Best way to store steam games on external HDD (and then put them back)?

[The Poutreur]

Hi, I've seen a lot of threads about people using an external hard drve to play, this is not what i want to do. I'm wondering how to store steam games on an external HDD, and then put them back on steam after on the system drive. it does work when tyou just copy paste it back to common, ofc, but i'm wondering if there was a solution to make it work when your offline (for example, when you're away for a week with your computer in the middle of nowhere.

i was wondering if there was a point to the "save files from the game" function you can use if you're gonna store in a HDD, or if copy/paste the game was just about doing the same thing, but faster.

thanks a lot for your answers

[_wilco]

Let me get this straight:
1. You have limited space on your internal hdd which has Steam and some games installed
2. You're are going on a trip, taking your PC with you and have no internet access there
3. You want to take more games with you than your internal hdd can hold

What I think could work:
1. While being in the Online Mode of Steam, install all games you can and after that turn off automatic updates for those games installed
2. Move those game files to your external drive
3. Rinse and repeat for all games you want to take with you
4. Go into Offline Mode of Steam
5. Move the files of the game you want to play back into "SteamApps\common\"
6. Start Steam and play

Would be good to test it with one game before going through all the trouble though. ;-)

[The Poutreur]

thanks for your answer,

well the best way to sum it up would be i have an internal SSD 250 gb so never more than 5/6 games installed, and the external backup avialable for all my library, i want to play the games on my SSD and be able to take them on and off as i'm pleased from my SSD without having to download the game each time. so my needs are
1- not having to dl every time
2- being able to install the game (or skip most of the dl) on another account (who had bought it legally on steam
3- being able to install the game offline when on my own account
4- having a stable game

actually i'm just trying to have a system as easy as the one with cracked games : you want to play a game : mount the iso from your external HDD, install, and play. :-)

And after realising I'm awfully unclear, I'm right now hesitating between two options :
1- using the backup option on each game for steam (very time consuming as you can't do more than one game at a time, unless you put them in the same archive (useless)
2- copy paste game files directly from my SDD to my HDD and just reinstall it
3- use another, better option.
What do you guys think would be best and why ?

[cool guy yooo :)]

I have C: for windows+steamclient and D: for steamgames, dont need to do more complicated or to copy anything back etc.

[The Poutreur]

i have a laptop, and 2TB of games, how do you manage to have them all in only one SSD

[cool guy yooo :)]

I dont understand ??

[The Poutreur]

my ssd is 225GB, how do you put 2TB in 226 GB ?

[schnitzeljaeger]

How about installing Steam on an external HDD completely? If you have USB3 ports you shouldn't notice a big difference. Ok, loading times are slower ;)

[The Poutreur]

well i agree it is a possibility, but the whole point of bying an SSD is to have fast loading times ;_), actually, I have a solution, i even have two as i just wrote earlier, I'm just asking you guys which one of those is the best, or what you suggest to do the same thing :-)

[_wilco]

I'd go with copy&paste, because it's less time consuming. And I don't think there's an other option than those two.

[Marble]

Install to SSD, cut and paste the installed games onto external HDD. Copy them back to the SSD when required. This is the only way I can see it working.

But it still means waiting a few minutes for the copy to finish, so you'd probably just be better off installing to the external HDD anyway. In some games, load times are hardcoded to take a specific amount of time regardless of disk speed.

SSD's are meant for the OS and applications to launch quicker, mostly. There is less benefit for gaming.

[Duey187]

I know this is an old thread but it's funny as, watching the blind leading the blind. Every body has a suggestion but not what the op was asking for. LOL f**k the SSD get a firecuda and install Steam on to it.
Canti said:- In some games, load times are hardcoded to take a specific amount of time regardless of disk speed. it's not exactly true hybrid drive where create just for gamers in any case you can change load times any way through registry especially if you have hybrid drive (firecuda).

[shermanc]

Can't believe this is not answered yet. I tried a store on an external drive. When stem was ran without games present it removed them from downloaded status. It is not like I have very limited space but come on solve this.

My system is a laptop with 256 gb ssd C and a 1 tb D. But my library is over 600 games. I also am on limited satalite internet so downloads are limited. I am going to pop a 2tb drive in but that is just a partial solution and the 5gb are 15mm so I doubt if they would fix.

I am also going to start a new thread.