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10x Faster Steam Downloads | Updates, on Hard Drives (HDD) | Symlinked Cache


Published: Mar 24, 2022
Last Edit: Mar 24, 2022
179 Words, 1 Minute.

Watch the video:


Timestamps:
0:00 - Explanation
0:49 - Why updates on Steam take so long on a hard drive
1:33 - Why Windows is so slow when Steam updates on a hard drive
1:55 - The solution: Symlinking Steam files. What is Symlinking?
2:48 - How much faster is symlinked downloads in Steam?
3:27 - Step 1: Find Steam download cache folder
4:41 - Download and Install Link Shell Extension
5:20 - Step 2: Create and Link download cache from a faster drive
6:30 - Test faster updates
8:30 - Is this even necessary?

Steam game updates slow on a hard drive, or cause everything to slow down? Have a faster, smaller drive or SSD? Well, you can move the download cache to another drive to speed up installs on hard drives by 10x or more! (It went from 25+ mins to 3 for Apex Legends for me!). Obviously, not everyone has an SSD lying around, but if you have an SSD for Windows and games on a slower hard drive, you can still benefit from this!

Link Shell Extension: https://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html

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