World Of Warcraft Now Requires an SSD To Run Shadowlands Expansion

Just cut and paste the entire WoW folder to the new folder. When you open the WoW app, you just have to point to the new location. You won’t have to reinstall anything.

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No, no online. I meant one I could just go to the store and pick it off a shelf, go to checkout and then walk out the door with it. Will a 3.1/2 eternal work with a 3.0 usb outlet?

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Only places that might are Best Buy or any place that sells consumer electronics.

My local store has that one in stock right now. If you look at Target webpage, you can see what external drives are available. Or just go into the electronics section of the store :slight_smile:

You machine can handle USB C or USB A so pretty much any USB external will work. The 3.5 drive can work externally it just depends on how it connects - and pretty much any will connect to your system.

In my experience, the 3.5 will plug into your system but need to also plug into wall power. The 2.5 drives can be powered just by USB so that can be nice.

If you are remotely interested in swapping out the internal, here is a teardown:
https://laptopmedia.com/highlights/inside-hp-omen-17-2019-disassembly-and-upgrade-options/

Its basically:
10 screws to remove the bottom plastic.
4 screws to remove the Drive.
4 screws to remove the HDD frame.

Insert new drive and reinstall OS.

I’d rather just take it to a professional to install it and download the OS. Last time I tried to upgrade a PC myself was my old tower that I completely broke(I now just use it as a drink stand since I broke it beyond repair), which prompted my family to gift me this laptop.(bless them).

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Either way, I am using an external and understand the reasoning behind it.

If you do want to go external, just walk into Target, Best Buy, Micro Center even Wal Mart. Most have external hard drives. Just try to get an SSD external vs an external HDD.

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That doesn’t make sense. Why would is need an SSD?

yea, that’s the route I’m going to go. Just grab an external and use it for 2-3 years(when my current warranty runs out) then just buy a new laptop that has one already installed when I have the cash saved up for it.

Best transfer software I used to transfer stuff from a old spin drive to a ssd drive was Capricorn. even comes with a usb cable. Although it only works with 2.5 ssd drives I believe. To transfer to a pci ssd drive the cable would not work.

Does copy and paste between the internal HDD to the external SSD not work?

For WoW, yes. For your operating system, no.

Also, you don’t have to have WoW on the same drive as your operating system.

And some people (like me) prefer to separate OS and data whenever possible. Because I am like Sheldon:

This. I’ve been playing on Beta since it launched with WoW installed on a USB HDD and it runs just fine. Even with two windows open. The loading times are the same as what I have now. A SSD is NOT required.

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I play BFA on an HDD and while the initial load times are irritatingly long, especially if I’m loading into something like an in-combat LFR group (where I get about ten seconds of watching everyone fight with no particle effects lol) I find it easily manageable. If I’m facing a long load time I just alt-tab and browse the internet or something until I can hear it load in.

SSD being listed as minimum looks like it’s there so that players can’t reasonably complain about long load times anymore, but if you’re someone like me who has already honed their skills in compensating for them there is very little reason to worry.

That being said, I also don’t do arenas, and I can see how that could definitely be a problem if the match starts before you’re loaded in.

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Its mostly Blizzard just trying to push people to use them now. You can still play without one. But why would you? :stuck_out_tongue:

I get so lost when it comes to things like this. I have a laptop with 2 drives.

One is a kingston rbusns8180s3128gj apparently, the other is st1000lm049.

I think I run WoW from the st1000lm049 because the kingston is pretty much full from windows os alone.

The load times aren’t horrendous with the st1000lm049 but I would have no idea what things to buy. The kingston drive (from what I’ve seen on google images) looks like its not a standard sized drive physically.

Maybe I should just leave well enough alone.

WoW players said the same thing when XP support was dropped and yet players are still here. A SSD can be had for cheap and it offers benefits beyond just WoW. There’s no reason not to have one at this point. It’s not like Blizzard is asking you guys to have the soon to be RTX 3000 series graphics cards.

If this is true blizzard will lose a ton of subs for a few months.

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hey OP, I thought we needed SSDs to run Shadowlands.
:thinking: