Steam drive

[St1ckM4n]

What do you guys do with your Steam libraries? Mine's getting a bit unwieldy, especially since I didn't rebuilt my 2x1TB RAID0 array. I like to have two copies (existing plus backup) of the Steam games, but I'm currently contemplating options.

• SSD: 256GB SSD, use it for most-used games only? Will need to figure out where to store games otherwise. 512GB SSD is too small for all the games and expensive.
• Hybrid drive: not gonna work, unless I keep playing the same game over and over.
• 1TB WD VelociRaptor? $255 + shipping, could be a good dedicated high-performance option.

 

[tipstir]

Streamer is 6TB in a NSA 325 (choice raid, thru jumbo) everything streams on that to all network PCs (smart phones, blue-ray, tablets netbooks, laptops and desktops), and network media players.

 

[LNCPapa]

Not sure if you're talking about streaming your Steam library from a remote server tipstir, but what I've been doing is keeping my more demanding titles on my SSD and "MOVING" my less demanding or less played titles to other drives. Once I move them I just create a junction link (mklink /J) to the new location and the game continues to work. I can move things around as much as I like this way and works for almost any game. I've found specifically that games outside of the common folder do not seem to work.

MOVING means letting them install in the default folder (on my SSD) and then moving the directory in Windows to the new location. This way Steam thinks my games are still installed in the default location. It works very similar to how symlinks work in linux.

If you do it this way you can build a RAID array as whatever drive letter you like and just move the titles to that location afterward and still get the performance benefit of your array.

 

[Jad Chaar]

Velociraptors arent that great. I would get a 64GB SSD and create a hybrid drive. Or just store most used games on your SSD.

 

[St1ckM4n]

Yeah, $260 for VR or <$100 for a WD Black. I'm leading towards the WD ...

At this stage with my limited PC gaming time available, I might skip the dedicated-SSD path. But, when I make a full rebuild it'll probably be worthwhile to get a 512 GB for steam.

When I do play, I play random games, so moving to/fro SSD will probably waste more time than save.

 

[tipstir]

He's not talking about Streaming with the last post.

 

[St1ckM4n]

No, streaming isn't an option. Wifi only.

 

[Jad Chaar]

Yeah, $260 for VR or <$100 for a WD Black. I'm leading towards the WD ...

At this stage with my limited PC gaming time available, I might skip the dedicated-SSD path. But, when I make a full rebuild it'll probably be worthwhile to get a 512 GB for steam.

When I do play, I play random games, so moving to/fro SSD will probably waste more time than save.

It matters on what games you play. MMOs require fast HDDs/SSDs because they move a lot of files. FPSs on the other hand dont really gain from a SSD (not a noticeable difference for the average user). The VR is a WD BTW. The WD Black is the king of 7200RPM drives IMO.

 

[St1ckM4n]

I bit the bullet and bought a WD Black 1TB, along with a SATA3 PCIe card, since my mobo only has SATA2. The WD Green 1TB was struggling to large game installs.

 

[Jad Chaar]

I bit the bullet and bought a WD Black 1TB, along with a SATA3 PCIe card, since my mobo only has SATA2. The WD Green 1TB was struggling to large game installs.

Why waste money on buying a SATA 3 card if you only have SATA 2 xD lol. I think PCIe SSDs are your only option for high speeds on an older SATA 2 system.

 

[St1ckM4n]

The SATA3 card plugs into PCIe slot.

 

[Jad Chaar]

The SATA3 card plugs into PCIe slot.

Thats OP lol.