Store Save Data on External Drive

save data and cache data is stored on the internal drive regardless if you use an external, you will need to free space on the internal drive.

Save data is stored on the cloud as long as you're signed into Live. Having an external hard drive will not effect anything concerning accounts or save data.

I was always under the impression that your save data was saved to the cloud. I had an external hard drive go down on me, making it so that I had to reinstall the games that I had downloaded to it. Once I downloaded the games again, all of my save files
came with them.

All save data is stored on the internal drive for any game that it was downloaded for. All save data is also stored online. Save data is downloaded when you install a game and when a game is opened (if the cloud service says the console’s data isn’t the
latest version), usually after the Press Menu title screen, when the Syncing Save Data popup pops up. Some games appear to also have extra “save data” stored locally. That is, data space reserved for the game. So the game doesn’t need to worry about not having
space.

Thank you for taking the time to reply to this thread, Timothy.

In regards to your further inquiries, Its a soft cap made in-game, usually be developers. This is done to typically allow the game to focus on providing you the least amount of limits in the least possible saves.

Two examples could be Minecraft, where the worlds start off small in data, but gradually grow depending how much of the infinite world you have discovered, and the amount of content you have created. Fallout 4 provides a similar cap, since creating structures
expands your save file.

Fallout 4 also has a reserved space, but this is used for mods you can apply in-game. You cannot exceed this limit. Other games such as the NBA2K series use reserved space for your "My Character"

I hope this was able to help clear up any additional questions regarding this matter.