seem to be saying the same thing but from different angles, that if you are going the external route for playing games off then paying more for a properly cooled model is the way to go.

I have a USB powered backup external for my laptop and that gets warm when moving files to it. I'd hate to think how hot it would get if I were trying to play a game off it for hours at a time.

TLDR: If you want to play games of an external. Buy one with proper cooling. Hard drives do die, don't help them on their way.

I would like to know if I could use it as an extension my laptop so I can use it for additional storage space.

That's not possible, even if it were, 360 storage is pretty slow.

If you want more storage for your laptop buy an external HDD, SSD or fast flash drive.

I have an old 360 which I occasionally use, as it's meant to be used, as retro gaming console. Look's really neat on my LG C2 OLED.

External storage will be a nice addition. I just deleted 4 games off my HDD that I wont be playing. Forza is next to go.

I'm having the exact opposite issue, my Xbox keeps saying external storage ready every minute or so. If I try to play a game off of it it works fine until it re detects my drive which then closes the game. I am currently moving a game to the internal storage
so that I can play it and its taking forever because it keeps losing the re detecting my drive.