Steam games storage managment?

crestfa11en · 21 Jul 2013 at 17:02

Welcome all, deep breath :eek:

I may have over abbreviated that title a wee bit, let me explain in greater detail, I'm relatively new two the pc building just over a year, but one thing escapes me, how do most of you manage you'r vast number of games, do you juggle from your primary SSD solid state OS drive say 250G with a larger hard Drive 2TB dive or do you simply have your Steam folder and games located on the 2TB drive, as apparently there is no performance advantage playing a game from an SSD?

I welcome any and all suggestions, but must admit, that I'll be more inclined to use a low maintenance approach as opposed to a very organized one

wazza300 · 21 Jul 2013 at 17:04

for ease of use I would install steam on the 2tb hdd

maybe the odd non steam game on the ssd,but tbh your not losing any performance

crestfa11en · 22 Jul 2013 at 14:21

My thanks for the input wassa300, you've confirmed what I suspected to be least headache inducing option, the thought of having to drag and drop every single game, I wanted to play seem like a pain.

dunny87 · 22 Jul 2013 at 14:25

currently im just using my main SSD. but for my next build (next week hopefully)

im going with a 840pro 128gig for OS etc
and 840pro 256gig for steam / other games

House · 22 Jul 2013 at 16:00

Mixed, long loading multiplayer games are on the SSD (planetside 2, Battlefield 3 and a few other) other games and single player games are on my 2tb data drive.

In steam you can install to multiple locations I have a libary on my SSD and another on my mechanical drive.

I would like another SSD to install everything to but thats rather overkill.

~Dockie · 22 Jul 2013 at 16:32

i use a 240gb vertex 2 primarily for steam. loading atleast it makes a big difference over the hdd i was using before.

death_looms · 22 Jul 2013 at 20:13

I've Steam installed on a smaller SSD, and use SteamMover to switch stuff that I'm playing to and from a 3tb HDD.

Thomss · 22 Jul 2013 at 20:16

I use SteamMover too and my top 10 or so games that I like to play I move to one of my SSD drives, and the west stay on regular drive.

crestfa11en · 23 Jul 2013 at 20:31

Votes:
wazza300: games on HDD
dunny87: Temp SSD Voted HDD
House: multiplayer games are on the SSD
~Dockie: SSD
death_looms: SteamMover
Thomss: SteamMover
(2 HDD) (1 SSD) (1 SSD multi/HDD)(2 SteamMover)

~Dockie said:
i use a 240gb vertex 2 primarily for steam. loading atleast it makes a big difference over the hdd i was using before.

Thomss I use SteamMover too and my top 10 or so games that I like to play I move to one of my SSD drives, and the west stay on regular drive.

Mmmm... Never heard of SteamMover till now sound intriguing, one down side might be increased wear & tear on the SSD, but what would be the point of having one, if not for using right.
No thank buttons on this forum? my many thanks to all, none the less

nails666 · 25 Jul 2013 at 16:16

Doesn't strictly apply as it's not a Steam game but certain games can benefit significantly in loading time reductions from being on the SSD. In my case I run WoW from and SSD and it makes a very big difference to the initial load when zoning and is much smoother when loading in new textures etc in busy areas.

David_VI · 25 Jul 2013 at 16:57

SSD great for loading times. I only have a couple on my SSD, including Train Sim because it takes a stupid time to load... so benefits from it

crestfa11en · 27 Jul 2013 at 19:58

I'd love to be able to play Wow but I'm in a Sky Broadband/twilight zone of under 50kb, so wan't be a problem

So what your saying is, it's a matter of mix and matching what games genuinely benefit from faster loading times.

dneill2006 · 27 Jul 2013 at 20:30

128GB Crucial M4 SSD for OS/Apps.

480GB OCZ Vertex 2E Bigfoot SSD for Games.

I hate the noise all mechanical hard drives make so I opted for using only SSDs from now on.

SeraphX · 27 Jul 2013 at 20:40

Steam has it's own drive on my system, keep most games on that, and it suffices for most games, Retail games I have usually get installed on the boot drive if they're worth it, (Fallout 3 is usually always on there) in the past, I've installed Fallout 3 to a 10Gb Ramdrive just for the giggles tbh, Want to try skyrim on a ramdrive, but need a bit more ram lol (12Gb ram currently and skyrim is 18Gb with mods haha)