Steam - Sharing install folder across SSD/1GbE home LAN

Gimpymoo · 1 Dec 2016 at 00:59

This is something I have wanted to try for a LONG time but only recently got round to getting a wired LAN setup in the home.

My setup:

Install games to Computer A:
C:\Games\Steam

Setup a network share for the "Games" folder.

Map the "Games" Folder to a drive letter (Z: for example) on Computer B.

Add "Z:\Games" as a Library folder in Steam.

That is it.

You can use Symbolic links if needed, but in this instance, mapping a folder to a drive letter did the job. If mapping a folder to a drive letter, the install folder you are wanting to share cannot be the root folder.

Anything installed to Steam on computer A is picked up on computer B.

Thus far, have tried TF2 and CS:GO and both ran fine with 3 computers on 3 different steam accounts running the same game from a single installation folder.

I expected maybe file access errors but nothing thus far, games just play fine.

If pushed, I would suggest maybe slightly longer load times, but am not certain, maybe placebo.

So far, seems a great solution if running multiple PC's on the same network, makes sense.

Will try with something Stupid like Arma 3 later.

Minstadave · 1 Dec 2016 at 01:30

Always liked the idea of this. I guess it's just an extension of centralised media storage. Good to hear it works ok. I'd have thought the 100MB/s limit of gigabit networking wouldn't be awful. Mechanics HDDs aren't a great deal faster than that and we lived with those for decades.

Gimpymoo · 1 Dec 2016 at 14:43

Tried Arma 3 with two players.

Worked fine but can tell there is definitely more loading. HDD activity was going nuts.

Will test with 3 different games later on 3 computers.

bayo000 · 1 Dec 2016 at 15:46

Good to know thanks. Was just thinking I need to pick up another ssd for 2nd PC now that I'm about to add decent GPU to it.

Haggisman · 1 Dec 2016 at 20:06

Out of curiousity, other than "because I can" (which I totally get

), why would you want to do this?

Assuming it's to save money on drives, then surely any speed increase from using SSDs is offset by the loss in speed across the network? Meaning it would make more sense just to buy bigger cheaper mechanical disks for the PCs?

Liquidfox · 1 Dec 2016 at 20:24

Haggisman said:
Out of curiousity, other than "because I can" (which I totally get ), why would you want to do this?

Assuming it's to save money on drives, then surely any speed increase from using SSDs is offset by the loss in speed across the network? Meaning it would make more sense just to buy bigger cheaper mechanical disks for the PCs?

The only thing I could think of was if you had a monumentally huge Steam library and wanted to use it for LAN parties?

Gimpymoo · 1 Dec 2016 at 21:30

Haggisman said:
Out of curiousity, other than "because I can" (which I totally get ), why would you want to do this?

Assuming it's to save money on drives, then surely any speed increase from using SSDs is offset by the loss in speed across the network? Meaning it would make more sense just to buy bigger cheaper mechanical disks for the PCs?

Good Question.

I will answer in a way which is relevant to my own situation.

Why not?

Regarding SSD over mechanical, the SSD is still faster, especially when multiple clients are reading data. A mech HDD woud bottleneck the network I would think?

If you have 4 separate steam accounts on 4 seperate computers in the house which play a lot of the same games.

Why download the same game 4 times?

Why have to download the game at all if another use as already downloaded it, it is just there.

Why update the same game 4 times?

If a game is 20GB, by not installing it 3 times more, you have saved 60GB of HDD space.

If you commonly use 10 of the same games between you at 20GB, you are saving 180GB.

Haggisman · 1 Dec 2016 at 23:35

Gimpymoo said:
Good Question.

I will answer in a way which is relevant to my own situation.

Why not?

Regarding SSD over mechanical, the SSD is still faster, especially when multiple clients are reading data. A mech HDD woud bottleneck the network I would think?

If you have 4 separate steam accounts on 4 seperate computers in the house which play a lot of the same games.

Why download the same game 4 times?

Why have to download the game at all if another use as already downloaded it, it is just there.

Why update the same game 4 times?

If a game is 20GB, by not installing it 3 times more, you have saved 60GB of HDD space.

If you commonly use 10 of the same games between you at 20GB, you are saving 180GB.

I meant have a mechanical drive in each PC vs a single central SSD.

You may be saving space, but when SSD space is ~5-6 times more expensive than HDD space, unless you're sharing that data over 6+ PCs, the SSD is still the more expensive option.

Is it faster accessing an SSD over the network than a HDD locally?

