Steam: alternative installation locations now available

[Nothing Here]

One of the main complaints that many gamers have in regards to Valve Software?s popular Steam gaming platform is the limitation to one installation directory and partition. While you can use some magic, in form of programs like Steam Mover to move some folders to another drive, it was not something that a lot of Steam users knew about.

If you have been running out of disk space on the drive Steam was installed on, you were left with the choice to uninstall one of your installed games to make space for the new game, or move the entire Steam games library to another drive on your computer.

Valve finally seems to have come to their senses. When you run a game installation on Steam now, you will be presented with an ?choose drive to install to? option. You can use the option to create a secondary Steam library on another drive that is connected to the computer locally.

Please note that you only see the option if the system has another partition or hard drive that is accessible under its own drive letter. You won?t get that option if you only have one partition on the system.

A click on ?create new Steam library on drive x:\? opens a configuration menu where you can select the Steam library folder location on the drive. You need to create a folder for the new Steam library as you can?t select the drive root as the location.

Steam goes back to the game installation screen afterwards and displays the newly selected path under the installation options. The game is then downloaded and installed as usual on the system.

It feels strange that it took Valve that long to integrate secondary game libraries into Steam. The rise of Solid State Drives may have convinced the company to give it a shot, considering that you can?t save lots of games on an average SSD.

Source

[ahhell]

Not sure why it took YEARS for that option.

[+LogicalApex MVC]

Yea noticed this after the last update and went "cool".

I solved it in the past by just installing steam on the HDD and not my SSD at all.

Not sure why it took YEARS for that option.

Probably a lot to do with the DRM really.

[f0rk_b0mb]

Cool Indeed! I might try Skyrim on my SSD later today. :)

[ryoohki]

Gotta love those silent SSD gaming LOL ;) but oh god $$$$$ my 240GIG is almost full already noooooooooooooooooooooo NEED MORE SSD'S! :)

[SuperKid]

Finally, yay an option very much needed :D

[Zac Bowden]

Some games don't seem to offer to install on another HDD, for example Borderlands has no option, whereas GTA IV does.

Why is this?

[tsupersonic]

This has been in the past couple of updates...but yeah, it is pretty cool. I have Steam installed on my 80 GB SSD, and 80 GB isn't a whole lot of space for games. So, I ended up creating a library on one of my HDD's to store what I can't fit on the SSD.

[Athernar]

Probably a lot to do with the DRM really.

Actually, probably a lot to do with this:

Some games don't seem to offer to install on another HDD, for example Borderlands has no option, whereas GTA IV does.

Why is this?

GTA IV uses Steam's new-ish HTTP-based content delivery system, which also uses a new file manifest format (ACF files vs GCF/NCFs), Borderlands probably still uses the old NCF-based system which doesn't have the flexibility to be installed out of location.

[+LogicalApex MVC]

Actually, probably a lot to do with this:

GTA IV uses Steam's new-ish HTTP-based content delivery system, which also uses a new file manifest format (ACF files vs GCF/NCFs), Borderlands probably still uses the old NCF-based system which doesn't have the flexibility to be installed out of location.

Not sure I agree with that. As my Steam install resides on D: and I have never had issues.

[threetonesun]

Interesting. I just moved mine off of my SSD (thanks Max Payne), the HD is slower, but I guess now I get to read the loading screen text.

[cropcircles]

Steam finally realized people had more then one hard drive with their games on them as they needed more space. I've tried to keep my primary OS separate from my games, movie files for years. It's about time.

[medhunter]

Alittle bit late.

Yesterday, I have just extended my C Drive and changed the partitions sizes just in order to make room for more steam games.

I should have waited for a day

Steam finally realized people had more then one hard drive with their games on them as they needed more space. I've tried to keep my primary OS separate from my games, movie files for years. It's about time.

I do this very radically.Simply, I use my main OS as Ubuntu and 2ry OS for games is win7.Altough, Ihave an Xbox 360 Slim already.

[Athernar]

Not sure I agree with that. As my Steam install resides on D: and I have never had issues.

I think you're confusing Steam install location with library install location(s), you could install Steam to any drive you want - but any files would have to be within steamapps\common\.

[threetonesun]

I think you're confusing Steam install location with library install location(s), you could install Steam to any drive you want - but any files would have to be within steamapps\common\.

Any installed game files... save files / profiles could end up all of the place.

[PsYcHoKiLLa]

Wonder if you can do this with folders on a home server, would be cool if more than one PC could use the same game folder on a central computer, would have to be gigabit network and a very fast drive obviously.

[theyarecomingforyou]

My Steam folder is now up to 1.6TB and contains over one million files. I've got it on a dedicated 3TB hard-drive and I'm on Windows 8, so if it gets too large I'll add another drive to my Storage Spaces array and transfer it across.

[Athernar]

Any installed game files... save files / profiles could end up all of the place.

Saves/profiles aren't really relevant in this context, the point is that the old system very likely depends on the launcher / base files (moreso for Steamworks titles) existing within the common folder under the Steam install path.

The new format probably has entries for custom library locations that the old didn't. The GCF/NCF file formats are very old, and date back to the original release of HL2 in 2004.

[+BeLGaRaTh Subscriber¹]

I've had steam on my C drive and the games on my D drive for years, I dont think this is new

[spaceelf]

My Steam folder is now up to 1.6TB and contains over one million files. I've got it on a dedicated 3TB hard-drive and I'm on Windows 8, so if it gets too large I'll add another drive to my Storage Spaces array and transfer it across.

Err, congratulation for hoarding games you'll never actually play and junking up your file system? Heh.

I tried this in the Bootstrapper beta they decided to postpone. It didn't work the greatest so I decided to hold off til a final release...now that it's in release I have plenty of space so I'm not terribly concerned.

[hjf288]

Meh I used junctions anyway long before this..

Games I regularly wanted to play/load fastest went on one of my ssds, others went on the steam drive.

Nice to see an official option though

[theyarecomingforyou]

Err, congratulation for hoarding games you'll never actually play and junking up your file system? Heh.

Modern file systems are perfectly capable of handling such data loads. If I want to play any game then I just launch it from Steam and it's up and running - no downloading, no delay. I often play older random games when I get bored. For instance, the other day I loaded up the original Crysis to take screenshots and I did the same with Aliens Versus Predator. If I kept deleting games that I hadn't played for years then I'd be constantly redownloading them and having to wait before playing them.

If I wanted gaming to be inconvenient and time consuming then I would have bought a console. I can afford the hard-drive capacity so I might as well use it, as I have over 13.5TB of storage and will probably add another 4TB at some point.

[+LogicalApex MVC]

I think you're confusing Steam install location with library install location(s), you could install Steam to any drive you want - but any files would have to be within steamapps\common\.

Not confusing, just saying I don't see what his post of games not supporting alternative drives really means. As, the games already supported being installed on a drive other than C as long as Steam was also installed there.

[Athernar]

Not confusing, just saying I don't see what his post of games not supporting alternative drives really means. As, the games already supported being installed on a drive other than C as long as Steam was also installed there.

No, you are confusing the ability to install Steam to any drive with the ability for Steam to install different games to multiple drives.

The old content system is not capable of this feature, the new one however has it built-in. Hence why Borderlands doesn't have the prompt while GTA4 does as the guy I quoted mentions.

[threetonesun]

Not confusing, just saying I don't see what his post of games not supporting alternative drives really means. As, the games already supported being installed on a drive other than C as long as Steam was also installed there.

Steam on C, Counter Strike on C, Skyrim on C, Farcry 3 on D.

That's what's new.