Steam really needs to let us...

[FreemanForPrez]

Steam really needs to let us install games wherever we want to on our drives, not just in the Steam folder.
Yeah, there are ways around that through hacks or creating text files to point to new locations or whatever else, but it should just be a built-in feature:
Install game> use default Directory? Y N Enter installation directory/Browse.

Especially nowadays, now that games are becoming so large in terms of content.
I didn't think when I first installed Steam on my game PC that I'd ever need more than 300 GB for a game drive. But lo and behold, now it's all filled up and I have many games uninstalled just because I didn't have the space.

I mean really, why not have this feature? I can't think of any good reason.

EDIT:
I'm not asking for workarounds to the problem, just making a suggestion.

[HellJumper]

Actually... this isn't a bad idea

[FreemanForPrez]

Originally Posted by HellJumper777

Actually... this isn't a bad idea

Thanks and I hope Valve agrees this time. Last time I suggested it I don't think it did any good.

[phillipjfry6]

Yeah, I know a few friends who would find this useful. Their primary drive is full, and it's difficult for them to put all the stuff on their exteral hdd, when steam is installed on their primary.

[HellJumper]

Originally Posted by FreemanForPrez

Thanks and I hope Valve agrees this time. Last time I suggested it I don't think it did any good.

Oh my... Look at your rep, now look at mine D:
They are backwards!
Edit: Aw... someone gave me rep

Also, I would really like for this feature to be added. I might finally be able to put my external harddrive to use.

[FreemanForPrez]

Originally Posted by HellJumper777

Also, I would really like for this feature to be added. I might finally be able to put my external harddrive to use.

Well an external hard drive wouldn't be ideal to run games from since they usually use USB, which is far slower than an internal SATA connection. Even firewire IEEE 1394, while faster than USB, is still much slower than SATA.
So, games would slow down noticeably when being run from an external drive.
Externals are good for backups, but I wouldn't use one for running games or other programs from or recommend anyone else to.
I was thinking more along the lines of the several hundred GB of space that I have on my other three physical internal SATA drives.

Maybe that's it though - maybe Valve figures that everybody has one 1TB physical drive with one user partition and therefore, plenty of space...

Anyway I think I'm going to bump this thread every day until someone from Valve comes along and says either:
"This is a stupid idea and we won't do it!"
OR
"Great idea, we'll get right on it!"
Or even:
"Okay already, we heard you, now stop it already!"

[Super Fun]

For what it's worth, you can just move the entire steam folder to a new drive and it'll run from there. But yeah, the ability to choose where to install games would be grand. Impulse have such a feature.

[arizonachris]

Originally Posted by HellJumper777

Actually... this isn't a bad idea

I agree, not a bad idea at all.

[n_gamer]

This would be very convenient.

[Fyndir]

It should be possible, although I haven't tried doing so, to copy the larger game files to an external drive as backup, then uninstall from the main drive, saving space and such without actually necessitating the removal of the games, then just swap them around at will, as a temporary solution to space problems.

Personally I tend to make sure I have silly amounts of free space on a single drive, so that I can just have a simple Games folder full of everything, including Steam, but that's just me. =P

[Vaemer-Riit]

Originally Posted by FreemanForPrez

Maybe that's it though - maybe Valve figures that everybody has one 1TB physical drive with one user partition and therefore, plenty of space...

Well I cant be the only one who has a 1.5 TB HD for steam. =^/_\^=

Originally Posted by FreemanForPrez

Steam really needs to let us install games wherever we want to on our drives, not just in the Steam folder.

Its called installing Steam not in your program files and installing it on the HDD or partition of the drive you want.
I have 3 Partitions, 1 for System (programs n such) 1 for Storage (Movies-game dl's-music) and 1 for games (Steam or non steam related).

[hairbautt]

I installed Steam to its own dedicated harddrive and automatically installing while downloading without asking for a location is convenient for me.

[_Budweiser_]

Yes, this would be handy.

[FreemanForPrez]

Originally Posted by AeternaLux

Its called installing Steam not in your program files and installing it on the HDD or partition of the drive you want.
I have 3 Partitions, 1 for System (programs n such) 1 for Storage (Movies-game dl's-music) and 1 for games (Steam or non steam related).

Well I guess I should have elaborated, but my bad, I often don't think to account for the likelihood that someone will come along and ASSume too much and proceed to lecture me.
I have two 300 GB veliciraptors and two 500 GB regular Western Digital "caviar" SATA drives in my main PC.
I chose one of the 'raptor 300's for my Steam installation.

But I thank you for your concern.
Maybe now you'll want to lecture me about how I should have planned it out better?

Originally Posted by hairbautt

I installed Steam to its own dedicated harddrive and automatically installing while downloading without asking for a location is convenient for me.

Well, so did I. If you read my first post, that's not the problem. The problem is what to do once said dedicated drive is full. As I also wrote, I never expected to fill up a 300 GB drive with games.
At that point it goes from being a convenience to a major pain in the you-know-what.
Besides, what happens in the future? People who now have a huge "Games" drive or partition with a lot of space left could very well find themselves running out of space eventually and then also wishing for this option even if it's not a problem now.
A good SATA drive is good for 4 or 5 years or maybe more, and that's a long time to accumulate games, and epsecially when Steam has these major sales and people can buy several games for very little money. It all adds up eventually.
But as more people begin to use SSD drives, which last longer than disk drives, they'll be accumulating games over a longer period of time.
The way I see it, eventually Valve will have to address this.

I just want it as an option. Along with that they could add the option to either always ask or never ask, or like most Windows programs, have the option under an "Advanced" tab or else it just installs to the default directory.

Thanks and +rep to those of you who have supported this idea in this thread. If I missed anyone, let me know.