Preparing for an overseas deployment....

[CeZemal]

I wasn't sure where to put this so I just put it in general since it concerns both hardware purchasing and advice on application usage.

So sometime later this year I'll be headed overseas for a second rotation. One thing that is important to me for a deployment is having a good reliable laptop with a nice selection of games, since whatever downtime we do get is usually spent being very bored unless we have some form of modern technology to keep ourselves grounded and in touch with our own civilization. On my first deployment I had my Asus G53 that I bought in 2009 (dual core intel 2.5ghz, GTX 260M etc), as well as a 500gb external full of roms and whatever games I could acquire from the interweb. This served me very well, and in fact still continues to serve me well when I need a mobile gaming solution.

Over the past few years, I've been building up my Steam library through all the sales they have in preparation for my next deployment. I'm nearing the 300 mark, which should be absolutely plenty for a deployment.


Now that I've given you my life's story, time for where I need a little advice. My plan is to eventually buy a new laptop, but at the moment there are lots of new things coming out that haven't quite made their way to laptops yet (new graphics cards etc), so I feel I will wait on a laptop purchase. However, 300+ Steam games might take quite a long time to download, so I want to, sometime soon, buy a sizeable external hard drive to download my Steam library to.

My question now is, with 300+ games, what size external would be best / is there a way to see how many GB my library would encompass? And what would be the best way of getting this done? I have Steam already installed on my main PC, so if I were to use that to download it, how actually could I get another steam installed on the External and download there? Or should I use my older laptop as a downloading machine, which would then have the same issue?

And as far as a new lappy, with new graphics chips coming out and new processors all the time, when might be an ideal timeframe for looking to buy sometime within the next 6 months? I know that's kind of a question that can't really be answered but I've been out of the loop for a while and don't really know if it's a safe time to buy now as opposed to a few months from now :/

Sorry if this was all very confusing.

 

[Forceman]

If you can, I'd wait and see what Ivy Bridge and Kepler based laptops bring to the table - they'll be expensive but should offer better performance at lower power. Or you could buy a discounted current edition after the new stuff comes out. Depends how long you can wait though - it might be a few months until those new designs hit the street.

Doesn't Steam give you the size of each game? Kind of a pain to look through them all and add it up, but I guess that's the worst case answer. I vaguely seem to recall some kind of Steam library website where you could select the games you have and it would tell you how much space it took, but I can't recall the name.

Keep your head down over there.

 

[Dangman]

My question now is, with 300+ games, what size external would be best / is there a way to see how many GB my library would encompass?

Aim for a 3TB drive assuming that each game will take about 10GB each.

And what would be the best way of getting this done? I have Steam already installed on my main PC, so if I were to use that to download it, how actually could I get another steam installed on the External and download there? Or should I use my older laptop as a downloading machine, which would then have the same issue?

There are a number of programs and ways to store/install Steam games on another drive with only one Steam app installed:
http://www.traynier.com/software/steammover
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php7418-YUBN-8129
http://www.stefanjones.ca/steam/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyrHDWsuUH8

So basically you download/install the Steam game first. Then move the game over to the external drive using one or more of the above methods. Gonna take awhile of course but you have six months apparently.

And as far as a new lappy, with new graphics chips coming out and new processors all the time, when might be an ideal timeframe for looking to buy sometime within the next 6 months? I know that's kind of a question that can't really be answered but I've been out of the loop for a while and don't really know if it's a safe time to buy now as opposed to a few months from now :/

It's pretty much as Forceman said: While Intel has said that their new mobile CPUs will be hitting the market in June, it may take longer than that for laptop manufacturers to release laptops with Ivy Bridge CPUs in them. Kepler is similar as well.

But there's a chance that laptop sellers might heavily discount their older Sandy Bridge based laptops to free up sales space for the new IB CPUs. So in other words, wait till Ivy Bridge is released and see if there are laptops with it.

So sometime later this year I'll be headed overseas for a second rotation.

Good luck on your deployment. And thank you.

 

[Deleted member 88227]

+1 for Steammover. Simple yet excellent program for moving Steam installs. All you'll have to do is make sure you copy the Symlinks in the Steam directory to your laptop's Steam install and plug in the external.