Steam Cache Server?

[abillybob]

Hey Guys

 

I have a lot of games on steam but it annoys me because I run them on a 500GB SSD but it can't hold all my games, so what I tend to do is uninstall the games I'm not playing currently and re-download the games I want to, this becomes very time consuming because a typical 6GB game can take 4+ hours to fully download which because steam uses all internet bandwidth it means the internet connection is unusable in my house for those 4 hours.

 

I have a HP ProLiant MicroServer at home which at the moment downloads stuff off bit torrent and then stores them and shares the content with all the computers across my LAN. Is there anyway I can use my server as a temporary holding place for games so I'm not having to re-download them all of the time??

 

Thankyou

[3s-gtech]

Yes. Copy the large game content files from your Steam folder across the network to the server. Then uninstall the game from Steam. When you want it back reinstall it, stop Steam, copy the files back, restart Steam. I have done this to backup my library - a large game on my connection can take over 24 hours.

[abillybob]

Cheers buddy, will this also restore my Steam Library? As in when I go to Steam - Library will the game show up in there so I can launch direct from steam?

 

It's a shame steam don't support this so when downloading a game it looks at a dedicated IP Address to see if the game is on there if not it downloads directly from steam servers, it would also take some of the strain off steam servers Simples *squeek*

[SteveM555]

Cheers buddy, will this also restore my Steam Library? As in when I go to Steam - Library will the game show up in there so I can launch direct from steam?

 

It's a shame steam don't support this so when downloading a game it looks at a dedicated IP Address to see if the game is on there if not it downloads directly from steam servers, it would also take some of the strain off steam servers Simples *squeek*

 

I would love this.

 

I've got a NAS sitting here that could host all of the games that I am "getting around to" and just install when needed, rather than waiting hours to install.

[Pete10141748]

Here's what I do;

 

go to C:\Program Files (X86)\Steam\steamapps\common and you'll see folders, one for each game you have installed. Copy that folder onto your SAN, external drive, whatever you want to keep it on, then delete it from the C:\ drive. I also go into Steam and use the "delete local content" so that game grey's out in the library list so you know it's not installed anymore.

 

When you want to put the game back on, copy from your external storage back into the C:\Program Files (X86)\Steam\steamapps\common folder, then go into Steam and install the game as you usually would; it will detect the existing files and probably just download a few smalls things that are missing, no more than a few Mb's as most.

 

Easy, and a damn sight quicker than re-downloading all the time!

Edited July 17, 2014 by Pete10141748

[3s-gtech]

^^This.

[sonofsanta]

You can also use Steam Mover to shuffle content about between two local drives, so you can stick a big local HDD in and move stuff onto your SSD as and when. Used to be a godsend back when Steam insisted on installing everything to one drive.

[LincolnE]

I tend to only have games I actively intend to play on my SSD. You can install games to a different hard-drive, so the stuff that I might only dip in and out of are stored there.

 

(I've found little point having games installed on my SSD for 90% of the time, given it doesn't impact loading times all that much. Only multiplayer games I've got on the solid state).

[Achandler]

You realise in Steam you can set multiple install locations, then just install them to either location, you can also tell it to move the game across.