Steam crashes when downloading game to an external SSD (SOLVED)

[Notjorjo]

(I PUT IT ON THE WRONG PORT, IT WAS BETTER IN THE BACK THAN THE FRONT)



Recently, i got a 2TB SSD external drive, because i wanted to play more games that i had on my last laptop, but the main hardrive that is an SSD only has 100gb, and after installing like 2 or 3 games i don't have space for more, so i plug the External SSD, and of course is slower than downloading on the main drive, but steam gets slower, it takes more time than usual to react, and when downloading a game, the allocating disk space takes a lot more tan normal, and when is installing the disk usage slowly starts doping to 0% disk usage, and when i pause it the majority of the time it freezes and crashes, and then takes a lot of time to update and start again, i tried with very small games like 1GB and still happens, is there a solution? Also, its only steam, i use nexus mods to play FNV and when downloading mods it's normal, no errors nothing, and general downloads to the drive, only steam is affected, steam is installed in the main drive if that helps

[CZI]

I'm not sure if your external SSD is properly get enough power.
If other device taking too much power, the SSD may become insufficient power.
Also better to use USB hub, best port is PC's back port as it's on mother board.
Front panel port may be hub in between.

Following tools helpful in some USB device related issues.
https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html

[crunchyfrog]

Hmm, if it's taking longer for an SSSD you need to make sure of a couple of things right off the bat.
Firstly is it all configured correctly? Also what version USB? If you've got it bunged in to a regular old USB 2 socket then it's going to be slower. It needs to be USB 3/0 or above (the socket will have a little blue piece of plastic as the locator rather than the normal white).

Also you need to make sure you have all your power saving settings on Windows set to max. Then you need to make sure the drive properties have NO setting to power down when there's been a time of being dormant too.

And never use sleep mode or anything either.

If it still persists then it may well be as CZI states. You should check the specs to see what the power draw should be, what that USB socket puts out, and whether the cable you're using (if it's not the supplied one) is up to scratch too. Not all USB cables are the same.

[Elucidator]

Your previous thread about the issues still exists:
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/3198120360738164326/

I am just mentioning it since it seems ... like, as if its the exact same issue.

Also something from there I typed:

Steam firstly always downloads stuff to wherever steam is installed. (into the caching directory) when done it starts moving the file (by renaming it essentially, changing the directory path). If it is on a different partition / disk / drive, then it will copy the file to there and then after wards delete what was in the caching directory.

In case you wonder why Steam slows down, go to the Steam installation directory, and then enter the logs directory, and open a file called content_log.txt
Scroll to the bottom and see what it is doing exactly there when it is downloading a game.

Anyway my advise is to share the bottom part of the log if you don't get it, what it says I mean yourself.
remove any privacy stuff if you want to.

When Steam crashes, or just closes, there will be an error log in Windows Logs (see event viewer). There may also be a dmp file somewhere or a cab file (a crash log) in the Steam directory likely.

If you can, please show those. People will be able to tell what is going on much more likely then.