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

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!

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 #Tips #Faster
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Everything in this video is my personal opinion and experience, and should not be considered professional advice. Always do your own research and make sure what you're doing is safe.

[NSDepth]

oh my god after trying probably 30 different fix's I finally found the one that works. went from game download dropping to 0mb/s and not going over 10mb/s, too averaging 80 mb/s and peaking at 100. thank you so much

[Colpane]

I have been having issues with Steam downloads for legit a year now and this helped so much. I was getting sick and tired of steam constantly dropping my download speeds and spiking and dropping the speeds. Thank you so much.

[PINPAL]

This is super useful for me. I have a NVME drive for most of my Steam games but my current internet in my dorm is insane at nearly 600 MB/s a second on Steam. This is great for about 20 seconds before the disk runs out of cache and slows to a crawl. Spreading the load between 2 SSD's should hopefully allow me to keep the peak going for longer.

[Carlos_z]

Wow I’ve been struggling to fix this horribly slow download for months and you finally helped fix it. Thank you!!!!

[zondoliac]

Thank you so damn much. After a whole year and a half, I never understood why my laptop would have such issues downloading games on Steam unlike other platforms. Never have I ever found other things than articles telling you to clear cache or change download region and all. This is finally a clear answer and fix to it. Again, I really appreciate.

[codeydrum]

Literally I've had my PC for 4 years now and I could never figure out why the downloads on my computer ran slow despite having 1gb download speed, I'm so happy I found this video! Downloads went from 5-10mb/s to 115mb/s!! :D Thank you so much

[M_MD]

As expeced, much better download speeds thank you man.

[teodorvoiculescuardei]

TYSM i was struggling with downloading games on my hdd as the disk usage would bottleneck my download speed to 500kb/s even tho i have 1 gig internet. putting the downloading files on my nvme ssd finally let me enjoy my network to the fullest. Thank you!

[rainy]

I have had this problem for more than a year and this video finally helped me to solve it, I went from 6mbps to 90mbps. very useful!

[dudeharlee]

I dont normally leave comments for youtube videos, but honestly, thank you for this information! It worked amazingly

[slayermate]

that awkward moment when the EA App has figured out how to let the user switch their download cache with ease, but steam doesn't.

[Clapts]

Yoooo you are a legend man! I knew my steam downloads were going too slow and then realized it was only slow on my HDD. This is a game changer man you are a legend

[hypnoid]

This is absolutely genius. I decided to find out how it works and learned what hard and soft links are. So cool, thanks!

[Alex-govt]

This has to be one of the first youtube tutorials that has actually fixed my problem! thank you so much!

[DABS]

This works!!! I had constant drops to 0 mbps. It sometimes would peak to 350mbps but that only lasted a few seconds as it dropped over and over to 0mbps. Tried this method, but I only did the “downloaded” folder and not the other “depotcache” folder. Instantly a huge improvement! Download speeds are consistent and never dropped to 0. Once the game(s) downloaded, it automatically cleared out the downloaded folder.

[fabbythefinalboss]

The man that speed up steam downloads showing real method insted of guiding how to change download server <3

[ForceGMs]

OMG! this work wonderful this cut down the time of my downloads 😮 at first the download speed drops to zero for minutes and then continue downloading and then keeps reaping this process for ever this take hours! Thanks a lot! 👍

[TheDarkinSalad]

I have to say, this is the best fix for slow/0 download speed steam errors. Before my speed was fluctuating between 0 and something incredibly slow, but with this method it consistently stays around 42 MB/second. I highly recommend.

[nitookay]

OMG bro, i literally had this problem of slown downloads on steam for months and really had lost any hope to solve, but with the symlink you showed up i can finally download games properly, oh shit you just saved my ass, thanks!!!

[Jakiyyyyy]

I'm so impressed with his download speed. Wow! Meanwhile me downloading games overnight. Sometimes it took few days.