The code should work with other storage mediums as well. Like SD/micro SD cards, USB Sticks, Any kind of USB Drives. I tested USB Sticks and SD/micro SD cards and they also work.
No guarantee that it's going to work for you. I only tested on my old Win10 install, but you should at least be able to take the general code and make it work or improve it.
As a per game expense for a solution that doesn't even free you from steam that's quite a lot. Storing 10 games this way would cost you $250 on top of the purchase price.
Ok, so you need that storage space anyway to have all the games installed, but a 1TB SSD only costs $100. A 1TB HDD that you transfer games from to play from only costs $50. A 10 pack of 100GB Blu rays also only costs $50 and is a much more "authentic" way to do physical media on PC, although it only works for game installers.
But the real downside here is that you need to remember to power all your SSDs on every year or two to avoid losing the data, and SATA connectors are not designed for repeated connections.
It's a lot of money and time to sort of replicate the novelty of physical media which never worked like this on PC anyway, even in the physical media era. It is pretty neat though.
Yeah, that's what I'm getting at. GOG or uh, GOGified games are the way to go.
If you opt for a small external HDD or a laptop model I can see that working. Definitely some modern titles that will be very slow loading from an HDD, but a lot of older games will be fine. You could mix and match, HDDs for older games and SSD's for newer ones.
It will make your carts relatively fragile though. Drop an SSD on the floor and it's probably fine. An HDD, well, you might get lucky.
It makes no sense to make a version of this which depends on Hydra instead of steam. A system like this shouldn't depend on any launcher being installed. That's my point.
This is cool as a nostalgia fix and a fun project, but it has all the downsides of physical media with none of the upsides apart from nostalgia. That doesn't change if you swap the client for hydra.
The way this should work is that you insert the cart and it runs a script which autoruns the game from the cart. If you run it on a PC without the watcher script installed it should start the game when you click on the game .exe. No third party launcher dependencies at all.
I get your point about pure, unfiltered nostalgia, but modern Windows architecture and current game development make the 'no-launcher' approach a massive headache in practice.
First, Windows completely killed standard autorun.inf execution years ago for security reasons (malware prevention). Relying on a custom 'watcher script' to automate the launch means you still depend on pre-installing external software on the host PC anyway. If you already need background software to achieve the 'plug-and-play' feel, you might as well use a proper, secure launcher.
Second, modern PC games aren't self-contained .exe files like they were in the DOS or Windows 98 era. They rely on dependencies, specific save paths, registry entries, and controller XInput wrappers. A frontend like Hydra doesn't ruin the experience; it acts as the console's OS, handling those dependencies seamlessly so the game actually runs properly across different machines.
As for the hardware wear and tear: nobody is plugging bare internal SATA pins directly into a motherboard cage for a project like this. You can customise the 3D-printed enclosures housing the SSD connected to a heavy-duty USB-C or high-cycle hot-swap adapter. The internal SATA connector is plugged in exactly once inside the cartridge shell, while the external interface is specifically designed for thousands of connection cycles.
Using a launcher isn't a design flawâit's the only way to turn raw modern storage into a reliable, actual plug-and-play console experience today."
So this is AI slop which is sad, and it's also entirely wrong, which is sadder.
You can re enable autorun. The security risk is near nonexistent for a desktop in your home.
If you want to play the game on a PC without the watcher script(like a friends PC) or autorun, just double click the game .exe
All the games dependencies are installed on the disk with it(linux) or can be installed/created with another .exe(windows). It's fully portable.
"nobody is plugging bare internal SATA pins directly into a motherboard cage for a project like this." This project uses a sata to USB-C adapter with the SATA end plugged directly into the cart. So OP is doing exactly that.
Anyway, I've done it, and it works. It's quite a lot of effort and it's much easier to store the installer on disk and install to a target PC, but it can be done. The one who thinks something is impossible should not interrupt the person dong it and all that.
It's 100% untrue, as you'd expect from AI slop. None of the issues raised are real problems.
Don't get me wrong, It takes a fair bit of effort to get it working, but so does this project. If you're going to put in the work may as well make the end result as good as possible.
TBH I've only done it to a few games, more as a proof of concept than anything else. Generally I prefer to put DRM free game installers on a disk or microSD and use that to install the the game normally. Then you can set a script to start the game when you insert the disk/microSD for the physical media experience.
Don't buy 1tb, 32GB to max 256gb should be all you need and for lesse then 50 boxes it's not really a big amount.
Yes sata doesn't like that but for speed it's extremely good, if you prefer we have sd card and they don't really mind this repet youseg
You can get low storage drives for pretty cheap used on ebay and other marketplace apps. Just check the seller to make sure they are reputable, but it's doable.
It's just my hobby. Over the years I made this Nixie Clock, Automated OnStep Telescope mount, Hydroponic Tower with automation and monitoring sensors etc.
Thinking about everything you do for fun in terms of money-making-potential is just depressing. And this way, more people can benefit from it.
The project is super cool! I'll have to keep an eye out for some older ssds! Disc's are a lot cheaper though, do you have any recommendations for stickering those?
you don't have to use SSDs, the script i made should detect other storage mediums too. I tested USB sticks and SD/micro SD cards and they work as well. The code can be expanded possibly to trigger on discs too.
I feel like usb sticks and SD cards are the way to do it. Way cheaper, smaller. I've always wondered why physical media didn't find it's way back to "cartridges" once large flashdrives became commonplace.
There are some serious security risks with this though lol. The idea of just plugging a SSD/USB/sd you got from somewhere into a dock thinking there's a game on there is ballsy.
Fr, i would buy just the shells all prettied up ready for the ssd that i supply. I have a 3d printer but it hasnt been setup in years and its print quality is garbage compared to the x1 and other newer machines.
