How to force Steam to download to certain drive?

[Lou the Lou]

I have two Steam folders, one on my C, one on D. I have ONE game installed on C. But Steam, in its brokenness, insists on using the C drive to update games.

This, coupled with the absolutely broken way Steam updates games, results in none of my games updating. I don't keep a lot of room free on my C drive. Steam copies the whole freaking game folder just to apply a patch, so these games that are 30-40GB refuse to update because they claim I don't have enough disk space.

But I do. On my D drive. Where the games in question are installed.

So. How do I make Steam stop being stupid and use the drive that a game is installed on as the "workspace" to update it?

[PickPay]

Publicado originalmente por Drengor:

Publicado originalmente por Satoru:

Pretty much whatever you download now is pre-staged on the drive you want the game installed to.

This is not correct. I have five drives, 3 with steam libraries on E,F, and G. One of those three (drive F:) is an SSD. Attempting to update ARK which is on drive G: will download to drive F: and the 8Gb patch will fill the 45G free space and abort. Today. There is 172G free on drive G: where ARK is installed. (Since Ark installation is 147G itself, lord only knows if steam would actually manage to patch on drive G even if it downloaded there).

It's been a while since I longed for the days before steam when you could download a patch and apply it yourself.

I'm having this problem with Ark as well, its installed on C: my SSD but the patch keeps getting downloaded on E: my HDD and its so damn slow it takes forever and is stuck in a loop. I want to change the "downloading" to C:

[The Giving One]

Publicado originalmente por PickPay:

I'm having this problem with Ark as well, its installed on C: my SSD but the patch keeps getting downloaded on E: my HDD and its so damn slow it takes forever and is stuck in a loop. I want to change the "downloading" to C:

How much free disk space do you have on C ?

Because ARK is a pretty large game, and you need to be sure you have plenty of free space on the drive, even after considering all the programs that will be and are currently installed on that drive.

[PsychopomP]

Publicado originalmente por The Giving One:

Publicado originalmente por PickPay:

I'm having this problem with Ark as well, its installed on C: my SSD but the patch keeps getting downloaded on E: my HDD and its so damn slow it takes forever and is stuck in a loop. I want to change the "downloading" to C:

How much free disk space do you have on C ?

Because ARK is a pretty large game, and you need to be sure you have plenty of free space on the drive, even after considering all the programs that will be and are currently installed on that drive.

I read all your comment in this tree. You are most stupid man i ever see.

[Muppet among Puppets]

Publicado originalmente por PsychopomP:

Publicado originalmente por The Giving One:

How much free disk space do you have on C ?

Because ARK is a pretty large game, and you need to be sure you have plenty of free space on the drive, even after considering all the programs that will be and are currently installed on that drive.

I read all your comment in this tree. You are most stupid man i ever see.

So you read the comments in this tree?
What kind of tree?

[Glimmer]

Publicado originalmente por Muppet among Puppets:

So you read the comments in this tree?
What kind of tree?

Cedar. It makes fine posts that last a long time so people can keep coming back to it.

[YeAhx]

steam is still retarded. It's updating and patching for a game that's in C: drive while downloading the contents on D: drive. Forcing both drive to run at 100% for a long time (probably re-checking all files)

[Eldin]

Publicado originalmente por YeAhx:

steam is still retarded. It's updating and patching for a game that's in C: drive while downloading the contents on D: drive. Forcing both drive to run at 100% for a long time (probably re-checking all files)

It sucks that they still haven't done anything about this.
Only way of forcing Steam to download to certain drive that I know of is the Symlink method

[Muppet among Puppets]

Publicado originalmente por Eldin:

Publicado originalmente por YeAhx:

steam is still retarded. It's updating and patching for a game that's in C: drive while downloading the contents on D: drive. Forcing both drive to run at 100% for a long time (probably re-checking all files)

It sucks that they still haven't done anything about this.
Only way of forcing Steam to download to certain drive that I know of is the Symlink method

I noticed it by temperature.
So steam always uses the drive its installed on and also the destination?

[Vince]

I am having the exact same problem with Assetto Corsa Competizione for some time, and it's driving me insane! I have a dedicated drive other than C for my games for a reason! How ludicrous is this sh.t? I don't keep a huge C drive and don't have lots of space lying around empty there. Not only is Steam downloading the update files to C despite being instructed to use D, but it is also first moving huge chunks of game files to C, and then moves them back after the update to D where the game is installed. This is so broken.

[Vince]

Everytime the game has an update, I am having a nightmare trying to empty C.
Fix this immediately Steam!

[Capt.Immigrunt]

Publicado originalmente por Lou the Lou:

I have two Steam folders, one on my C, one on D. I have ONE game installed on C. But Steam, in its brokenness, insists on using the C drive to update games.

This, coupled with the absolutely broken way Steam updates games, results in none of my games updating. I don't keep a lot of room free on my C drive. Steam copies the whole freaking game folder just to apply a patch, so these games that are 30-40GB refuse to update because they claim I don't have enough disk space.

But I do. On my D drive. Where the games in question are installed.

So. How do I make Steam stop being stupid and use the drive that a game is installed on as the "workspace" to update it?

So i have basically the same problem, i had set up steam on my boot drive but installed the games in my d drive. Turns out it was downloading into my c drive anyway. So i reinstalled steam on my d drive. Seems to be working

[Tushy]

Having the exact same problem, with multiple games in the past, currently unfortunate spacemen, quite an annoying issue since my C: drive is a 128gb ssd.

[Lou the Lou]

Yeah. Over a year since I posted about this issue. Many people responding that they have the same issue.

No response from Valve. No change in Steam behavior.

Surprise, surprise. /sarcasm

[komninosm]

Publicado originalmente por The Giving One:

Yea, you must have copied the .acf files and moved things that way or something, and that's why Steam is seeing the game(s) on C still.

Wherever the .acf files are, that's where Steam will try to update that game.

Are you sure about the .acf files?
Dota 2 is appmanifest_570.acf and that file is on my D drive.
Dota had a 64 mb update today.
It created a 570 folder in my C drive (steam download folder). It filled it up with 800 mb of data and then downloaded the 64 mb update and then updated the game on D.

This thing seems to happen with some games but not others (maybe I'm misremembering though). Maybe it's a fault of some games, but I doubt it.


The other issue that I dislike is how steam copies entire game folders to apply some updates.
For example I have Path of Exile on C. It had a 163 mb update today. It copied the entire game folder I think, 36 GB on the download folder on C and then downloaded the update and applied it.
Thankfully I have 67 GB free on my C drive NVME but this seems really stupid to apply a small patch.
Just apply it in the main folder. If something goes wrong we have Check Integrity for a reason.

Yeah and also fix the .acf files so they work Mr Valve Steam please :p

[Lou the Lou]

I think I'm going to comment here every single day until something is done about this.

Not only does Steam use an absolutely idiotic way to patch its games (copying the whole game folder), but the process itself is inconsistent.

I can't patch my game because it is using the wrong drive to patch. I even have enough room on the appropriate drive (where the game is installed) to account for Steam's utterly moronic method, but Steam insists on using a drive that doesn't have enough space. So my choices are to delete a bunch of stuff off that drive, or delete the game and redownload the whole thing - 50GB-60GB, even though I have a 1TB monthly limit from my ISP that costs me $50 if I go over.

Yup. Going to comment every day. And if the thread gets closed, then I'll just make new ones. And if I get banned from the forums, then I will create new accounts JUST to continue this process.

If Valve refuses to fix the problems with their software, OR EVEN COMMENT ON THE ISSUE, then I refuse to play nicely. If they want usability issues, I'm happy to oblige.