[Squeets]

Ok well I am about to upgrade to some new HDs and raid0 them... I was just wondering is it possible to put game data on an external drive and then put it on the new drives after they are installed?

(I know I am a newb)... I have never used an external drive or backed up data... But I want to get my Steam games again without downloading them (200GB worth of games and my school's bandwidth is capped at 220kb/s = like easily over 10 days of straight downloading...)

I see an option on Steam that says "Backup game files..." will this option let me put all of the data on an external drive?

I was also wondering if this would even work...? I am using THIS external drive and I was just wondering if it would plug and play... Because if it has to format after I try to put it on my "new" computer (with the fresh install and everything) that would be bad...

Thanks for any answers they would be very helpful!

 

[TwoCables]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Squeets Ok well I am about to upgrade to some new HDs and raid0 them... I was just wondering is it possible to put game data on an external drive and then put it on the new drives after they are installed? (I know I am a newb)... I have never used an external drive or backed up data... But I want to get my Steam games again without downloading them (200GB worth of games and my school's bandwidth is capped at 220kb/s = like easily over 10 days of straight downloading...) I see an option on Steam that says "Backup game files..." will this option let me put all of the data on an external drive? I was also wondering if this would even work...? I am using THIS external drive and I was just wondering if it would plug and play... Because if it has to format after I try to put it on my "new" computer (with the fresh install and everything) that would be bad... Thanks for any answers they would be very helpful!

Believe it or not, this is a common thing that people do when they're starting over from scratch. I don't have Steam, but I can tell you that since the option ends with "..." that you can just click on it to pretend like you're going to go through with it just to see what options you are presented with. Or, at least what the first dialog box looks like. I am assuming that it allows you to choose where to back them up to.

Regarding the external hard drive in question: I don't know from personal experience, but I can almost guarantee you that it will not have to be reformatted in order to work with the new system configuration with RAID 0 and everything.

So you have an excellent idea here and I recommend that you put more on that drive than just Steam stuff. For example:

• Firefox (you can literally back it up so it's like you never formatted)
• E-mail (that is, if you're a user like me who still uses software instead of using web mail like g-mail).
• Non-steam games (most games these days are placing all of its saved games and user settings in My Documents\\My Games, or some other folder just inside of My Documents).
• Screenshots of the way things look right now (since certain things like this can't be backed up any other way).
• Instant messaging (but I may not be able to help with this).
• Be creative: Google "How to back up ____________" for anything you want to save.

But regarding Steam games specifically, I know that somebody will come along who has experience with this who knows exactly what to do for the best results.

Last but not least, I actually use a 2 hard drive setup (well, these days I have 1 SSD and 1 HDD) and use the secondary drive for the purpose of being able to quickly and easily format and start over. For example: I keep all of My Documents on my secondary drive.

 

[nepas]

Instead of using the backup games feature(which takes ages) you can just copy the steamapps folder.Once you reinstall steam just point it at your folder that you backed up and its done,it will go through a minor update on your games and you are good to go(well at least I was).

There is a guide somewhere on here that shows how its done.