Save VST instruments to external HDD?

I have a question about virtual instruments on my laptop.

The storage space of my SSD is slowly becoming scarce and I'm trying to move a lot to an external HDD.

Can I do this with VST instruments and effects, or do I have to expect significantly more latency / poorer performance?

It depends on how extensive.

NI Session Strings has about 45GB of samples

You can tell the difference extremely clearly

How do you notice a difference? Latency? Long processing time?

You shouldn't have any latency when playing.

The loading time should be longer, otherwise it is not a problem. It would also be important that the computer always recognizes the external hard drive as the same drive letter! For example, I made a network drive shortcut on my USB stick and gave it a specific drive letter.

While loading.

I use a lot of VST (i) from Nativ Instruments which are huge

It's annoying when you start a project, go to the loo, get coffee, maybe smoke a short while he's still at the shop.

It also disrupts the workflow when you add instruments and have to wait until it has loaded.

In operation it is in the main memory, but it can also be tight, I'm often around 24GB

I have the frequently used and large ones lying on the m2 nvme

How about normal Vst effects, so no libraries, but individual plug-ins?

It doesn't matter, you won't notice any difference, the CPU performance alone is decisive regardless of where it is stored

It is only about loading data, once it is loaded it is in the main memory and only uses CPU resources