Support for occasionally plugged hard drive for steam-like application?

Support for occasionally plugged hard drive for steam-like application? - A Mother and Son inside a Car

My computer has only 512GB disk space.

AAA games are taking more and more disk space (GTA V requires 100gb, SW Fallen Order 70, ...) which can quickly cuse disk space issue.

Performant external SDD are in the market, and I seriously think about buying one of them to extend the computer disk space. However, as this is a laptop, I don't want to have a always plugged disk, but only when required.

Regarding the main online game digital market, what is the support of installing games on removable drives ? From "clearly supported" to "will cause troubles", or "may work following some steps".

I play with Steam, Origin, Epic and GOG, but the question probably should be extended to other platforms too






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Can I play Steam games on an external hard drive?

What type of external drive to use for your Steam library. The good news is that you can run your Steam library from virtually any external drive. You'll probably be best avoiding a USB flash drive, but a USB HDD or SSD will be just fine. The limitations on performance will be the same as on an internal drive.

How do I get Steam to recognize my hard drive?

If Steam won't recognize your external hard drive, unplug the drive, check your cable and switch to a different USB port. Then verify the integrity of your game files, and repair your Steam Library. If the issue persists, create a new Library folder, and reinstall your game.

How do I set up an external hard drive for Steam?

Below is the list of all the effective workarounds that you can try if Steam doesn't recognize the installed games.
  • Reinstall the Game without downloading.
  • Choose New Installation Drive.
  • Force Recognize Games using .acf cache.
  • Reconfigure the Library Folders.
  • Reinstall Steam.




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