Installing Steam on M2 SSD

[Spy Boy]

Hello all,

Today I installed windows on my brand new SSD. It's Patriot Viper and it has 1TB amount. So... Now I have a question regarding where it is better to install game services like Steam (and also Origin, Uplay, etc).
I heard that all SSDs have limited amount of how often you can write files on it - it affects its lifespan...

[shoopy]

Put it wherever you want. You don't have to worry about Steam wearing out an SSD, especially not a Viper.

[Spy Boy]

Originally posted by ardiel:

Put it wherever you want. You don't have to worry about Steam wearing out an SSD, especially not a Viper.

Thank you.

So, then I can put all the programmes on it? I also have 1tb HDD. I had windows installed on it before. Now it will be just file storage, I suppose.

[Mihryazd]

For normal usage, you don't need to worry about SSD lifespan much.

[Spy Boy]

Originally posted by Mihryazd:

For normal usage, you don't need to worry about SSD lifespan much.

Much obligated. You helped.

[shoopy]

Originally posted by NordicSpirit26:

Originally posted by ardiel:

Put it wherever you want. You don't have to worry about Steam wearing out an SSD, especially not a Viper.

Thank you.

So, then I can put all the programmes on it? I also have 1tb HDD. I had windows installed on it before. Now it will be just file storage, I suppose.

You can. I've been running mine just normally for almost a year and only wrote 6TB to it. It's going to last longer than the rest of my PC at that rate. The only thing I do different is having my general Downloads folder on an HDD.

[Spy Boy]

Originally posted by Mihryazd:

For normal usage, you don't need to worry about SSD lifespan much.

I am just average gamer, ;D

[ugafan]

Originally posted by NordicSpirit26:

So, then I can put all the programmes on it?

Yes. I have Steam installed on m.2. Games installed on other SSD and HDDs.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

It's better to install all apps to your OS drive. But for game clients I would never install those into Program Files. Maybe just install to something like "c:/games/steam"

Once installed, make folders on your D drive to actually have a folder to house installed games. Such as "d:/games/steam"

Then in Steam client, go to settings, downloads, steam library folder and pick that folder on D drive. Now you will have options upon clicking install on anything in Steam. Install games to the D (or other) drive. For many games even a decent 7200rpm sata hdd would do fine for this. As you never want everything all on your OS drive.

If the OS gets corrupted or needs a clean install or even an ssd replacement. Your games would all be on another drive and easy to restore once C drive + OS is up and running again.

Try to avoid keeping anything important on an OS drive.

[Supafly]

Personally I'd just install Steam on another drive or create a partition on the m.2 drive for game clients. That way if you every need to wipe your OS and install it again you don't have to reinstall game clients.

I've had Windows 10 on a 250GB m.2 for several years now. Around 150GB free and that's largely due to space I've assigned for system restore points. 120GB drive/partition should be more than enough.

Steam and other things are on a larger m.2 with games installed on that and a HDD. HDD is default as it's larger and I keep the games I'm currently/actively playing on the game m.2 and the others on the HDD.

As you've got a 1TB m.2 I'd create a 850GB partition so the OS portion is on the small partition and have game clients and games on the larger 800GB.

[_I_]

i make a games folder for game clients and installs to go in for each drive
then you know what drive they are on

adding a steam library on a 2nd drive is easy

install games that benefit from the faster drive on the ssd, and all others to the hdd

still easy to move or copy to a new drive using another pc or cmd prompt if the os is corrupted bad enough to need to be formatted again

[Spy Boy]

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

It's better to install all apps to your OS drive. But for game clients I would never install those into Program Files. Maybe just install to something like "c:/games/steam"

Once installed, make folders on your D drive to actually have a folder to house installed games. Such as "d:/games/steam"

Then in Steam client, go to settings, downloads, steam library folder and pick that folder on D drive. Now you will have options upon clicking install on anything in Steam. Install games to the D (or other) drive. For many games even a decent 7200rpm sata hdd would do fine for this. As you never want everything all on your OS drive.

If the OS gets corrupted or needs a clean install or even an ssd replacement. Your games would all be on another drive and easy to restore once C drive + OS is up and running again.

Try to avoid keeping anything important on an OS drive.

Well, If the matter only in saving game data if I will need to reinstall windoes its not a big deal, really. I have good internet.

[Spy Boy]

Originally posted by Suicidal Monkey:

Personally I'd just install Steam on another drive or create a partition on the m.2 drive for game clients. That way if you every need to wipe your OS and install it again you don't have to reinstall game clients.

I've had Windows 10 on a 250GB m.2 for several years now. Around 150GB free and that's largely due to space I've assigned for system restore points. 120GB drive/partition should be more than enough.

Steam and other things are on a larger m.2 with games installed on that and a HDD. HDD is default as it's larger and I keep the games I'm currently/actively playing on the game m.2 and the others on the HDD.

As you've got a 1TB m.2 I'd create a 850GB partition so the OS portion is on the small partition and have game clients and games on the larger 800GB.

I didnt make any partitions on both drives. At the moment I keep music, movies and series on HDD and all the apps and hames on SSD... Maybe I can put old games on HDD, yeah, 'cause there is no matter if they on SSD or not since their load speed is pretty fast anyway.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Reinstalling all game clients again back to C drive isn't a problem. But having your games on another drive is very helpful to avoid all the redownloading of them. Even if you had 1gbps ISP, it's still going to take a long time to redownload a couple hundred GB worth of games

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Originally posted by NordicSpirit26:

Originally posted by Suicidal Monkey:

Personally I'd just install Steam on another drive or create a partition on the m.2 drive for game clients. That way if you every need to wipe your OS and install it again you don't have to reinstall game clients.

I've had Windows 10 on a 250GB m.2 for several years now. Around 150GB free and that's largely due to space I've assigned for system restore points. 120GB drive/partition should be more than enough.

Steam and other things are on a larger m.2 with games installed on that and a HDD. HDD is default as it's larger and I keep the games I'm currently/actively playing on the game m.2 and the others on the HDD.

As you've got a 1TB m.2 I'd create a 850GB partition so the OS portion is on the small partition and have game clients and games on the larger 800GB.

I didnt make any partitions on both drives. At the moment I keep music, movies and series on HDD and all the apps and hames on SSD... Maybe I can put old games on HDD, yeah, 'cause there is no matter if they on SSD or not since their load speed is pretty fast anyway.

In this case I'd get maybe a 1tb ssd to use as just a games drive

[Supafly]

Originally posted by NordicSpirit26:

Originally posted by Suicidal Monkey:

Personally I'd just install Steam on another drive or create a partition on the m.2 drive for game clients. That way if you every need to wipe your OS and install it again you don't have to reinstall game clients.

I've had Windows 10 on a 250GB m.2 for several years now. Around 150GB free and that's largely due to space I've assigned for system restore points. 120GB drive/partition should be more than enough.

Steam and other things are on a larger m.2 with games installed on that and a HDD. HDD is default as it's larger and I keep the games I'm currently/actively playing on the game m.2 and the others on the HDD.

As you've got a 1TB m.2 I'd create a 850GB partition so the OS portion is on the small partition and have game clients and games on the larger 800GB.

I didnt make any partitions on both drives. At the moment I keep music, movies and series on HDD and all the apps and hames on SSD... Maybe I can put old games on HDD, yeah, 'cause there is no matter if they on SSD or not since their load speed is pretty fast anyway.

You could but like I said if you create a partition on the OS drive so you keep 250Gb for OS, programs and it's restore points it'll be plenty. Then install Steam and anything else on the newly created 750GB partition. That way if you ever need to reinstall OS you won't need to reinstall game clients or the games on the SSD. You can still move and install games on the HDD too.

Plus personally I like my music, documents, pictures on my SSD along with game clients. HDD can stay sleeping more instead of waking just to play my music.