STEAM : Backup entire collection ?

[FatRakoon]

Is there a simple way that I can backup my entire Steam collection?

I have done collections like all my HalfLife stuff in one lot and then all my Doom stuff in another then Dawn Of War in another and so on, but I have over 400 games that need doing and frankly, its a ball ache and is simpler to just re-download most of them.

But If I could perhaps have a script that maybe I could edit, or if there is some stand alone app that may help???

Then again, I also want it on the Mac and Linux too come to think of it, so within steam woudl be easier, or is the way provided the only way?

 

[FatRakoon]

Thanks guys.
The idea of simply copying the entire lot was NOT quite what I meant.

I did mean the steam way in how it saves as an archived file.

However, I had been piddling about with that way, and I realised something that with some of the games, is a very important "feature".
It only saves the default files.

For some of the games, for example UnReal Tournament and Doom and Quake and Dawn of War etc etc etc, they all have extra maps and levels and so on, and NONE of these actually get saved!!!

For example, my UnReal Tournament GOTY folder is 1.5GB and when I backed it up, the saved backup was under 500MB

I uninstalled teh game and there was still about 1.1GB in the folder... I have obviously backed up the entire folder, but I saw that the extra maps and music etc was not saved... I deleted the whole folder and restored it but the levels were all gone.

So, yeah, the ONLY choice really is to do the normal steam backup, but then uninstall the game, and then ZIP the rest of the folder so that these extra files will be saved too!

So, I might as well cut out the nonsense and just do a normal copy.

And so yeah, the Common folder is what I will and thats what I have been doing all this time anyway.

I also found out that this also helps with the Linux and the Mac versions too.... The Data files are all teh same and so you often find, that these dont need to be re-downloaded all the time, just the files necessary for Linux or Mac to run the game.

So bugger it. I will just keep doing it the way I have always done it. I like Smogsy's Script however. its the same as my BAT file, but I have simply done it directly, where his uses SET.

Thanks guys.

 

[FatRakoon]

My Internet is not that slow, not that bad. Im currently on Fibre78 and getting mostly around the 50-55 and any day now I am going to be able to go 1000 apparently, according to the guys who were doing the updates on the cables, and Vodafone ( My phone/Web provider )

Its not the speed.

You missunderstood my thought.

Sure, I currently simply copy the entire folder and that does a grand job for me.
I have in the past used Second Copy as this allows me to backup only the newer or changed files and not have to copy every file and still have up to date files.

This is NOT a problem.

What I just wanted to do, was to have them backed up like the Steam backup does, and it archives them into sort of disk images, so that was what I wanted, but then I realised that it only does the basic files and not any extra files like the downloaded ones.

So, even just re-loading the files from the internet does not get around this issue and so other files like maps and other such files will get lost if I did it that way.

It was just a thought and so I realised that how I was doing it anyway, is the best method of doing it.

And as I said, I do this for my Windows, Linux and Macs and so I have to downlaod 3 times.