Also, would this not absolutely hammer your ping if you were playing anything online? (Obviously dependent on how much the game accesses the disk whilst playing)

rIcK · 2 Dec 2016 at 01:02

I have no use for anything like this since my PC is the only machine to access my games. But have you considered some 10Gb NIC and some nice fast SSDs in your central store to improve throughput. Some Mellanox cards can be had for around £20-30 off Ebay.

Gimpymoo · 2 Dec 2016 at 01:21

Haggisman said:
I meant have a mechanical drive in each PC vs a single central SSD.

You may be saving space, but when SSD space is ~5-6 times more expensive than HDD space, unless you're sharing that data over 6+ PCs, the SSD is still the more expensive option.

Is it faster accessing an SSD over the network than a HDD locally?

Also, would this not absolutely hammer your ping if you were playing anything online? (Obviously dependent on how much the game accesses the disk whilst playing)

Since when as PC gaming been about "doing it cheaper"

This has only costed a few quid for cat6 cables and a switch I already had lying around. PC's already have SSDs as any PC should nowadays.

Performance of network share from SSD vs mech drive for each PC is similar but I would say Mech load times are longer but I have nothing to back that up as yet.

There is ample of bandwidth left for game traffic.

I will test to see if SSD traffic impacts server ping.

rIcK said:
I have no use for anything like this since my PC is the only machine to access my games. But have you considered some 10Gb NIC and some nice fast SSDs in your central store to improve throughput. Some Mellanox cards can be had for around £20-30 off Ebay.

You then need a 10Gb switch though unless you connect the PC's back to back into the separate NIC's which is not impossible but I am not sure it would be worth any effort for this purpose? Alternatively, put a FREENAS box together.

From what I have seen so far, bandwidth is not being anywhere near maximised to make me see any benefit of 10Gb networking. Maybe if more computers were sharing but then you may encounter i/o issues anyway?

snowdog · 2 Dec 2016 at 01:25

Haggisman said:
Out of curiousity, other than "because I can" (which I totally get ), why would you want to do this?

Less downloading, internet is only 200 mbit, gigabit is faster and prevents downloading/waiting a few times.

Also, with a steam library of ~500 games, they take a lot of space...

Puzzled · 2 Dec 2016 at 11:04

You say 3 different accounts? Do these accounts own the games in question already?

Stelly · 2 Dec 2016 at 11:05

iSCSI works as well

Stelly

Bantu · 2 Dec 2016 at 11:24

MonkeyMan said:
You say 3 different accounts? Do these accounts own the games in question already?

They have to otherwise they couldn't launch the game if it has Steamworks protection right?

Quartz · 2 Dec 2016 at 11:32

Assuming you're using a Windows Server box, you should look into implementing Branchcache.

I have it in the back of my mind that Steam have special rules if you have more than a certain number of people gaming from one IP address. Something about gaming stores, but I really don't recall more.

Gimpymoo · 2 Dec 2016 at 11:33

MonkeyMan said:
You say 3 different accounts? Do these accounts own the games in question already?

Of course.

Puzzled · 2 Dec 2016 at 11:52

Gimpymoo said:
Of course.

Fair enough, didn't know if tricked steam library sharing in to allowing you to play at the same time.

I guess it saves you the hassle of copying the steamapps folders to each pc for every game.

No issue with saved games or anything being overwritten by the other users?

Gimpymoo · 2 Dec 2016 at 12:13

MonkeyMan said:
No issue with saved games or anything being overwritten by the other users?

No, and I thought there would be.

So far, has only really been multiplayer games though.

Games which utilise Cloud saving are fine as they obviously save per "account" so no problems there.

Most games save outside the Steam folder, such as "My Documents" for example so no problems there from what has been tried thus far.

I thought settings would be an issue but all working OK so far.

Gimpymoo · 2 Dec 2016 at 12:16

Quartz said:
Assuming you're using a Windows Server box, you should look into implementing Branchcache.

How would that help?

Quartz said:
I have it in the back of my mind that Steam have special rules if you have more than a certain number of people gaming from one IP address. Something about gaming stores, but I really don't recall more.

Steam itself has no such policy HOWEVER some individual games can and do have such policies.

Makhaira · 2 Dec 2016 at 12:35

You're potentially going to run into some issues in theory around files being locked by one machine and then trying to be accessed, but if it's not happening in practice then fair enough! Access performance must be horrible though. With storage so cheap I'd just have them all installed on all machines personally. Much simpler.