Run steam entirely from external hard drive

[Googergeiger]

I've spent some time searching and I haven't been able to find exactly what I'm looking for. I'd like to run steam on a docked work laptop I use at home. I'd like to install steam and associated games on an external SSD in an USB 3.0 enclosure going to a SS USB port on the computer.

The question is how well will this function? Will I find games that won't work this way?

Most importantly: Will there be any traces of Steam or my games on the laptop? I need this laptop to be unmodified by steam. I will also frequently take it to work with me, without bringing the external with.

Thanks a ton!

[meiスタ]

Not sure if it will work but you can try installing Steam (and any games you want to play) on your laptop, and then copying everything over to the HDD.

[Googergeiger]

Thanks for the advice, I could try that. Though Im not super comfortable installing it on that computer to start with. I also have another computer that I could do that with, and maybe if I then plug the external into my work laptop it will work?

[meiスタ]

I think it'll only really work if you have Steam on the laptop. You can run games off the HDD though, but not Steam itself.

[Googergeiger]

Can anyone else verify this? Or does anyone know if it would work to run a Windows or steam Linux installation from an external? Then I could just boot from that drive entirely.

[meiスタ]

Most people install Steam on their machine, and the games on the external HDD.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2635560
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1999009/run-steam-games-external-hdd.html

I doubt you can run the Steam client itself off an external hard drive though.

[Rays of Apollo]

Does anyone know about how long before problems would start to arise? I've been running my entire Steam directory off of an external HDD for a grand total of 2 hours of playtime. Granted, I've only run Dark Souls 1 and Absolute Drift. I don't know if more intensive games like a modded Skyrim will cause issues later.

Should I expect this to come crashing down sooner or later?

[VaLiuM]

Nah, if all drives involved are relatively fast (or not dreadfully slow) you should be fine.

[Reggaejunkiedrew]

This should work fine just installing steam onto the external, or copying the install. Your laptop will be mostly unmdodified, but there will be registry entries and a service (Steam Client Service) that will technically be on your computer.