Steam on SSD
- Thread starter ADP
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Man of Honour
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Don´t see why there would be. The Steam application itself is very small.
I've only got my OS on my SSD, and then Steam and my games on a standard HDD, my games load pretty quickly I'd say, although in fairness I've never had any games installed on and SSD to compare them. Another SSD is on my 'to buy list' though, as I'd like a 256 or 512gb drive to store my most played games on.
My setup has an older 64GB SSD which has a couple of Steam games on (SteamTool For the Win) which I find are the most disk-intensive ones. Skyrim seemed to stutter with quite a few mods on, but when moved to the SSD it was fine.
I'm also booting off a 120GB SSD, and so I've a couple of other Steam games on there as well, just helps improve load times really. I certainly wouldn't stick my whole Steam library on an SSD for a long time yet!
I'm also booting off a 120GB SSD, and so I've a couple of other Steam games on there as well, just helps improve load times really. I certainly wouldn't stick my whole Steam library on an SSD for a long time yet!
You don't need steamtool anymore afaik, as you can have multiple libraries.
I don't think there would be any point in having the actual application on there however, it may load a few seconds quicker, but nothing lifechanging
Afaik, Steam let's you install to different directories - but it doesn't let you move installs around. So, you could have a game downloaded to your HDD, and when you want to play it you'd use Steam Tool / SteamMover etc to move the game from the HDD to SSD. Once you've played it, move the game back to the HDD so you save your SSD room but don't have to re-download the game if you want to play it again.
It's a pity Steam doesn't have this functionality, but by the time it does, large SSDs will be cheap enough to not care
Afaik, Steam let's you install to different directories - but it doesn't let you move installs around. So, you could have a game downloaded to your HDD, and when you want to play it you'd use Steam Tool / SteamMover etc to move the game from the HDD to SSD. Once you've played it, move the game back to the HDD so you save your SSD room but don't have to re-download the game if you want to play it again.
It's a pity Steam doesn't have this functionality, but by the time it does, large SSDs will be cheap enough to not care
don't think I know many games where you can just move the game about without it screwing up because of where registry values are pointing to?
but if you do want to do something similar why not make a backup of each game you like on the HDD through steam, and then just implement the back up to the SSD if and when you want to play the game? will only need the updates from the point you created the backup then?
think this is possible. not tested exactly this myself, but have used the backup feature to put my games onto other peoples PCs at lan to save the downloads.
also I have an SSD for just the OS and some application and then an SSD for games, so steam is on this SSD too. it's small enough and I don't put too many games on so pretty much everything gaming related is in one place for ease
but I have on occasion put not so important steam games onto a different HDD. (SSD ideally for the games with the massive loads like BF/Arma etc etc)
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Soldato
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I've only skim read but I think I have something to add...
I had my Steam on the same SSD as my OS... I've since put another SSD in and just dragged the Steam folder out of my C: and put it in the new D:. Shift+Del. on the original in C: and everything still works faultlessly (apart from the shortcuts/desktop icons)
I had my Steam on the same SSD as my OS... I've since put another SSD in and just dragged the Steam folder out of my C: and put it in the new D:. Shift+Del. on the original in C: and everything still works faultlessly (apart from the shortcuts/desktop icons)
My games and steam library have remained sat on the same drive through multiple OS reinstalls and have been copied/pasted to a few different disks as well. They continue to work with no issues.
Afaik, Steam let's you install to different directories - but it doesn't let you move installs around. So, you could have a game downloaded to your HDD, and when you want to play it you'd use Steam Tool / SteamMover etc to move the game from the HDD to SSD. Once you've played it, move the game back to the HDD so you save your SSD room but don't have to re-download the game if you want to play it again.
It's a pity Steam doesn't have this functionality, but by the time it does, large SSDs will be cheap enough to not care
don't think I know many games where you can just move the game about without it screwing up because of where registry values are pointing to?
but if you do want to do something similar why not make a backup of each game you like on the HDD through steam, and then just implement the back up to the SSD if and when you want to play the game? will only need the updates from the point you created the backup then?
think this is possible. not tested exactly this myself, but have used the backup feature to put my games onto other peoples PCs at lan to save the downloads.
also I have an SSD for just the OS and some application and then an SSD for games, so steam is on this SSD too. it's small enough and I don't put too many games on so pretty much everything gaming related is in one place for ease
You can also use symbolic links to move your folders around, but make the OS/application think they are still in the same place
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I have Steam on my 250gb SSD and a few games and load times are greatly increased. I copy over the games onto my 2tb storage drive and drop them back on my SSD when I want to play them at a later date. Thats the best idea if you dont have great internets or have a data cap but Im using BT infinity so it dosnt take long to download them again
Soldato
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this is what i plan to be doing, although how long my game library will remain under 500gb is debateable.
i guess there's not much actual benefit in itself having the application on the drive, but i cant see much in the way of drawbacks unless space is a premium.
good thinking batman, although as a fellow infinity user it is indeed truly glorious the speed of installs, even at 6mb/s [seems to be a steam imposed limit, our side is 45 ish]