Anyone using a steam cache

[Lord Flashheart]

Hi all
I just used some old hardware and bought some new disks to setup my NAS.

I has various things stored including a backup of my games.
On my gaming machine my games are on a raid 0 setup with 4 1TB SSDs. It is all backed up for good reason.

My NAS has 16GB DDR3 an i5-3470, z77- D3h-MVP motherboard.
4 x 4TB disks in a RAID Z (RAID 5) config - 12TB usable storage.

I can swap out memory to have 32GB from another machine if needed.

My plan of sorts:

Install ubuntu linux on the NAS as a virtual machine (assign a single core + 1- 2 GB memory)
Install windows 10 on the NAS as virtual machine (assign 1 core + 4 -6 GB memory).

CPU usage on the NAS is usuall very low so are not concerned about CPU power.
I hope to use the windows 10 machine to update my games overnight - to the NAS backup downloading through the cache.
Maybe I could setup steam to start about 2 am and download updates and shutdown about noon or so.

The virtual ubuntu linux machine will have the steam cache software installed.


When I turn on my gaming machine ( a dual boot windows/linux) to play games, steam I hope should update very quickly if updating through the cache.
I hope full gigabit speeds when updating games.

Also it means I could maybe go for the cheapest internet connection (around 15Mbit/sec download ) saving money.


Is anyone doing anything similar?

How well does it work?


Useful info appreciated.

[xSOSxHawkens]

Ive never used steam cache, but long before it was a supported feature I went old school and just used the backup feature in Steam when they added it. I have most games backed up via that method to an external USB3 HDD and have it shared with network access. Any time I want to (re)install a game or put it on a new machine I just use the backup of LAN.

Realistically I have found that every machine I have used, when installing from a local copy, will hit CPU limited speeds due to decompression of the data by steam, which uses only 1 or 2 threads to do it. Even from m.2 to m.2 on a 3900x you will only see a few hundred MB a second restore speeds, less than what you would get in a direct fiel trancser. Trade off is steam generally does a decent job compressing it to save some space ont eh backup end.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

There is no such thing

[_I_]

the library outside of the pc is not a good idea
lag, disconnects, increased load times, ect..

pick up a 2-4tb hdd for the pc with enough space for the games you play

you can copy games you have installed to the nas when you dont want to play them, then uninstall from steam to free space on local drives
if/when you want to play them again, copy the files back, then install from steam, it will find existing filess, then update/repair, but with a fast internet connection and cpu it will take just as long to re-download/install the game from steams servers

[Bad 💀 Motha]

I've done steam library on a NAS before for myself and some clients. It's all fine if done right. If the Nas os fast enough and on a fast reliable router then you should be fine. But it needs to be mapped as a drive letter on your pc or it won't work.

[Lord Flashheart]

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

There is no such thing

It seems there is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk1eKPRLaJA

[Lord Flashheart]

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

I've done steam library on a NAS before for myself and some clients. It's all fine if done right. If the Nas os fast enough and on a fast reliable router then you should be fine. But it needs to be mapped as a drive letter on your pc or it won't work.

My NAS seems be fast enough although it may get a cpu upgrade at some point. The games I run are on my gaming machine and backup up on the NAS.
That is where the virtual windows 10 will download them to through the cache overnight - or at least that is the plan. Then when I turn on the gaming machine & steam updates, then the update should be much faster.
My router is a decade old laptop with pfsense installed and a switch that can handle vlans. It works very well. All transfers between machines can do 1 gigibit no problem.

[Spec_Ops_Ape]

Dreamhack Anaheim used it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsVpw7TP94w
@16:40 talks about steam cache. To be fair this setup is not going to be used by the average home user.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

You have to be smarter though if you do a NAS based game library for multiple PCs. As you could run into various hiccups if more then one PC connects to it at the same time because when steam client wants to do a game patch update, if that gets triggered by more then one PC sat the same time... now you see the potential for a major problem?

Does it work, sure if you use some common sense.

[Lord Flashheart]

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

You have to be smarter though if you do a NAS based game library for multiple PCs. As you could run into various hiccups if more then one PC connects to it at the same time because when steam client wants to do a game patch update, if that gets triggered by more then one PC sat the same time... now you see the potential for a major problem?

Does it work, sure if you use some common sense.

Only two windows machine will be using it.
The first a lowish spec virtual windows 10 machine to download game updates overnight. In the windows 10 virtual machine I will need to start & terminate steam at specific times which is doable.
The second my game machine do download updated games much faster typically in the evening.

