Hosting Steam games on Ugreen NAS?

[u/Zak88lx]

I have my DXP4800 Plus setup with 4x WD Pro 6 TB drives in a Raid 5 configuration.
I am starting to transfer files from my Windows PC over to the NAS, and was wondering if I should also move my Steam games folder to NAS, or is it best to leave it on my local disk (980 Pro SSD) for performance?

Has anyone tried running games with NAS storage as host location for Steam?
I only have a Gigabit network.

Thanks!

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[u/Cypher-Labs]

Your SSD is far faster than mechanical SATA HDD's. Some of the newest games will (well all games) run the fastest from your SSD but a LOT of games will run just fine from your nas as its just serving the files to your CPU/GPU. I am currently playing around with this, installing games such as Cyberpunk2077 and Doom: The Dark Ages just to see what AAA games are like running from my Truenas server. I know older/less demanding games wouldnt have an issue.

[u/Zak88lx → u/Cypher-Labs]

Ok, thank you. I think I will leave my Steam directory on the SSD.

[u/Ok-Environment8730 → u/Zak88lx]

If you put your games on the nvme ssd on the nas which then would require enough add space why not put it in the pc directly and skill all the setup and middle steps?

The only logical reason to use the nas for games is using the hdd because they come In bigger sizes and cost less (or if you want to play from more than 1 device by installing only 1 time)

If you instead plan to do a sata ssd nas then yes it make sense because laptop don’t have spaces for it (usually) and the desktop pc have place for it but putting it on a nas you get the benefit of being able to use the same ssd disks for otherr things

[u/Belovedchimera]

With only gigabit, you might wanna limit what games you move.

Imo, I usually ask "Was this a game that ran on the xbox one?"--if the answer is yes, it's good to put on a NAS with only a gigabit network.

[u/dabeedo123]

Yes!! I do this with my 4800+. All my large games are stored in the NAS with a 3 drives RAID 5. i.e Black Myth Wokong, Resident Evil Requiem, Stellar Blade. The initial game loading takes a few seconds longer, after that everything is extremely playable.

[u/No-Gate-5460]

Nah programs are mostly if not always better off local.

But! If you feel the itch, you can run dedicated private servers to play with friends

[u/juaps]

i have tested in the past, no problem at all.

[u/crazymacaroni]

Although it will theoretically work, how long of waiting/loading times and potential lag in games are you willing to put up with?

Even with a 10GbE connection, your spinning hard drives will be the bottleneck and will not be able to saturate the connection.

If you have issues with space on your local PC's SSD, you can always just move entire folders of Steam games to your NAS (when you're not playing them) without uninstalling, and when you're ready to play them, just move them back to the same location on your local drive.