Gonna backup my ♥♥♥♥ but

[MitchellFJN]

Gonna backup my ♥♥♥♥ with the top left steam "backup and restore" but steam says something about DVD-R and CD-R, and both have massively different compression rates. I just want to back them up on my USB and i have no idea what to choose that's the safest/least amount chance of data corruption and errors. Need to wipe my pc and don't want to wait to redownload everything from cloud after.

Question 1. Does this backup all the game's player data
Question 2. What does the compression rate matter
Question 3. Which option should i choose to backup on my USB (who the hell got a dvd or cd I dont have one)
Question 4. why is there a column for you to choose the compression size what does that do

Thanks

also I'm legit asking this aint a joke

[Cathulhu]

Question1: Only game files, no savegames
Question2: Compression rate is always the same, you can decide on how big you want those chunks to be in case you backup to CD/DVD or other media with finite storage.
Question3: Depends on how big the chunks you want them to be. Make sure it is not using FAT32 if you want to use files bigger than 4GB.
Question4: What column are you talking about? You can only choose a custom chunk size.

[Kargor]

There's really no point in backing up the games -- you can always download them anyway.

Backup the save files instead...

[MitchellFJN]

Escrito originalmente por Cathulhu:

Question1: Only game files, no savegames
Question2: Compression rate is always the same, you can decide on how big you want those chunks to be in case you backup to CD/DVD or other media with finite storage.
Question3: Depends on how big the chunks you want them to be. Make sure it is not using FAT32 if you want to use files bigger than 4GB.
Question4: What column are you talking about? You can only choose a custom chunk size.

So it doesnt back up save files? that means i gotta do them all manually from the steamapps/common folder myself and hope those are all savegame files?

so the backup thing is fake. you HAVE TO backup save files YOURSELF? bummer
Thanks for the help anyways

[Cathulhu]

You can use tools like:
https://www.gamesave-manager.com/
to automate the backup of save games and other personal information.
Don't worry, you have full control on where to save the backup. No cloud shenanigans.
Looks like the website is currently experiencing technical difficulties.

[MitchellFJN]

Escrito originalmente por Cathulhu:

You can use tools like:
https://www.gamesave-manager.com/
to automate the backup of save games and other personal information.
Don't worry, you have full control on where to save the backup. No cloud shenanigans.
Looks like the website is currently experiencing technical difficulties.

normally i dont use third party stuff but well i could try i guess
thanks

[Spawn of Totoro]

Escrito originalmente por Kargor:

There's really no point in backing up the games -- you can always download them anyway.

Backup the save files instead...

Some may have limited bandwidth, so may need to store the game for future use.

Escrito originalmente por MitchellFJN:

Gonna backup my ♥♥♥♥ with the top left steam "backup and restore" but steam says something about DVD-R and CD-R, and both have massively different compression rates. I just want to back them up on my USB and i have no idea what to choose that's the safest/least amount chance of data corruption and errors. Need to wipe my pc and don't want to wait to redownload everything from cloud after.

Question 1. Does this backup all the game's player data
Question 2. What does the compression rate matter
Question 3. Which option should i choose to backup on my USB (who the hell got a dvd or cd I dont have one)
Question 4. why is there a column for you to choose the compression size what does that do

Thanks

also I'm legit asking this aint a joke

Your questions were already answered, so I will just add this:

I don't use the back-up system. It is quite out dated and takes forever to back-up and restore, from my experience.

I copy the games to another dive if I need to back it up (often if I mod a game a lot, I will have a clean back-up in case anything goes wrong). You can also use a compression software such as 7-zip (100% free) to compress it for storage.

Escrito originalmente por MitchellFJN:

So it doesnt back up save files? that means i gotta do them all manually from the steamapps/common folder myself and hope those are all savegame files?

so the backup thing is fake. you HAVE TO backup save files YOURSELF? bummer
Thanks for the help anyways

Back-up is for the game it's self.

There is also cloud saves for many games, if you enabled it.

Most saves are in the "My Documents" and "AppData" folders.

[crunchyfrog]

Escrito originalmente por MitchellFJN:

Escrito originalmente por Cathulhu:

You can use tools like:
https://www.gamesave-manager.com/
to automate the backup of save games and other personal information.
Don't worry, you have full control on where to save the backup. No cloud shenanigans.
Looks like the website is currently experiencing technical difficulties.

normally i dont use third party stuff but well i could try i guess
thanks

Just to be clear here, I echo this.

You're taking caution well by not downloading outside stuff, but Game Save Manager is not only legit, but frankly essential.

If you have more than a handful of games, it's fantastic for backing up saves. I've used it for years.

[Muppet among Puppets]

If you keep the whole folders, and put them in their place later, it will just run like before.
You do not need to backup on cd (no idea how that was even possible with most games)

[Kargor]

Escrito originalmente por Muppet among Puppets:

You do not need to backup on cd (no idea how that was even possible with most games)

Steam just wraps up the data into a file. The advantage over copying it yourself is that Steam knows where things go, and how to maintain the .acf files.

