I'm looking for some guidance on consolidating my storage setup. I currently have three SSDs: a 2TB NVMe M.2 drive and two 1TB Samsung Evo SATA SSDs. I want to perform a clean install of Windows to eliminate all the clutter, so I purchased a 4TB Passport external drive to back up my data first. Every time I clean wipe my system, I end up losing something important, so I'm trying to avoid that this time.
Additionally, I just got a 4TB NVMe SSD that I plan to use as my main drive. What's the best way to transfer my game files to this new SSD? I know Steam has a utility for that, but does it also transfer all the related files? Some files like saves and mods are often stored in different directories, not just the Steam local files. I'd appreciate any tips or strategies!
2 Answers
You might not need to clone everything over to the Passport drive, especially if your drives are filled randomly. Cloning can be time-consuming, and you probably have a lot of unnecessary files. If you want to back up specific partitions, consider just copying over the files you really need instead of doing a full clone. It might save you time and headache.
For backing up your game files, I found that cloning can be great but is a hassle since it can slow things down. If you really want to keep your old system accessible, maybe create VHD files from your partitions — you can access those in a virtual machine later if needed. Just watch how you clone since it can get tricky with bootable partitions depending on your setup.
When backing up your game files, keep in mind that a lot of saves don't come back from the cloud. You should take a full backup for those; they can often be found in AppData. For moving games, just copy the folders over, then verify the integrity in Steam after transferring. The platform is smart enough to avoid redownloading stuff that's already there, and make sure all the essential redistributables are installed before launching your games.