How to configure steam to download games to a custom directory?

I have 2 SSD-s, a smaller 120g for the system and a bigger 500g for other files, game installs, etc. Both drives have a single partition with C and E labels accordingly.

I already installed steam to the default directory on C. I'd like it to install my games into E:/games/{game-title}. I already have Origin games in that directory.

I don't want steam to copy content between drives, because that shortens SSD lifetime. I am not certain how it does game installs, but it would not be acceptable to download game files to C into a temporary directory and copy/move the same files to E by installation.

How should I configure steam to achieve all of this?

Solution 1:

Go to the Downloads section in Steam settings.

Click on STEAM LIBRARY FOLDERS

You can add a new folder here. Steam will create a folder inside that folder called steamapps to use for game files, as you can see here:

Now whenever you install a game, you can pick the directory:

You can also change the default installation folder by right-clicking the folder and selecting Make Default Folder: