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

Gimpymoo · 2 Dec 2016 at 12:40

Makhaira said:
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.

That is the beauty of PC Gaming though right, CHOICE

Few of us game on a PC because it is "simpler"

I did this as it is something I have had in my mind for a long time and I did it and it works, very well too.

Some may think "Meh, I bet that runs like ****" and for those who do, all I can really say is try it and see for yourself.

For gaming, the only files we write to are the settings files and they are stored locally (mainly). File lock issues are less likely to happen if they are just being read and you have assigned the correct permission on the network share.

HangTime · 2 Dec 2016 at 13:06

Haggisman said:
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)

That would only be an issue if the LAN was completely saturated and you were using that network to go online. If you were that worried about it you could use a different network to access the internet router.

To be honest, in a scenario where you have multiple PCs sharing a network/connection, you'd be more likely to get lag from people using the internet than you would maxing out the LAN I'd imagine. E.g. suppose you aren't sharing the games directory and someone wants to play that game, they might start downloading it and maxing out your internet connection.

Gimpymoo · 2 Dec 2016 at 14:33

HangTime said:
That would only be an issue if the LAN was completely saturated and you were using that network to go online. If you were that worried about it you could use a different network to access the internet router.

It is odd you mention that as iI was thinking of using two subnets.

One for LAN traffic and another for WAN traffic.

Each system would have two network controllers with a separate switch for LAN and WAN traffic.

No idea if it would offer any benefits though as is working fine as it is at the moment.

HangTime · 2 Dec 2016 at 16:50

Unless you are frequently maxing out the LAN at the same time as playing competitive latency-sensitive games online, I think it would be a waste for 99.999% of the time.

If you are frequently maxing out the LAN, then that would in turn suggest to me that there is a case to do more local storage to remove the bottleneck in any case.

silversurfer · 2 Dec 2016 at 16:53

1gbit is a lot of data per second and most internet is not close to that. He could max out both ends but most of us cant do that or would need to.

People were talking about streaming blu ray instead of owning a disk locally, the conclusion I think I read is nowhere offers that amount of data across the internet as always its encrypted to less data

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)

Forget bandwidth but latency through the switch is a maybe. However SSD is much faster then mechanical so I think the local cheap disk is slower, unless you had a lot of caching on it maybe.

Test out GTA 5 please, drive at 150mph through the middle of a city on a full server online with all graphics turned up high. That should stress the loading of textures, the pc cant be storing all of them in main memory I guess or on the graphics card so you are talking about a possible stress situation.
Most games preload textures, but have 4 people do that on your network and see what happens. That might be your perfect storm

Quartz · 2 Dec 2016 at 17:04

Gimpymoo said:
How would that help?

Local caching of the server's Steam folders. You get all the benefits of centralised storage with the speed of local access.

Gimpymoo · 2 Dec 2016 at 18:28

silversurfer said:
Test out GTA 5 please, drive at 150mph through the middle of a city on a full server online with all graphics turned up high. That should stress the loading of textures, the pc cant be storing all of them in main memory I guess or on the graphics card so you are talking about a possible stress situation.
Most games preload textures, but have 4 people do that on your network and see what happens. That might be your perfect storm

That is what I like, making stuff break

I do not have GTA V though.

My games list is here:

http://steamcommunity.com/id/gimpymoo/games/?tab=all&sort=name

Any other game/scenario suggestions?

Benchmarking software perhaps? If so, which free one?

Alexrose1uk · 5 Dec 2016 at 07:33

Great idea, I'd considered something like this previously, but never got round to trying it for a few reasons. Me and the Mrs have massive Steam Libraries so this could certainly help. Only downside as above is I'd imagine games which stream textures a lot could become slightly worse due to access times, although less if SSDs used at one end.

I'd even thought going further and having the storage machine completely seperate. Steam's ability to use alternate folders has made this a lot more possible than in years go by. Wonder how many gaming cafes use this for CSS now! hah

Gimpymoo · 5 Dec 2016 at 10:22

Alexrose1uk said:
Only downside as above is I'd imagine games which stream textures a lot could become slightly worse due to access times, although less if SSDs used at one end.

I'd even thought going further and having the storage machine completely seperate. Steam's ability to use alternate folders has made this a lot more possible than in years go by. Wonder how many gaming cafes use this for CSS now! hah

I have only tried with SSD, I will test with a mech drive.

I have tried with Arma 3 being accessed by two clients from an install on an SSD and it worked fine from what I have played thus far.

You are right though, Steams native ability to support custom install locations does make it easier.

Time to find a 10GbE switch and some network controllers

HazardO · 5 Dec 2016 at 16:09

Personally when I download a steam game, I then create install media in DVD format (Backup game files) from steam, and keep the installers on a large mechanical disk. Even a relatively slow old disk at 80MB/s read speed is over 3 times faster to re-install than my theoretical 200Mbps download speed.