Did I do good?

[sysloc]

So I just reinstalled steam and my 222GB worth of games on to an external WD 1.5TB USB 3.0 HDD (completely clean, redownloaded everything after having it previously installed on a 500GB WD internal SATA 3 HDD) and from my testing, I can now take that drive, plug it into any PC, install steam from the steaminstall.msi file on that pc, exit when it asks to login, and launch steam from the external drive (steam wont run otherwise, has to do with registry) Then steam runs like normal, all the files are contained on the directory on the external drive, and other than certain save game files, it's good. Right?

I've theorized some games do not run properly because necessary programs are not always installed on the pc (directx, .net, etc) but those files are usually inside SteamApps/common/*game* and are easily used.

Well, I'm trying to say what I've done, and has anybody else done this, has it worked out for you, good idea? Any comments or tips or ideas?

PS, when moved to another computer, the drive letter should be the same as when I set up the drive in order for things to work (I used S as the drive letter and named it Steam, it's easy to change the drive letter)

[zip2k4]

I usually clone the disk outright,but i can see what you're doing here.

 

does validating local files fix all the problems using this solution tho? :0

[Beskamir]

but the level loading speeds...

[sysloc]

I usually clone the disk outright,but i can see what you're doing here.

 

does validating local files fix all the problems using this solution tho? :0

I haven't tried that but that's worth a shot!

 

but the level loading speeds...

Loading games and levels is surprising snappy, I was playing Call of Duty Black Ops 2 Multiplayer last night and I ended up being the host for a few games, and every time I was waiting for everyone else to load. And when I wasnt host, I was always first spawned in with the host. I don't really have great internet (11MB down, 1.2MB up)

As far as loading offline games and levels, its all very fluid, although I have experienced some odd things in Sniper Ghost Warrior 2 when a level is loading, everything will freeze for a few seconds right when I hit the start level, and then it will continue but I will be instantly good to go. (Enter the level, Freeze for 2 or 3 seconds, Starts the loading cut scene/briefing. I can instantly skip all of the cut scene)