is it possible to split steam accross 2 drives

bigjimmyauk

bigjimmyauk

bigjimmyauk

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i was thinking a decent size SSD is out of my reach but i have 1tb mechanical hdd is it possible to somehow split steam across the 2 so games with high loading textures can run on the ssd and games that require less storage speed can be on the mechanical drive.

Or is the only way to do it is have steam on the SSD and store all the games folders on the mechanical then drag them across to the SSD when i want to play on them. my current steam folder is about 125 GB and thats with 10 games uninstalled until i want to play them.
 
Yes - but you have to map folders from steam common apps to the SSD drive.

Easiest way to do this is to partition the SSD into different drives for each game you want to install on it and then map that game folder from the steam install on the mechanical HDD to the relevant drive.
 
antran said:
hmm.....why would you want to do something like that?
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was in not obvious in the OP because a 120 GB SSD will obviously not hold all of the current steam games i play considering my steam folder is already 125 GB with 10 games uninstalled and 20 i play obviously the os would not fit on there aswell hence the need to store them on another drive and bring them to the ssd when i need them.

in future please read the OP before making such failed posts i clearly explained it in the first instance unless you insinuating i'm upto something i shouldn't be which i'm not
 
Rroff said:
Yes - but you have to map folders from steam common apps to the SSD drive.

Easiest way to do this is to partition the SSD into different drives for each game you want to install on it and then map that game folder from the steam install on the mechanical HDD to the relevant drive.
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Sounds complex lol. Would my other method work say installing the OS and steam on the SSD then just dragging the games out of the steam folder onto the mechanical drive. for instance say i want to play stalker complete mod i can just drag that from mechanical into the steam folder on the ssd putting it back in it's relavent place then when i'm done drag it out and swap it over with another game. Obviously i won't be doing this every few hours i have about 10 games i play a lot but play them in 2-3 day spurts so waiting 5-10 minutes to transfer a game from hdd to ssd isn't really a problem. Thats if it will work in the first instance
 
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Rroff said:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=16156002&postcount=15

Thats my method which saves messing around with additional programs or potentially destroying your FS but its not quite as flexible as the other method(s). You can skip the compmgmt.msc bit and go straight to disk management with diskmgmt.msc.


More posts here:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18120978
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Just tried cutting and pasting some non important steam game from one mechnical to another and it seemed to work ok namely i cut the AVP classic folder and pasted it into my E: drive tried to start the game using steam and it said game unavailable i then reversed the process moving it back from e: to c: and clicked play in steam and it worked fine it was a 475Mb file and only took maybe 8 seconds to move it.

Could you forsee any problems if i use this method. btw i always appreciate ur good advice on the forums.
 
Cut the files from inside the AVP folder to the e: drive root but leave the AVP folder in steam and then use disk management to mount the e: drive to the now empty AVP folder in the steam install. I'll get some screenshots from my gaming machine tomorrow to show what I've done better - I've already turned it off for the night.
 
Rroff said:
Cut the files from inside the AVP folder to the e: drive root but leave the AVP folder in steam and then use disk management to mount the e: drive to the now empty AVP folder in the steam install.
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Hence that would still make the game playable from steam even tho the game was on a totally different drive correct?

Would this also work in reverse having my primary steam install on ssd then mounting all non important games to the mechanical 1TB drive and leaving my FO3 and heavily modded texture games on SSD
 
It gets more complicated in reverse and you'd really need to use junction points/mlink. The way I do it has the one downside that you need a new drive letter for each game installed elsewhere - but it saves messing around with complicated drive links.
 
Rroff said:
It gets more complicated in reverse and you'd really need to use junction points/mlink. The way I do it has the one downside that you need a new drive letter for each game installed elsewhere - but it saves messing around with complicated drive links.
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Starting to sound a bit complex :confused: is there any particular reason you just can't cut and paste them from drive to drive as you need them say store all 30 of my games on the 1tb then when i want to play x game i just drop it back in the common folder on the ssd
 
You could install steam to the SSD, and only copy in the games your actually playing and keep the rest backed up on the mechanical HDD... wouldn't be my choosen way to do it but if your happy to do that it will work.
 
bigjimmyauk said:
was in not obvious in the OP because a 120 GB SSD will obviously not hold all of the current steam games i play considering my steam folder is already 125 GB with 10 games uninstalled and 20 i play obviously the os would not fit on there aswell hence the need to store them on another drive and bring them to the ssd when i need them.

in future please read the OP before making such failed posts i clearly explained it in the first instance unless you insinuating i'm upto something i shouldn't be which i'm not
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Sorry, if I sounded rude. I was only curious why you would do something like that.
 
Rroff said:
You could install steam to the SSD, and only copy in the games your actually playing and keep the rest backed up on the mechanical HDD... wouldn't be my choosen way to do it but if your happy to do that it will work.
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Might be easier that way for now as my knowledge about mounting drives etc etc is pretty poor something i really need to read up on before having a go myself. Would still appreciate the desktop shot tho to show how you've done it so i can get a general idea and i have plenty of mechanical drives to practice on
 
Not sure if it will work for all games, but just taking the game folder from the steamapps folder and dropping it on the ssd, then running the launch game file from the ssd (not through steam) definately works with gta4, haven't tested it on much else but can't see it being a problem unless the game has to be launched through steam.
 
bigjimmyauk said:
Starting to sound a bit complex :confused: is there any particular reason you just can't cut and paste them from drive to drive as you need them say store all 30 of my games on the 1tb then when i want to play x game i just drop it back in the common folder on the ssd
Click to expand...

If I understand you correctly, that could work but I've never tried it.
Before you do it, set each games in steam so they are not automatically updated.
 
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