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I want to put my SteamApps folder on a network share so that multiple computers can use it, without wasting hundreds of gigabytes in duplicated software installations between them. Can this be done? Will they fight over game installations, updates, etc? What if the computers run different operating systems?

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  • You can try but Steam does not directly support this. What games will or will not run on what operating system depend on the game itself.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Oct 16, 2013 at 15:58
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    This is not a good idea for large games! the load times will be terrible.
    – Colin D
    Commented Oct 16, 2013 at 15:58
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    Yeah, don't do this. This is applicable for multiple users/OSs on the same computer, but running executables from a network share is always less than desirable, even ignoring the resource loading issues mentioned earlier.
    – MBraedley
    Commented Oct 16, 2013 at 16:20
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    @ColinD the shared drive is an SSD array, and the NAS has a gigabit connection. It already handles media tasks faster than the spinning drives in my desktop.
    – Sparr
    Commented Oct 16, 2013 at 17:35
  • There are important distinctions to be made between media like video or music and games, and how they perform when used over a network. That aside, running a remote executable on a local machine is a Bad Thing™ that you want to do as infrequently as possible.
    – MBraedley
    Commented Oct 16, 2013 at 19:11

3 Answers 3

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For each installation of Steam, you can add your SteamApps folder from your drive from the settings. (Settings > Downloads > Steam Library Folders - See image)

Steam Library Folders

As long as the SteamApps folder layout is the same for all systems you'll be using, there will be no problems with installation. Possible problems with this include savegames inside the game folders, patching from multiple computers at the same time and that installing and deleting games requires you to restart Steam on other computers.

Note that only games that use the new content management support this. This includes most modern AAA-titles and almost, if not all recent releases.

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  • I'm not 100% sure network drive will show up there.
    – Once Upon a Dev
    Commented Oct 16, 2013 at 15:59
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    it likely will if you use 'SUBST' to map the network share to a local drive letter.
    – Colin D
    Commented Oct 16, 2013 at 16:00
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    Do you have any reason to believe that this works while being used by multiple computers? This only addresses the possibility of the network folder, not the technical risks associated with it.
    – dlras2
    Commented Oct 16, 2013 at 16:10
  • Keep in mind that you can't do this for all games. Most old games (notably Half-Life 2 and Portal 1) do not support this feature.
    – Nolonar
    Commented Oct 16, 2013 at 16:13
  • @dlras2 There's no reason it would not work while being used by multiple computers. The possible problems I see with it is when many computers try to patch the game at the same time or if savegames are saved in the game folder.
    – Once Upon a Dev
    Commented Oct 16, 2013 at 16:25
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This sounds like a horrible idea. Your game load times will suffer immensely, since all of those gigabytes will need to be read to your computer over the network. Additionally, I doubt very much that Steam has any support for this at all, and conflicting updates and installations will likely corrupt your games. If two or more people are attempting to play games off of it, you will probably run into more issues.

If space is an issue, getting a good external hard drive with USB 3.0 or an eSATA connection will give you lots of room with plenty of space and no speed compromise.

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  • +1 for performance and multiple concurrent access information.
    – Colin D
    Commented Oct 16, 2013 at 16:07
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    Assuming that Steam allows running games that were copied from other accounts but are still owned by your current account, then concurrency can indeed be a problem. Assuming that Steam knows very well which account installed which files and will refuse to update owned games belonging to other accounts, then there is no concurrency, since you can't go online on multiple PCs with the same account (and no online means no updates)
    – Nolonar
    Commented Oct 16, 2013 at 16:18
  • @Nolonar This should be verifiable - you can log out/on with a different account, and if you don't need to redownload a shared game, (which I don't think you do, but am not sure,) then this will cause problems.
    – dlras2
    Commented Oct 16, 2013 at 16:25
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    As long as both accounts own the game they can use the game files to play the game. You can test this by having a second steam account with a game both accounts own log in. The game is playable on the second account without needing to install. However any local files will be available to both games. This includes save files (though these should be safe in Sparr's setup as normally they are not saved in the steam folder). The problem occurs when two systems are trying to access the same data at the same time. I imagine this is where Sparr is going to run into trouble.
    – UnderscoreZero
    Commented Oct 16, 2013 at 16:26
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    Isn't a performance issue if you've a good Storage server at home with RAM/SSD caching and 10GbE.
    – Vinícius Ferrão
    Commented Jun 7, 2015 at 22:53
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You can forcefully redirect one folder to go look for files in another place using Junctions...This is an application that should simplify the process however you can make junction on your own in CMD without having to use this application,but it is kinda hard to find good guide.

It looks like there are a lot of things that can go wrong with this,but if you only share "steamapps"(data) folder,and keep 2 separate installations of steam with their own personal files like settings and saves and have very good network connection you might just pull it off.

Considering updates while both parties use the same steamapps,if someone is playing and other one is trying to update the game...The other one should fail updating since windows usually don't allow changing files while they are in use.

Also you can't use same files between different OS since their binaries should be different.

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  • I know the binaries are different between two OSes... but I don't know if steam uses different filenames for the different binaries. If the filenames are different then they could both exist. If not, then they couldn't.
    – Sparr
    Commented Oct 16, 2013 at 17:37

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