help moving a steam game to ssd

[Hobgoblino the III]

i am trying to move ARK to my new ssd while keeping steam all other games ETC on my hdd i followed a guide and have ark moved onto the ssd etc but when i try to reinstall the game via steam which the guide says should detect on the drive and just launch from it not reinstall
it says the drive is to full for the game its wouldent fit it a second time but the game is already their what can i do i really dont wanna have to reinstall 200gigs of ARK :/

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Did you first go to Steam Settings and set a Steam Library Folder to somewhere on SSD (C Drive) ? You need to do that first.

[Hobgoblino the III]

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

Did you first go to Steam Settings and set a Steam Library Folder to somewhere on SSD (C Drive) ? You need to do that first.

yes sir

[Hobgoblino the III]

new drive is called new volume E if that helps

[Bad 💀 Motha]

No offence but you are basically wasting that SSD if your OS is not running off of that.
SSD as a secondary can only help a very small amount.

Overall when this issue about "not enough free space" with things like Steam occurs, you need to go to the main Steam folder where something is having that issue, go to Properties > Security > select "Users" and also "Your own User name" and click Edit and allow "Full Control" so users have the proper write abilities to such folder structures.

> Exit Steam Client fully
> Change the folder security for any root Steam folders (Steam on C Drive, as well as any extra drives you made Steam Library Folders for)
> Move ARK to the new Steam Library folder: for example, going to here: C:\\Steam\Steamapps\Common\GameName and right click the game name folder, click Copy. Go to E:\\Steam\Steamapps\Common (if Steamapps or Common is not present, create them); then go to Common, right click and click Paste. Wait for the copy to complete.
> Relaunch Steam Client, go to ARK in Library, right click, click Delete Local Content to Uninstall from current C drive location. Once complete click Install again and now select E Drive as the install location; now Steam should see the game files are present there and verify the contents.

[Hobgoblino the III]

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

No offence but you are basically wasting that SSD if your OS is not running off of that.
SSD as a secondary can only help a very small amount.

Overall when this issue about "not enough free space" with things like Steam occurs, you need to go to the main Steam folder where something is having that issue, go to Properties > Security > select "Users" and also "Your own User name" and click Edit and allow "Full Control" so users have the proper write abilities to such folder structures.

> Exit Steam Client fully
> Change the folder security for any root Steam folders (Steam on C Drive, as well as any extra drives you made Steam Library Folders for)
> Move ARK to the new Steam Library folder: for example, going to here: C:\\Steam\Steamapps\Common\GameName and right click the game name folder, click Copy. Go to E:\\Steam\Steamapps\Common (if Steamapps or Common is not present, create them); then go to Common, right click and click Paste. Wait for the copy to complete.
> Relaunch Steam Client, go to ARK in Library, right click, click Delete Local Content to Uninstall from current C drive location. Once complete click Install again and now select E Drive as the install location; now Steam should see the game files are present there and verify the contents.

i was told i could run my game on a ssd and my OS on my HDD and my game would still fully benefit is that incorrect?

[Bad 💀 Motha]

The game does, the rest of the system does not.
SSD is better suited to run the OS off of, then everything benefits and the system is no longer bottlenecked by a slow HDD, which they all are.

Best bet would be:
OS, and any Games that benefit, such as ARK, ARMA3, DAYZ, GTAV; on your SSD. Core Apps and Drivers will go here as well.

Use HDD for Games (that dont benefit really from faster drives; such as Source games) and file storage, downloads.

[Hobgoblino the III]

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

The game does, the rest of the system does not.
SSD is better suited to run the OS off of, then everything benefits and the system is no longer bottlenecked by a slow HDD, which they all are.

Best bet would be:
OS, and any Games that benefit, such as ARK, ARMA3, DAYZ, GTAV; on your SSD. Core Apps and Drivers will go here as well.

Use HDD for Games (that dont benefit really from faster drives; such as Source games) and file storage, downloads.

not sure i can fit my OS on it at this point i have 50gigs of space left i could free up 30 more but i was told keep 30 free or my ssd would become very slow very soon but i will have to see how big the OS is now.

PS thank you for your help very much appreciated

[Bad 💀 Motha]

If the HDD has more "Used Space" then what the SSD allows; best bet is cleanup the HDD as best you can first. That might mean uninstalling Games (if that is most of what uses your space in general) and once enough space is cleared up, clone the HDD to SSD. Then boot from the SSD. Everything will be as you had it on HDD, but now on this faster SSD. Then you could reinstall the games the way you wanted, such as ARK on SSD, others onto HDD.

This is why for PC Builds in general, get that SSD first. Even if that means not getting a large HDD right away, so be it. The idea being you install the OS onto SSD and go from there. As you can always add HDDs over time as needed. But putting OS on SSD is best bet for overall system-wide performance.

[Hobgoblino the III]

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

If the HDD has more "Used Space" then what the SSD allows; best bet is cleanup the HDD as best you can first. That might mean uninstalling Games (if that is most of what uses your space in general) and once enough space is cleared up, clone the HDD to SSD. Then boot from the SSD. Everything will be as you had it on HDD, but now on this faster SSD. Then you could reinstall the games the way you wanted, such as ARK on SSD, others onto HDD.

This is why for PC Builds in general, get that SSD first. Even if that means not getting a large HDD right away, so be it. The idea being you install the OS onto SSD and go from there. As you can always add HDDs over time as needed. But putting OS on SSD is best bet for overall system-wide performance.

that makes total sense sadly this is my first pc of my own and the first i have made i think the ssd is to small even if i were to remove almost everything even the os and the one game i got the ssd for would be a stretch ill have to see if amazons return policy would allow me to return and buy a larger but the knowledge is good for next time :D

[Bad 💀 Motha]

The OS only needs a very small amount; under 64GB or so.
A 128GB SSD for example is generally just fine for:
OS, all installed Apps, Drivers, Updates.
And then a few Games depending on how much is left.
As you can pick/choose where each Game installs to.
Win10 64bit for example only takes up around 30GB after Updates.
ARK is around 100GB or less with Expansions/DLCs

So ideally, a 250-275GB drive could do just fine, if that is all you could afford.
Again a majority of the Games you could put on HDD.