How do I move this game onto another drive without moving the workshop mods?

[Isaac]

I want to know, because this game is too big for the new drive when the mods are also moved.

[Tree™]

Unfortunately the game and the Workshop mods have to be moved together and be present on the same drive. I'd recommend picking up either a new hard drive or a new SSD in the Black Friday sales coming up. Usually Samsung does some good deals on their 512GB SSDs.

[Sams]

I've had all the mods on a different drive with symbolic links for years.

You may need to unsubscribe/delete some of them first so Steam can fit all of it on the new drive. Then move Arma's workshop folder to a larger drive and create a symbolic link from it to the original folder.

[Isaac]

So if I move this game back onto the other drive again, will the mods be found?

[Isaac]

And with the symbolic links.. Is it possible to still have the game on the SSD and the mods on the HDD instead of the other way around? Just that the SSD has less space, only a terabyte.

[Sams]

Originally posted by Isaacdevil:

So if I move this game back onto the other drive again, will the mods be found?

So you have already moved the game to the new drive and the mods are still on the old one? I don't know if Steam will find them if you move the game back. Probaly. I've never done that.

Originally posted by Isaacdevil:

And with the symbolic links.. Is it possible to still have the game on the SSD and the mods on the HDD instead of the other way around? Just that the SSD has less space, only a terabyte.

Yes that's what I meant. The mods can be anywhere you want as long as the symbolic link named '107410' is in the game installation drive at SteamApps\workshop\content folder, and that link points to a folder on you HDD.

[Isaac]

That's good, however, is it possible to do it when I can't put the mods on the SSD in the first place?

[Isaac]

I'm not sure if it can be done when my game won't detect the mods unless they're with the game.

[NZPorterDJ]

Steam by default will load mods into a library where the game executable is located, so by default you can't split up game and mods. You can, however, force it's hand by thrtowing a wrench at the client...

There are two ways to do this:

1. Install game & move the program; or
2. Install the game and move the mods

I'd recommend 1 as this (usually) means less hassle and problems with the Steam client.

SO, with everything on your old drive and operating as expected, simply copy the 'Arma 3' folder to wherever you want it on the new drive. Currently this is around 65 GB (compared to ~162 GB of mods in my case).

Open a Windows Command prompt with elevated (i.e. Admin) privileges. Delete the old folder. use the mklink command to create a link to the new folder:

mklink /D "E:\Games\Arma 3" "D:\Applications\Steam\steamapps\common\Arma 3"

Your paths WILL be different and I'm going to assume you can find those yourself ;-)

I highly recommend that you verify the game files after you do this via the Steam client to make sure everything is working.

When you launch the game, the launcher will show all your mods as corrupted. This is NORMAL. It will go through and verify all of them and they should regain their health status. If they don't, you can force their repair in the launcher.

[Isaac]

Move what program?

[Isaac]

The instructions aren't very clear sorry.. However, I basically moved Arma 3 onto the SSD but left the mods behind and then put the mods into a new folder. The launcher thinks the mods are corrupted from what I did too so do I still the command prompt thing? Do I need to make another folder after using a new folder for the mods already?

[Sams]

Let's assume your game is now located at drive D: in folder:
D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Arma 3
(And this is where you want to keep it)

In the same drive there's the workshop folder where Steam expects to find the mods:
D:\Steamlibrary\SteamApps\workshop\content\107410
Now delete this folder.

You may want to move your leftover mod folder to somewhere safer away from Steam.
Let's say the old mods are at:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\107410\
So move the whole 107410 folder to under C:\Arma3mods\ for example.

Then in the command prompt run:
mklink /j "D:\Steamlibrary\SteamApps\workshop\content\107410" "C:\Arma3mods\107410"

Finally check it worked correctly. Go to D:\Steamlibrary\SteamApps\workshop\content\ (same library where Arma is)
You should see a folder called 107410, open it and verify it contains the mods in multiple subfolders which are named by their workshop ID numbers.

I've never done this with already downloaded mods so I'm not sure how Steam will react to it. There's a change Steam has already decided they are corrupted and will need to be redownloaded.

Also, Steam will refuse to download the mods if there's not enough space on SSD, even though the mods won't be stored there. So either make temporary room in the drive, or unsubscribe some bigger mods and re-subscribe and download them in multiple parts.

[Isaac]

What do I do? It says that the file already exists when I perform that command.

[Isaac]

Never mind, you suggested a junction link man.. Its different.

[Isaac]

So to move this ♥♥♥♥... Why the ♥♥♥♥ can't I do this?? It says "Cannot create a file when that file already exists.", it doesn't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ exist in the directory!! I tried this!

mklink /d "F:\Important Steam Games\steamapps\workshop\content\107410" "E:\Steam Workshop\Arma 3\Mods"