Best to have steam on seperate drive?

Craterloads · 14 Jul 2012 at 12:58

Just got the last few bits for my newish PC, and about to set it all up.

Anyhow have got

2 x 256GB SSD - Samsung 830
64GB Crucial M4
1TB Samsung SpinPoint F1

A bit confused how to set it all up. Am i best raiding the two SSD's and installing steam on there together with OS?

Or split them up and have OS on one drive and steam on the other 256gb drive.

Not sure if 256Gb is going to be big enough, especially after all the games ive bought recently during the sales!

Or should i just use the small 64GB SSD for OS and install steam on the 1TB drive and get rid of the larger SSD's. Bang for buck im after!

andy85wsm · 14 Jul 2012 at 13:02

I have Guild Wars 2 Beta and SWTOR on my 128gb SSD and have steam on my 2TB HDD because of the amount of games I know I will download over time.

If you have less than 256gb of Steam games then by all means whack it on your SSD. It's relatively easy to swap at a later date.

d_brennen · 14 Jul 2012 at 13:02

Having Steam on a separate volume makes sense come reinstall time

I'd have the OS on one of the bigger SSDs (RAID setups with SSDs make lovely benchmarks but will you notice a difference outside of synthetic benchmarks?) and Steam on the other.

OR

RAID 0 the SSDs for man points and have Windows and Steam on them, keep a backup on the 1TB

OR

Reserve the SSDs for important programs and have Stream on the 1TB if loading times don't bother you

orderoftheflame · 14 Jul 2012 at 13:03

Steam on the big mechanical drive, then use GSM or SteamMover to copy games that your currently playing to the SSD. It's how most people go on here I think.

There's some info in the Stram FAQ in my sig about doing it.

Craterloads · 14 Jul 2012 at 13:05

I think im just having buyers remorse over the 2 x 256gb ssds, why the hell spend £275 just on SSD'd for a steam folder or games!!

My brain is saying return them and stick steam on the 1TB and OS on the crucial 64gb.

+ ive only got 2 x sata 6gb/s ports!

Craterloads · 14 Jul 2012 at 13:11

Is this possible

256GB OS
256GB Steam

Then say i fill the steam 256gb, can i transfer games over to the OS driver and use the space there?

d_brennen · 14 Jul 2012 at 13:14

Using Steam Mover, yes

silversurfer · 14 Jul 2012 at 23:08

You can keep multiple versions of steam in any case. Each directory on any drive can have the files needed for just one game and you can swap them back and forth and so on.

I carry round cs on a pen drive sometimes. Just needs a valid account and at worst a quite validate. Im not sure about a util but one that makes a ram disk to store a small game would be snazzy

Rigsta · 14 Jul 2012 at 23:49

d_brennen said:
RAID 0 the SSDs for man points and have Windows and Steam on them, keep a backup on the 1TB

I would also recommend disabling the windows paging file on all the SSDs and move the temp folder to the HDD too.

Deleted member 651465 · 15 Jul 2012 at 00:18

I use a 240GB SSD for OS, and 4TB RAID 0 for games.

Don't tend to bother moving games to the SSD, as I don't want to fubar anything

Antar Bolaeisk · 15 Jul 2012 at 02:23

orderoftheflame said:
Steam on the big mechanical drive, then use GSM or SteamMover to copy games that your currently playing to the SSD. It's how most people go on here I think.

There's some info in the Stram FAQ in my sig about doing it.

This man speaks much sense.

FrenchTart · 15 Jul 2012 at 02:45

Unless you have terrible internet or a weird desire to have your entire Steam library installed at once then all you need is the 64GB SSD for Windows and then one of the 256GB SSDs for Steam.

Return the other, unless your setup supports TRIM in raid 0 (in which case use the 256GB drives raided for your Steam drive).

chris-82 · 19 Jul 2012 at 15:47

I have all my stem games installed so I can access them when I wish rather than waiting for them to download.

Damn I have weird desires! Lol

HangTime · 19 Jul 2012 at 19:08

OS on 64GB drive and Steam on 500GB RAID0 would get my vote.

james.miller · 19 Jul 2012 at 19:11

Craterloads said:
I think im just having buyers remorse over the 2 x 256gb ssds, why the hell spend £275 just on SSD'd for a steam folder or games!!

My brain is saying return them and stick steam on the 1TB and OS on the crucial 64gb.

+ ive only got 2 x sata 6gb/s ports!

Yes you should do this. You dont need 100's of gb's of games that you never play on an ssd - that's what mechanical drivers are for. I'd do as others have suggest and stick to one Ssd and as much mechanical storage as you can get.

uk_viper · 20 Jul 2012 at 13:13

Definitely move steam onto seperate drive, my folder is near on 500Gig So have one drive for OS, one for apps, one for Steam/Games

PapaLazaru · 20 Jul 2012 at 14:08

orderoftheflame said:
Steam on the big mechanical drive, then use GSM or SteamMover to copy games that your currently playing to the SSD. It's how most people go on here I think.

There's some info in the Stram FAQ in my sig about doing it.

This works great for me. Got all my games on a mechanical and I just move over the ones I am playing (mainly BF3 atm) onto my SSD using Steam Mover.

cHk4 · 20 Jul 2012 at 14:23

I have it all on my 512GB SSD, if it starts filling up I'll just mklink to another.

ThundyCat · 20 Jul 2012 at 14:26

orderoftheflame said:
Steam on the big mechanical drive, then use GSM or SteamMover to copy games that your currently playing to the SSD. It's how most people go on here I think.

There's some info in the Stram FAQ in my sig about doing it.

This for the win.

Name · 20 Jul 2012 at 14:27

Yes i use steammover. Playing the main games off my SSD and then games i dip into every now and again + bulk of library off my 2TB HDD

Best to have steam on seperate drive?

Deleted member 651465

Deleted member 651465