How do I play from Ext. HDD

[nuttysandwich]

I want to move all my steam games and other games ( including the saves) off of my pc and onto an external HD. I dont want my games on my rig anymore because incase i reformat i dont have to reinstall everything. I want to be able to play my games when i plug in my external hd only.

[Jobbe03]

Transfer them to the Ext. HDD...

 

It'll most likely make load times longer tho.

I'd recommend downloading steam mover, having all your games downloaded on the ext hdd, and then transfer to regular hdd or ssd when you feel like playing one. 

[Thomas CG]

I want to move all my steam games and other games ( including the saves) off of my pc and onto an external HD. I dont want my games on my rig anymore because incase i reformat i dont have to reinstall everything. I want to be able to play my games when i plug in my external hd only.

 

It can work, but for the save games it can be a bit harder. I have games on my laptop installed on a external hardrive and they play with no issues, but for the save games I'm not so sure how it could work.

[nuttysandwich]

Transfer them to the Ext. HDD...

 

It'll most likely make load times longer tho.

I'd recommend downloading steam mover, having all your games downloaded on the ext hdd, and then transfer to regular hdd or ssd when you feel like playing one

do i just put my entire steam folder in my ext. hd?

[hk29]

some profiles files are store elsewhere tho.  i got a hot swap bay i m using .

[Jobbe03]

do i just put my entire steam folder in my ext. hd?

Re-download all your games to the external drive or use "steam mover"

[nuttysandwich]

Re-download all your games to the external drive or use "steam mover"

so when i plug in and play where does all my saved data go?

[Jobbe03]

so when i plug in and play where does all my saved data go?

Depends on the game. Usually C: drive

[typographie]

It'd be better to make Steam backups (File > Backup and Restore Games) of your games on the external drive to avoid having to download them again later. You'd still have to reinstall them, technically, but all of the files would be local and you'd be up and running in a minute or two in most cases.

[LogicalDrm]

Some settings and most non-steam saves will be under windows user profiles. You can't put them to external drive as that would plain mess up whole OS. You can do manual or automatic backups with them.