Gaming storage help

[compewpewter]

Hello I have a 250gb SSD that is reaching close to max capacity and I would like to buy a
1TB Western Digital Blue HDD for extra storage for games and misc.

I was wondering since Steam and all the games are installed on the SSD, do I have to transfer everything on steam from the SSD to the new HDD so all the files are on one drive? Or does it not matter??

Thanks in advance

 

[Rogue Leader]

You can basically copy (or move) the folder with your steam games to the new drive and then go into your options in the Steam app and point steam to the new location.

 

[Solandri]

Steam supports multiple folders for your library. So you can make games download to your HDD by default, but temporarily move the games you're playing a lot this month to your SSD so they'll start faster. (Option 2 below) Best of both worlds.

http://lifehacker.com/how-to-move-a-pc-game-to-another-hard-drive-without-re-1714706774

Try to make sure the WD Blue drive is 7200 RPM. The 5400 RPM version has a very short head parking timer baked into the firmware, which can cause stuttering and fraction of a second freezes when playing games which are stored on the drive (or in all games if you put system files like a pagefile on the drive). I'm actually not sure if the 7200 RPM Blue is safe from this, but all the reports of this problem I've seen on desktop drives have been the 5400 RPM WD drives (Green and Blue).

 

[cryoburner]

Steam supports multiple folders for your library. So you can make games download to your HDD by default, but temporarily move the games you're playing a lot this month to your SSD so they'll start faster. (Option 2 below) Best of both worlds.

http://lifehacker.com/how-to-move-a-pc-game-to-another-hard-drive-without-re-1714706774

That information is a little outdated actually. Steam has since added the option to move a game's files to another drive from directly within Steam.

You just need to right click the game, select "Properties" > "Local Files" > "Move Install Folder..." and then select which existing Steam folder you want to move the game to. It should be a bit quicker and more straightforward than manually moving the files though Windows Explorer, then uninstalling and reinstalling the game to get Steam to detect its new location.