Steam games on separate HDDs

RobSmith · 18 Sep 2011 at 00:52

Hi all!

I've got Steam and my steam games installed onto my SSD (C

and is getting close to being full. I want to shift some of the games over from my SSD to my Caviar Black 1TB drive whilst of course still being able to play them.

Is this possible?

Many thanks!

Antar Bolaeisk · 18 Sep 2011 at 00:54

mklink is your friend (I think there's also some GUI available for those who CBA with a CLI)

There's a steam FAQ thread with all the answers

RobSmith · 18 Sep 2011 at 01:03

Much appreciated!

Thanks.

Shamikebab · 18 Sep 2011 at 01:31

I find Steammover does exactly what I want, very easy to use.

overclick · 18 Sep 2011 at 03:23

I got an SSD today from readin around I can see I can add Steam and keep one or 2 of my most played games on the SSD and can then move the rest to another drive and creat virtual links, this is all fine but I have 2 issues I can't work out.

1) As steam is on the SSD when I download any new game it will have to go to the SSD right and then I will move it later so will always need to leave precious drive space enough to D/L the next game?

2) Right now I have a fresh Steam install on the SSD and the old steamfolder with around 100 games on my old HDD... how do i get these to work through the steam install on the SSD? Do I copy all the general files and just virtual link to the main game folders?

Ewaf · 18 Sep 2011 at 03:29

Do you not just have steam on the mechanical HDD, and then use steammover as suggested to move most played games to SSD? Why have steam on the SSD?

overclick · 18 Sep 2011 at 03:45

That makes more sense and would be much easier if it works? But wouldn't the fact you are launching steam from a slower drive essential bottleneck the speed you load the actual game of the SSD to the HHD speed?

uv · 18 Sep 2011 at 10:44

overclick said:
That makes more sense and would be much easier if it works? But wouldn't the fact you are launching steam from a slower drive essential bottleneck the speed you load the actual game of the SSD to the HHD speed?

being that you (usually) launch Steam at Windows boot, and (usually) you only launch it the once per boot, the gains from having the steam.exe on SSD are extremely negligible.

Just plonk Steam on a mechanical drive, and move each particular game on to the SSD as and when you need.

orderoftheflame · 18 Sep 2011 at 10:51

overclick said:
But wouldn't the fact you are launching steam from a slower drive essential bottleneck the speed you load the actual game of the SSD to the HHD speed?

Nope. If you launch a game on the SSD, all that Steam is doing most of the time is running up a shortcut to it's executable.

As uv says, Steam on the HDD, move games to the SDD. You'll get no benefit the other way round, and just make yourself a whole load of extra effort.

overclick · 18 Sep 2011 at 15:26

Cheers fr the confirmation guys, that will make life much easier!