Railworks America

I spent quite a bit of time doing online research to the following question,with no clear answer. It requires a lot of background,so here we go. My original Steam/Railworks install was on a new PC I purchased on 2011. About 2 years ago,I started to have hard drive failure. I took it to my trusted local computer shop,and they CLONED the Steam install,along with a few other programs,Trainz,etc,etc,onto a new hard drive. I noticed they had an I-5 gaming rig that they had built,and purchased it. The cloned drive went into that PC. (Now my G drive)
There are occasionally a few hiccups (cant divide by zero) but it has been much improved. I just purchased a highly rated Samsung external SSD,and I would like to put a fresh install of Steam on it. Then let steam install all of TS. Then move my route and downloaded content from the last 10 years over.(non steam dlc) I do not want to simply migrate the current install,as you see my intent to get a clean install. I have connected the SSD to the PC,but have not done a thing with it. Should I created a programs file folder first? Any thoughts and opinions are welcome.

Thanks Buzz. I have already read every bit of that. I know I can have Steam games on multiple drives. I am trying to also determine if I can have more than one Steam install on a PC.
Will it cause a conflict? My goal would be to delete the original HD install,after I see the SSD is running well. Then start using the HD to back up my route progress.

RAILSOHIO wrote:Thanks Buzz. I have already read every bit of that. I know I can have Steam games on multiple drives. I am trying to also determine if I can have more than one Steam install on a PC.
Will it cause a conflict? My goal would be to delete the original HD install,after I see the SSD is running well. Then start using the HD to back up my route progress.

I'm not sure what the path is to your present install is so here goes on my best try to explain this. Just go to your Steam folder and rename it Backup. Then go do the install of Steam client. https://store.steampowered.com/about/. When it asks you where you want to put tell it the path to your new SSD. You will now have a new clean Steam client on that drive. I think if I remember it asks you about startup and whether you want a icon on your desktop but in any event the Steam.exe will be in that folder.

Major success! The fresh download/install on the new SSD was about an hour and a half. I configured the settings with them all pushed towards max. I have not migrated any non Steam content yet. Faster loading times,and better frame rates achieved. I am nipping 100 FPS in cab on HSC! This is with the in-game counter,and not FRAPS. I may move My aircraft sim games to it. But I am leaning on just getting the maximum performance out of TS. Buzz