In fact, you might not be aware of this, but Steam even has (or had; I've used this almost 10 years ago...) a command line option to "download" a game from a CD -- and it even supports multiple CDs. This is from way back when games were still sold on CDs/DVDs in stores.

It's probably not the same kind of archive as produced by the backup tool, but similar in what it does.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

1. Only game itself, not game saves. If game support cloud save, then don't have to worry as your game save is on the cloud. Games not using cloud, you have to manually grab them.

2. That depends on you, if trying to shrink files down, but IMO, if want easier time to move things just copy Steam folder. If you're moving to new PC, just install Steam, and then replace it from your copy you did from old system, if reinstall OS just do same thing, install then replace with copy. Easy stuff.

3. Use whatever best for you, you can throw it onto your USB anyways, and it read the files just fine.

4. Just leave it as default.

Escrito originalmente por MitchellFJN:

Escrito originalmente por Cathulhu:

Question1: Only game files, no savegames
Question2: Compression rate is always the same, you can decide on how big you want those chunks to be in case you backup to CD/DVD or other media with finite storage.
Question3: Depends on how big the chunks you want them to be. Make sure it is not using FAT32 if you want to use files bigger than 4GB.
Question4: What column are you talking about? You can only choose a custom chunk size.

So it doesnt back up save files? that means i gotta do them all manually from the steamapps/common folder myself and hope those are all savegame files?

so the backup thing is fake. you HAVE TO backup save files YOURSELF? bummer
Thanks for the help anyways

Back up not fake, as it back up exactly what it was told to, reason why doesn't do saves, because it doesn't know about them, that where cloud save comes in, so if game Dev tells where saves located, and what they are, that cloud enable right there, without needing to actually back then up to begin with. But can use 3rd party tool to manually grab all your saves, it useful for offline no internet access cases.

[robo]

A large hard drive is more suitable. speficially an external hard drive like this https://www.google.com/search?q=seagate+expansion&rlz=1C1ONGR_en-GBAU975AU975&oq=seagate+ex&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i512l9.4624j0j3&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Makes it easier to back up large files. I don't know anyone who still use CD/DVD's on computers these days.

[Phoenix]

Escrito originalmente por MitchellFJN:

so the backup thing is fake. you HAVE TO backup save files YOURSELF? bummer
Thanks for the help anyways

It literally says "Backup and Restore Games" which is exacely what the option does.

[crunchyfrog]

Escrito originalmente por robo:

A large hard drive is more suitable. speficially an external hard drive like this https://www.google.com/search?q=seagate+expansion&rlz=1C1ONGR_en-GBAU975AU975&oq=seagate+ex&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i512l9.4624j0j3&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Makes it easier to back up large files. I don't know anyone who still use CD/DVD's on computers these days.

I do because they are great still for offline storage.

Hard drives fail, DVDs don't if you know how to store them correctly.

There's a reason I have CDs I bought right from when they were first released in the 1980s and only two don't work out of thousands. Temperature, sunlight and all that are the way to deal with such media.

[nullable]

Escrito originalmente por MitchellFJN:

Gonna backup my ♥♥♥♥ with the top left steam "backup and restore" but steam says something about DVD-R and CD-R, and both have massively different compression rates. I just want to back them up on my USB and i have no idea what to choose that's the safest/least amount chance of data corruption and errors. Need to wipe my pc and don't want to wait to redownload everything from cloud after.

Question 1. Does this backup all the game's player data
Question 2. What does the compression rate matter
Question 3. Which option should i choose to backup on my USB (who the hell got a dvd or cd I dont have one)
Question 4. why is there a column for you to choose the compression size what does that do

Thanks

also I'm legit asking this aint a joke

1. Not save games, you can use Game Save Manager to manage this. Games don't all use the same locations so this helps a lot.
   
2. It doesn't. I don't seen any options for compression when I look at backup/restore. You can always use something like 7zip if compression was important for you though.
   
3. The CD and DVD options were just a simple way to help users split larger archives into pieces that would fit on a CD or DVD (700MB and 4.7GB) respectively. The backup/restore function is just that old where it was an important feature at the time. But it reads a bit silly in 2022. The only thing sillier would have a 1.44MB floppy disk option.
   
4. Seeing how much a certain set of files is compressed is just user information. Although I'm not sure where you're seeing this exactly as the backup/restore functionality as always been pretty spartan in my experience.

Aside from that I'd just throw games in my own zip archives if I wanted to back them up. Steam's process is archaic and I'd argue it's mostly there for people who have used it in the past and still need access to those old archives. If you're trying to backup games in 2022 there's better options in my opinion. Especially if you're capable of managing game folders yourself.

[crunchyfrog]

I'd echo Snakub's point about the official backup process.

It's very archaic and not only that but very unreliable. Always has been.

The big problem there is that you won't find out how unreliable it is until too late - when you want to reinstall the backup.

So I'd say just copy and paste the folders if you really want to do this, but it's rather moot.