TBG_Killer

That explains how they install games without having to re-download them. However, it doesn't show us how each PC is configured. Do they each have an SSD for the OS and a dedicated HDD for the games? That is not how LAN centers do this. I believe they use PXE and boot to a windows image. I don't know how they share game libraries, or if it's possible.

I think I will set that up and try it out, as a secondary option (before pulling out my OS drives). I'm not afraid of a hard work. It could be useful to have PXE boot options for guests as well as things like Acronis. Thanks for all the great tips!

Brilliant! I just set it up. We'll see how that goes. Still would like to see how LAN centers setup their diskless clients.

2 issues I failed to mention. I really do appreciate your input though. I don't leave my PCs on all of the time This means that updates can pile up My living room PC can get left off for several months I don't have the fastest internet (60Mbps) as I live in a rural area Large updates can mean that I don't get to play with friends at the drop of a hat (sometimes leaving me out of a gaming session for the evening) I combat this by transferring an already updated version of the game from another PC. However, if no PC has the update already I am stuck downloading the update and no NAS/Virtual disk setup will help. If all 3 PCs are left to auto update all games, all of the time, the rest of the house gets reduced internet performance.

Thanks for the tip. I hadn't considered this. This would work better than just the virtual disks as I currently have to mount those before steam starts. However, it doesn't help simplify my setup. This would still require 3 different virtual drives connected to the 3 PCs. It's not the cost of the drives that concerns me. The issue is that I don't want to have to manage 3 different PCs' game libraries (libraries including Steam, Blizzard, Uplay, Epic, Origin, etc...).

How about a video on how you setup the LAN center/shared game libraries? I can't be the only one with multiple PCs and a NAS at home. Tell us how LTT would solve the issue below.

I am struggling with my unraid NAS. I have 3 gaming/multi-use PCs and 1 unraid server. All of the PCs and server connect at greater speeds than 1gigabit (server at 10G, PC1 at 5G, PC2 at 10G and PC3 at 2.5G). Each PC had at least 1 NVME drive for the OS and 1 storage drive for games, documents, downloads and media. I thought it would be a great use of my NAS to remove all of the storage drives from my PCs and put them into the NAS. This would take my separate data and allow me to combine it all into a smaller package (example: Say each PCs' steam library takes up 2TB of space. That's 6 TB of storage used. If they can share the data, on the NAS, then we are back down to 2TB used). So, I removed the storage drives and transferred the data over to my NAS. I created my users and shares, and mapped the drives (using the same drive letters as the removed physical disks) To my surprise a lot of programs still worked and I was also able to relocate my windows libraries (and all 3 PCs now have the same docs, downloads and media folders! Amazing to download something once and open it on any PC in the house) The problem A LOT of games do not run from mapped drives (I am guessing this is to prevent hacking or network farming. Not sure) I get around this by either installing the game on my local NVME drive or a virtual disk that I created on the NAS This, however, defeats the purpose of using the NAS in the first place Should I put storage drives back in my PCs? Should I just have a virtual disk on the NAS for each PC? (this does have the added benefit of data protection) Is there another/better way? (should I run all of the PCs diskless like a LAN center/Internet café would do?) I would love to see an LTT video on diskless client setup, for home/gaming use (what method did they use for the LAN center?)

Please let us know as soon as you can about the "secret sauce". I have the same Caldit Thunderbolt 3 dock and am limited to 2m. Can't wait to see the longer solution.