Hey, everyone, it’s Maka from
Inside Gaming with Seagate. In the past, we've looked at external storage
options for your gaming setup. Today, we’ll show you how to use an external
drive as your source drive for games from DRM platforms like Steam. Let’s get inside. The best external drive for you
depends on a lot of factors, including your priorities and your machine specs. For today’s video, the process for setting any external
drive as your source or boot drive for your downloaded games will essentially
be the same across devices. But note that each digital content distributor,
like Steam or Battle.net or Epic Games Launcher, will handle the settings procedure a little bit differently. Whether you’re using a super-fast NVMe SSD
like the FireCuda gaming SSD, or a USB SATA like the BarraCuda fast SSD, or even an external hard drive like the one
that comes standard in the FireCuda Gaming Dock, we’ll look at how to make sure your games are stored properly. First, plug the drive in. For our example today we’ll use Seagate’s FireCuda gaming SSD, which connects to your laptop or PC
with a USB-C connection. The FireCuda SSD utilizes the latest 3.2 gen, two by two USB-C standard. And, thankfully, our laptop’s USB-C port
can deliver that generation of data, so we should see some impressive speeds
from the FireCuda SSD. But if you don’t have the latest generation of
USB-C in your laptop, don’t worry. You’ll just be limited to
the speed capability of your machine, but standard functionality shouldn’t be impeded. Since the SSD comes preformatted, most machines should recognize the device upon inserting it. But if your machine doesn’t see it, then it’ll likely just need to be formatted which you can do using the disc management utility. Now you’re ready to set that drive as the boot drive
for your downloaded games. In our example,
we’ll look at how to do this on Steam. But if you’re using a different content distributor, you’ll want to verify their process. First, in the Steam app in the top left corner, click Steam and then click Settings. Select Downloads from the left-hand side of the pop-up window, and notice the content library’s file path
at the top of that window. Click the field, and a new floating window will pop up showing you your available library folders. The default file path for your library folder
will be what you see here on your machine’s C drive. To add your new FireCuda SSD, click the Add Library Folder button. This will launch a new pop-up window. click the down arrow next to
the C Drive file path. This will show you all of the available drives
that are connected to your machine. You should see your FireCuda here under its D drive volume. Select this to launch a new window
showing the contents of your FireCuda. If you added any subfolders to the drive, just click on the folder that you want Steam to
download or transfer any games to. This will close the window. Then you can confirm that your new FireCuda
is the default drive for Steam by making sure Yes is displayed under the default column. And then X out of the settings window. You’re now ready to download any new games to the FireCuda SSD, or if you want, transfer any of your games
from your machine to your external drive. Let’s do that quickly to show you how it’s done. In the Steam navigation bar, click Library. Along the left side library list, find a game that you want to transfer. Once you’ve located your game, right-click to select Properties and then click Local Files. From there select Move Install Folder. This will launch a pop-up window
where you’ll see a file path drop-down button. Confirm the location you want to move the files to. In our case, we’ll select the FireCuda’s D drive volume, and then click Move Folder to start the process. Wait for the game to finish to its installation
and you’re good to go. If you want to confirm it’s really there, launch the File Explorer so you can see the contents of the SSD. You should see a new folder that Steam created called Steam Apps. In this folder are a few other folders and files that have been created. The Common folder is where your games should appear. And that’s it. You’re ready to play. Game level and texture loads are all affected by your drive’s speed and the connection standard of your machine. If you’re used to running your games off a standard hard drive, you should notice some pretty significant speed increases while playing from the FireCuda gaming SSD, which can be up to ten times faster than a traditional hard drive. That’s all for now. Enjoy your gaming, and let us know what games you’ve noticed the biggest speed increases in when upgrading to a gaming SSD. Thank you so much for your views and your comments. Keep them coming, and thanks for watching.