Initially the gaming machine files and backup will be synced (same files with same file modified dates) using freefilesync. That is slow so not using that as a method to get the updated files every day.

[Lord Flashheart]

Originally posted by Spec_Ops_Ape:

Dreamhack Anaheim used it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsVpw7TP94w
@16:40 talks about steam cache. To be fair this setup is not going to be used by the average home user.

The software to do it is already available it seems. I will not need to do what he is doing I am glad to say.

[L37]

Thought of doing this some time ago, but... i do not keep my nas (e5-2650v2, 32GB ecc ram, 10*2TB raidz2) on 24/7 (electricity, noise, hdd wear) and my "router" only has like ~1TB of storage... which is still enough for my library, but might be somewhat limiting. Also never got to it, because did not have enough reason to. It really depends on what games you play and how often they are updated, for me most of the time with 100Mbit internet updates happen fast enough to be non-issue anyway.

[Lord Flashheart]

Originally posted by L37:

Thought of doing this some time ago, but... i do not keep my nas (e5-2650v2, 32GB ecc ram, 10*2TB raidz2) on 24/7 (electricity, noise, hdd wear) and my "router" only has like ~1TB of storage... which is still enough for my library, but might be somewhat limiting. Also never got to it, because did not have enough reason to. It really depends on what games you play and how often they are updated, for me most of the time with 100Mbit internet updates happen fast enough to be non-issue anyway.

It depends on the situation for each person.
As for noise, the nas is a different room. The case I use - the sugo SG11 fits in a cubby hole spot just fine with the included polystyrene on there with holes extra for connectors. It helps a lot with noise & vibration issues. A longish network connection is needed.

Also aprt from games, other stuff is stored on the NAS.

As for other parts, use a lowish power cpu , set the hard drives to spin down when not needed and try to get an efficient power supply.

Also it can mean using the cheapest unlimited internet option hopefully saving cash.

For me the i main issue is time. My main gaming machine is dual boot linux/windows 10.
If I want to game, reboot into windows, then watch the updates go very quickly.
Waiting a while for game updates for the one you wanted to play is no fun.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Originally posted by L37:

Thought of doing this some time ago, but... i do not keep my nas (e5-2650v2, 32GB ecc ram, 10*2TB raidz2) on 24/7 (electricity, noise, hdd wear) and my "router" only has like ~1TB of storage... which is still enough for my library, but might be somewhat limiting. Also never got to it, because did not have enough reason to. It really depends on what games you play and how often they are updated, for me most of the time with 100Mbit internet updates happen fast enough to be non-issue anyway.

Thats a gaming pc?

Get a 250gb ssd for your os.
1tb ssd for games.
2tb+ hdd for backup and general file storage needs.

[L37]

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

Thats a gaming pc?

Get a 250gb ssd for your os.
1tb ssd for games.
2tb+ hdd for backup and general file storage needs.

No, that's not for games, it is purelly for storage. Does not even have video output because it does not need one and pci-e is used by sas controller. Also has a couple of small nvme ssd-s (120gb) for os and caching.
Then desktop/gaming machine simply has 1tb nvme for everything, and it's enough for me since all data apart from os/installed software/installed games is stored on that external storage.

Originally posted by Mamba Bajamba:

It depends on the situation for each person.
As for noise, the nas is a different room. The case I use - the sugo SG11 fits in a cubby hole spot just fine with the included polystyrene on there with holes extra for connectors. It helps a lot with noise & vibration issues. A longish network connection is needed.

Also aprt from games, other stuff is stored on the NAS.

As for other parts, use a lowish power cpu , set the hard drives to spin down when not needed and try to get an efficient power supply.

Also it can mean using the cheapest unlimited internet option hopefully saving cash.

For me the i main issue is time. My main gaming machine is dual boot linux/windows 10.
If I want to game, reboot into windows, then watch the updates go very quickly.
Waiting a while for game updates for the one you wanted to play is no fun.

Yes, i totally see how it can be useful. Especially if you play larger games with larger updates. For most people though, whole setup procedure + the need to leave some hardware running 24/7 make whole thing questionsble.

Well, at least if you are going to try it - it would be nice if you could describe how it goes on such small scale, might be useful for some people who did not even know such thing existed.

[iceman1980]

*sigh* it's just a caching proxy server. It's nothing particularly special. Why do you keep asking questions that based on your "hardware expenditure" ? should know how to do or even put some effort into doing?