80Gb was too small after all.

barnei

barnei

barnei

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I've only just realised that you cannot choose where steam installs its games to and unfortunately I have quite a few steam games.

My plan was that I would use my x-25 ssd as the os drive for more regularly played games and my 1Tb F1 for everything else i.e. media and rarely played games.

Since I realised you can't split the instalations I could move all my steam games to the F1 but that kind of defeats the purpose I bought the ssd for.

So should I buy 2 500Gb F3 and raid 0 them for all steam games and media etc, using the F1 as a backup drive/spare and x-25 as OS and office programs and non steam games.

Or

Save up some more and get the cheapest 60-80Gb ssd and use x-25 as os/office, new ssd for steam games and F1 as media.

Or

Save up even more and raid 0 2 x-25 to give 160Gb for OS, Office and steam games and F1 for media.

Sorry It's a long post, basically I want to know which would be best performance / cost (i.e. bang for buck)
 
You can pick where steam puts your games, i have all mine on another drive!!?? i had an old 400gb sitting aroung so that is now used just for games.
 
You can split Steam games across drives using then NTFS junction command (mklink). Instructions are on the steam forums or google. One simple command can redirect a folder in the steam hierarcy to another folder on another drive. It is very easy to do and invisible to steam and the game. You install the games to the steam folder on the SSD and then issue the command and move the folder over.
Cheaper than buying another SSD. Alternatively just backup and then delete the game using the steam backup command and only have games installed that you are currently playing.
 
I think you can only choose where steam is, ie were all the games are, which can be on any drive but not spread out on different ones.

Personally i would use the x-25 for os and non steam apps and put steam on the 1tb f1 and see how it goes and then go for raided 500gb drives for steam (or maybe single plattered 250-320gb hdds) if it's not good enough. ssds are still too expensive for large amounts of data imo.
 
The RAID 0 is mainly good for reading and writing large files, in some areas Raid 0 can actually slow your system down. The SSD are a bit of a novelty at the moment until their capacity increases. So not too much choice. Probbly best going for another SSD and raiding that with your current SSD.
 
mklink sounds like the ideal solution.

I'll reinstall steam on the F1 and then link the faster games over to the ssd.

Then I'll think more about raiding some F3's, mainly to cure the bug of wanting to tinker with raid arrays. (I'm sure a lot of people on these forums have that 'bug' :P ) and it seems so cheap for those drives. Or I'll hold on till a 2nd ssd becomes more affordable.

Anyway thanks for the advice, never knew about the NTFS junction ability.
 
you can move steam by moving steamapps and the launch icon to another HD
there is a guide from steam online...

however be careful as I lost save data in one game, don't understand why (machinarium)
 
boosfuk said:
You can split Steam games across drives using then NTFS junction command (mklink). Instructions are on the steam forums or google. One simple command can redirect a folder in the steam hierarcy to another folder on another drive. It is very easy to do and invisible to steam and the game. You install the games to the steam folder on the SSD and then issue the command and move the folder over.
Cheaper than buying another SSD. Alternatively just backup and then delete the game using the steam backup command and only have games installed that you are currently playing.
Click to expand...

+1
 
Just a thought, but if you keep the Steam install on your SSD and then mklink your entire \steamapps directory (or just the parts you don't want on the SSD) from a directory on your F1, you'll have the Steam application itself with the performance boosts that come with the SSD.

S'what I'm about to do, hopefully.
 
Last time I installed Steam it allowed me to choose the location. I put Steam itself on a secondary drive and then anything it downloads goes there by default, or am I missing something?
 
Well, mine's working fine. Got my steam directory on the SSD itself, then mklinked the common, media and sourcemods folders to my older drive.
 
Been wondering how to do this myself, my steam folder is currently on my 1TB, taking up 187gb, i plan to put l4d2, counter strike source, tf2 on ssd. Thanks for the link.
 
el Kuarlos said:
yea, best drive for stram and that is still a raptor imo. SSD needs tto mature a fair but yet, we are talking a year minimum.
Click to expand...

Absolute nonsense, I use my x25-m with steam and its fine and i upgraded from a veliciraptor I just archive the games im not currently playing down to the 2tb
 
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