Steam games on a external hard drive ?

How do you put steam games that where downloaded from steam onto an External hard drive ? so that i could play the games on a different computer if i wanted? and do i need to also put Steam onto my External hard drive ? thanks alot

 

Just the steamapps folder will do I think ._.

There might be problems with registry though... But I think it'll sort that out itself

 

^ thank you !! i wasnt sure it i need all the files or not. thanks agian

 

Not sure if that works or not, I just use my external hdd for backing up my games and install them on another computer if I need to leave mine behind.

 

use this to make a folder junction on another drive:

mklink /j "C:\program files (x86)\steam\steamapps\common\GAMENAME" "D:\EXTERNALFOLDERNAME\GAMENAME"

D can be whatever letter your drive is assigned.

Your folder will still be on C but the actual data will be stored on external.

 

I dont understand ? what do i do with that link ?

 

Id like to put the games on it, so that when im at school i can play.

 

so who is right ? what will work ?

 

Steam and the game files need to be on the same drive and steamapps under the Steam directory. But you have a couple options depending on what you really want to do and feel most comfortable with:

(1) What bearclaw suggests basically "tricks" the OS and Steam into thinking the steamapps folder is actually there but it's actually on the drive you specify, and this is a good route to take, however I recommend just linking to the steamapps folder only and not to the game folder. Otherwise you'd have to create a link for every game.

Now be careful because what you will need to do is move all the steamapps contents (basically copy and paste the steamapps folder) to the external drive, and then delete the 'steamapps' folder on your C: drive. Just to be safe though, instead of deleting the steamapps folder from your C: drive (assuming Steam is in default location), I would just rename the steamapps folder to something like "steamapps_backup" or something until you're certain this works.

Then use the 'mklink' function by starting an elevated command prompt: click start menu, type 'cmd' (without quotes), and press ctrl-shift-enter simultaneously (well you can hold ctrl and shift, then tap enter), or after typing 'cmd' in the start menu, right click the 'cmd.exe' file that pops up and click 'run as administrator'. Once the command prompt window opens, type: mklink /j "C:\program files (x86)\steam\steamapps" "d:\steamapps" and hit enter.

Now if you look in your c:\program files (x86)\steam\steamapps folder you should see all of your games shown on your D:\steamapps drive. This is all assuming you installed steam to the default location initially, and your external drive is drive "D:".

You would then have steam installed on each computer you'd want to use it with (on their local hard drive, i.e. C: drive), and create the link on each computer to the external drive. This would keep the steam app on each computer locally, but the games on the external drive.

(2) Another option is to first backup all your steam games (copy steamapps folder or use the steam backup feature). Then uninstall steam. This will blow away any and all Steam games. Install Steam onto your external hard drive, then copy your steamapps folder you just backed up under your steam directory and overwrite existing steamapps folder. You would then install steam from any computer you want to run your steam games on, onto the external hard drive. You can safely install over steam without affecting your games, however, uninstalling will always blow away anything under your Steam folder.

Either way, I hope you are using eSATA instead of USB because USB can take a while to load a game if it's a high memory useage game.

 

Thanks ! so will this make it so i can play the games from my External hard drive? as in i dont need it on my internal HD ? I plan to keep the games on my computer though. Do i need to do the mklink thing ? i did it but the games still show that they are in the C drive, and it didnt make a D drive ?

 

The "D:" drive was only used as a theoretical. You should substitute "D:" for whatever drive letter your external hard drive letter is and whatever path you make.

So you want to keep your games on your "main" computer plus put them on an external for use elsewhere? This will require a little maintenance on your part then because you will have to sync the files to make sure those on the external drive are up to date.

On your main computer, just install steam as normal then. Copy your "steamapps" folder from this main computer to your external hard drive. Then use method (1) or (2) in my previous post on the other computer where you want to use the external drive with. For simplicities sake I'd use method (2).

To make sure your external drive has up to date game files between your main PC and the external drive, you can use any sync program, but here's a simple free one that's portable (doesn't require an installer, just run it from wherever you extract it). It's called Toucan: Toucan | PortableApps.com - Portable software for USB drives

 

thanks sooo Much !!!! i think i got it

 

My friend just installed steam to the hard drive and boom...it works on his 2 computers... its slow to load however due to the crappy drive he uses but it works none the less

 

Thanks Bearclaw and htwingnut, I'd long been wondering if this was possible but hadn't got around to asking it yet. That you can do this on a per-game basis makes it all the better for me; if I were to do this I'd probably want one or two Steam games (the most-played) on my internal hard drive and the lesser-played ones with huge install sizes on the external, and Steam itself on the internal. That this can be done makes the potential for an SSD upgrade a bit greater for me.

 

you could try using a hard symlink to move the game folders to another drive....in theory it should work fine and hopefully steam wont whine about it