This may sound weird. Have you ever tried to run/play the Sims 2 game on USB hard disc? Is it possible to transfer the game on USB hars disc?

If the USB stick is big enough, I'm sure you could copy your game to it as a backup, but I don't think I'd try to play live on it. I mean it's really not what USB discs are made for. I suppose they are a solid state disc of a sort, but AFAIK they're not made the sort of rapid input/output that you get in gameplay.

What about a PORTABLE HARD DRIVE oe something else?

I would think it would work [on a portable hard drive], but I'd expect it to be a lot slower than using the computer's built-in hard disk drive. Or -- better still a built-in SSD (Solid State Disk). Is there any reason why you want to play using external storage?

I'm not sure about playing games from a USB, but I know programming from one isn't good... Not only does it take more time than doing it directly from the computer, but it can also strain the USB. At least, that's how some files got corrupted on my old one that I use for Uni. I haven't used it since as I was told that randomly corrupted files was a sign that it couldn't be used anymore.

But that's relating to Uni work, not the Sims It may be a different cattle of fish, but I wouldn't risk it

I have run my TS2 from a spare directory on an external hard drive and noticed no major difference in running it that way though that depends on your computer's overall speed to begin with.