Is it possible to split steam between two drives?

mobusta1

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My SSD is getting filled up and with all the steam sales going on I will soon be at capacity. I would like to keep games such as skyrim/gta on my ssd because I've heard that textures and draw distances load faster on an ssd than a sata 3 7200rpm drive. However, other games that are mostly linear and just need to load the next level can be put on a hdd. So my question is if it's possible to have some of your steam games installed on your ssd ("C:") and some of your hdd ("D:")?
 
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You should be presented this option when installing via Steam.
 
Yeah, Steam added the option to install on a different folder (including drive) a while ago.

So you can put some games on C: with others on D: for example.

Although even if that wasn't available, you could always set up junctions or something.
 
Yes I'm doing this now, some games install to my larger SSD, others to another smaller SSD. Working with no issues for me for several months. :cool:
 
Also, if you have a large library on one drive, and you want to move those files to another drive without having to re-download everything, you gotta do a little file jenga.

There is no functionality within steam (afaik) to say "i want this game on D drive now", so...

You need to first copy the entire folder for the game and put it in your new steam directory, BUT rename it to something else.

Next, within steam "remove all local files" for the game then start a new install choosing your new drive's steam folder and let it allocate space and start downloading (let it get at least 0.1%).

Now exit/close steam, go to your steam folders and find the "downloading" folder. Delete everything in there (assuming you don't have other partial downloads of other games in there).

And finally go back to that renamed game folder and change it to its original name.

Go back into steam and the game should start "downloading" extremely quickly (its really just verifying files).

Its all very convoluted and a mess, but it saves you (and your bandwidth caps?) 1-60gb of downloading.
 
here's a small reminder -

It's always best to install steam on your storage drive, THEN manage the library folders and choose a faster driver for your more "demanding" games to install.

The steam folder does not only contain your game files but also a lot of other things like workshop items - source SDK(s) - screenshots etc

Don't forget to use this program once in a while -> http://tikione.fr/steamcleaner/en/

It just saved me 2 precious GBs of storage space in drive C: last night :)
 
Also, if you have a large library on one drive, and you want to move those files to another drive without having to re-download everything, you gotta do a little file jenga.

There is no functionality within steam (afaik) to say "i want this game on D drive now", so...

You need to first copy the entire folder for the game and put it in your new steam directory, BUT rename it to something else.

Next, within steam "remove all local files" for the game then start a new install choosing your new drive's steam folder and let it allocate space and start downloading (let it get at least 0.1%).

Now exit/close steam, go to your steam folders and find the "downloading" folder. Delete everything in there (assuming you don't have other partial downloads of other games in there).

And finally go back to that renamed game folder and change it to its original name.

Go back into steam and the game should start "downloading" extremely quickly (its really just verifying files).

Its all very convoluted and a mess, but it saves you (and your bandwidth caps?) 1-60gb of downloading.

You made that more complicated than it has to be. All you have to do is go to steamapps folder, copy the .gkc (whatever it is) file if it has one, copy the game folder, and then fully close steam - log back in.
 
here's a small reminder -

Don't forget to use this program once in a while -> http://tikione.fr/steamcleaner/en/

It just saved me 2 precious GBs of storage space in drive C: last night :)

This is a good program, FYI - requires Java to run.

Finds all of the redundant .net redistributables that each game runs at first install, cleaned up 700MB of those alone for me.

Cheers. :D
 
Yes, you now have the option to choose where to install your games,
steam-install.jpg
 
You made that more complicated than it has to be. All you have to do is go to steamapps folder, copy the .gkc (whatever it is) file if it has one, copy the game folder, and then fully close steam - log back in.

what I do is, close steam, move the folder from the original location to the new location, open steam, click on delete local content for that game, click install, choose the location of the Steam Library on my other drive, and it will find the game you copied over and set it up and it will now run.

If you just move it and then open steam, the game won't be found since it will still be looking at the original location.
 
junctions are no longer needed, steam client supports multiple drives now. just go into your settings and add a new steam drive wherever you please.
no, they are needed if you want to insatll steam to the ssd but move the downloading, ssourcemods, and temp folder over to the data drive

even if you install games to a data drive all updates and downloads will be downloaded to the steam install directory and then installed to the data directory. it takes a toll on the ssd, takes up space, and also takes more time because it's actually copying files from one drive to another.

that's why one person suggested installing steam to the data drive. this is a better solution. it allows steam on the ssd and allows the data drive to sleep when you aren't playing steam games (but it's still running).

also, it's not just for steam although it's called steammover. I use it for origin and my windows temp files (that I keep in a ram drive)


finally, this program automatically moves files that have already been installed on the ssd drive to the data drive, which is the OP's situation.
 
that's why one person suggested installing steam to the data drive. this is a better solution. it allows steam on the ssd and allows the data drive to sleep when you aren't playing steam games (but it's still running).

so now that a better way has been found, why are we still talking about the worse way.
 
what? junction points are better than installing steam to a data directory :\
do you not understand that even if you tell steam to install a game to your data drive it's still going to download it to the ssd before installing it on the data drive?

install steam to ssd
junction points to point downloads to data drive
use in-steam functionality to install games to data drive
 
+1 on using steam mover. Its great to be able to have games downloaded and installed and stored on a large hdd and then to be able to transfer them to your ssd.
 
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