Game libraries on NAS

[MarcelDaWay]

Hello community,

 

i've recently build my very first NAS using FreeNAS and so far everything seems to work as expected. Now though, I want to install my Steam library to it and, well, it dosen't work...

I've already been through the main troubleshooting steps (reinstall the game, reboot both the NAS and the PC in various orders, reinstall Steam, check for file integrity and tinker with the firewall settings, which I stopped due to lack of knowledge tho) but it still gives me the same "access denied" error.

According to the FreeNAS Web UI everything behaves as normal.

Here are all the specs i guess you might need:

The NAS is set-up with one pool consisitng of one raidz2 vdev on which i have successfully configured a SMB-share.

Windows sees it as a network drive with letter Z: and its fully accessible, read- and writeable (steam installs games to it no problem only when trying to start them the above happens)

The NAS and PC are connected via 1gbE with a seperat switch.

 

I also have tried out different launchers (would appreciate your help with those too :D):

 

Epic seems to have similar issues, it installs just fine but cant find the install afterwards.

Rockstar crashes on the last bit of the install process (have only tried once tho - GTA V takes me 4 hrs to download).

Uplay straight up refuses to download to the Z: drive after choosing it and agreeing to the terms of use.

 

I'll provide further info as needed.

 

I hope you can help me

 

Thanks in advance

 

[HanZie82]

Acording to a Reddit post here (click) You should visit the following link and use that info.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-2008-R2-and-2008/ee844140(v=ws.10)?redirectedfrom=MSDN

 

The programs dont have the elevated rights needed to access the drives properly.

[PorkishPig]

Steam can no longer see installed games once it attempts to run as an administrator. Try mapping your SMB share as an administrator by opening Command Prompt as an administrator and running:

net use <drive label> \\<hostname>\<folder> /persistent:yes

Source: https://anardil.net/2019/steam-library-on-network-attached-storage.html

[MarcelDaWay]

Well thanks for your replies, but so far nothing helped... I followed the instructions and all the steps worked out as expected but steam still doesn't seem to care.

 

 

[Mad_Wentz_There]

@MarcelDaWayDid you ever find a solution? I can install my games to the drive (so it seems weird Steam can "write" to the Truenas but not "read). I get a permission error when trying to run the game(s).

[Domrockt]

So ive been there, the Most launchers today wont Start all the Games over smb, sry to Tell you that. 
 

some do work, the Most not. 
 

only Solution by now, iscsi blockdevices.

 

it gets alot wierder when you Plan on using deduplication or mounted shadow Copys for saved space  

 

my games library is an 4x2TB patriot 210 SSD ZFS striped array with 16GB Optane drive as dedupe and 16GB Optane as slog cache.

 

i made 2 datasets steamone and steamtwo and gave both the 8TB of space as sparsed capacity and made both of em via ISCSI available for

A) my main RIG 

B) my Gaming/inhouse/myownstadia VM 

 

 

 

In Your case just create a new Dataset and make it sparsed and use the iscsi wizzard to make it available over your network

Jeff did a easy to follow tut on that.

 

 

[Domrockt]

there is a nother option... build your NAS make a smb share and put an Virtual Disk on there and mount it where ver you need it.

 

Creating a virtual drive in Windows

Simply search Start for “Create and format hard disk partitions.” Go to Action, Create VHD, then Browse to find the folder you'd like to house the virtual disk (your SMB share) . You'll need to give this folder a name, choose either VHDX or VHD as the file type, and specify the drive size.