You organize and manage your large collection by categorizing, tagging, and regularly cleaning it to keep it efficient.
You organize and manage your large collection by categorizing, tagging, and regularly cleaning it to keep it efficient.
Games are becoming larger and consuming more space, which impacts how you manage your Steam library. Sometimes you need to keep specific titles for later access, but your SSD isn’t large enough. Reinstalling and downloading games repeatedly is frustrating. I use two 240GB SSDs for games and a few frequently used files, plus a 1TB HDD for media like videos and music. Switching between titles such as GTAV, Fallout 4, Battlefield 4, and others, I find ~400GB isn’t enough. I’m not willing to spend extra money on storage. My approach is moving less-played games to the HDD via Steam. This reduces the need for frequent reinstalls after creating a new partition. How do you handle storage issues, especially on a tighter budget? Do you face similar challenges?
I typically play one game at a time and only switch when I’m really tired, which takes a lot of time due to work and other responsibilities. A single RPG campaign lasting 20 hours can take me anywhere from 30 to 45 days if I play every day or on weekends. Once I finish a game, I’m usually done and feel exhausted—I’d likely skip it after about three years. Managing my Steam library is therefore quite manageable for me. On weekends, I also enjoy multiplayer games and old LAN titles with friends, such as Command & Conquer: Warhammer 40k, Soulstorm, Sins Of A Solar Empire Rebellion, Section 8, Crysis, Wars, Quake, and Enemy Territory. These are the games I never remove from my drive because they’re the ones I play with friends during LAN parties. I usually keep a 1TB Samsung SSD as my game drive. When I finish a single-player game, I simply uninstall it and move on.
I’ve saved some games you haven’t played yet and moved them to an external drive. Steam, Origin, and likely other services can spot all the files, so I just retrieve them whenever I want to play. For games you’re currently running, I keep them on a fast SSD. I also created categories in Steam, which works well with over 400 titles.
SSD – Probably just Witcher 3 plus a few others; HDD – All other titles I own but not using right now. External storage – Any games I haven’t played soon, or those I’ve finished and want saved.
I rarely run more than two games simultaneously. When a game uses an SSD, I set it up on my 240GB SSD; otherwise, I use my 1TB HDD. Occasionally I need to remove games from the SSD, but it doesn’t matter since I’m unlikely to play them again (or it could take years). With the HDD there’s no issue because 1TB feels like endless space for me.
All my files on my 1TB desktop drive are there, including the operating system—just the main system drive—but on my laptop, Steam and other key apps live on a smaller 120GB SSD inside, while Steam games are stored on a larger external 500GB WD HDD. It’s a bit slow because it uses USB 3 instead of newer standards, and the drive is quite old, though it still functions.
You're adjusting your game rotation strategy. To better manage your collection, consider setting up a custom system outside of Steam—like using a spreadsheet or a dedicated app—to sort and organize your games based on your preferences. This way, you won’t rely solely on the limited built-in categories.