I hope someone finds this down the road and uses you as inspiration. While I may not use this myself, I appreciate the dedication and work you put in only to give it out to everyone. Keep fighting the good fight
I blame the hustle bros for doing this. Everything has to be juiced for all it's worth, you can't simply enjoy stuff even if it's a money sink or a time sink, it has to amount to something that will make you money.
Well crap lol I have been regularly using a cheap SATA to USB adapter cable to connect drives to my laptop. I'm sure I've disconnected both ends on the same drive over 50 times now but I still don't find it very loose.
I think a work around is buy another adapter cable and keep the SATA end connected to the drive.
Pop open the case and drop in another cheap ssd. Replacing one would cost ~$25. Also, I don't think many games are even launched 50 times let alone with other games inbetween. For the games that are launched that many times, they're probably multiplayer and constantly getting updates anyway so just don't get a cartridge for them.Â
How sharing the whole project files "Capitalizing" on anything? Dude made a cool looking thing that others can also do. Just because you dont see value in it doesn't mean its not a cool project.
Well a Blue Ray can store up to 128GB I think. So a lot of games could be put on one no problem. I do mean a single game per disc. This could be cool to do with my GOG and itch library now that I think about it.
Honestly this guys project has inspired me to start looking into that or at least using CDs to trigger a script to move a game file from a cold storage Hard Drive to an SSD
This is crazy, since the ps disc announcement, I have been thinking about this exact idea, wish I had the know how to do this myself. I'm so gald someone actually did it
I think this legit might be thr future of physical game preservation considering the size of games nowadays. Any games 100gb or less will still fit on a disk tho
I don't have the know-how but some issues I foresee: that could possible be patched or improved on in the future;
Solve durable SATA connection (the terminal is not meant for repeated frequent interfacing and thus wear and tear will be a huge detriment to the overall efforts)
Solve longevity of the data inside the SSD. (SSDs are not a highly preservable medium for data and prone to fast decay, the same could be said for discs but imo SSDs are much more expensive to produce and it's degradation is much faster, correct me if I'm wrong)
It would be perfect if a cartridge were created that allowed us to store DRM-free games in this way. The use of physical discs dropped to nearly zero which is entirely to be expected especially as game file sizes increased so much. However recent developments (Sony disaster) are pushing us all back toward physical media and frankly, these cartridges look really great. I hope a solution is found for GOG games as well.
The misleading naming is my bad. You can use it for whatever you want. Doesn't even have to be games. Can be movies or whatever. The launch script is just a shell script/powershell script. You can write whatever in them.
But this isnt really the use case for what you want i guess. For just storage/archiving, a NAS would be better suited for the job. This is just for fun and free some space on my main NVMe drive for games I dont play that often
I recently started redownloading all my purchased GOG offline installers and would really like of doing something like this.
My current plan is (because I still mostly use steam) to make NFC cards and a NFC reader with a Pi Pico 2 to startup a game on steam to get a little bit of a physical collection, even though it's just a launch prompt.
Having real physical game cardridges like you have would be amazing, but for me it's too expensive. But I absolutely love the idea!!!
Actually how did you do this? It's a 3d printed housing and NFC chip right?
On the top there is a glass plate or Acryl Plate in Front of a printed game art?
What is the point? Having physical is good to have ownership. You don't own Steam games because you need an account and internet access to use due to DRM. If something happened with Steam or your account these "physical" copies would be worthless. This would make sense for GOG games because those have no online DRM and the cartridges would work on any PC. Why Steam and not GOG for physical?
And noone said that these are equal to having digital ownership rights. You are narking up the wrong tree.
The point? The point is that i have a bunch of games that I want to replay once in a while. I don't want to keep them on my main drive constantly and redownloading them put friction in replaying them.
My girlfriend and I Steam Family share our libraries. Some of these games are mine, some are hers. So we both use these cartridges.
Why not GoG games? You can. The naming is bad on my part. You can put whatever on whatever storage medium and you can put whatever in the script. Put gog games on there and write the script to start them.
I don't have a lot of GoG games, but the ones I do, I archive their installers on my NAS.
This is incredible, Iâve been really hoping to see more folks doing stuff like this, it really is a proof of concept for better physical media storage, I love that itâs able to use multiple types of storage mediums, that should still be slottable. Itâd be neat to do custom handles for specific games as well, or inscribe details along the cartridge, and given how open source this is I can see it being very easy to do.
Dude this is so awesome I had a similiar idea but with a boat load of 2.3" hdds I got in a bulk sale off of ebay, I already have a sata hotswap bay on my PC so this fits perfectly lol. Gotta get a 3D printer and build off of the cases you already made for them
Youâre awesome. I just bought a 3d printer recently, so when I saw this I got very happy. My only question, any chance youâd do something similar for NVMe drives? Given that certain games require faster storage than 2.5â sata ones.
Nothing about this is inherently "Steam". Just unfortunate naming on my part. Wasn't planning on making actual project out of this and publishing it. The code i posted is mostly framework to auto launch the script on the drives. You can put whatever you want in the script. Launch GoG games. Open browser, shutdown your PC
These are awesome. One issue, which I'm sure someone else has pointed out, is that internal SATA connectors have a very low duty cycle (50 mating cycles).
Is there a way you'd also design one that encloses a sata to female USB adapter? I don't like the fact that the drive connectors will die even if it's at max like $25. If you have a kofi or patreon I wouldn't mind putting my money where my mouth is
Definitely a valid concern. But enterprise SATA caddies are costly and bulky. SATA extension adapter to shift the wear to the extension instead is also not readily available. What extension/adapter exactly do you have in mind?
I am completely unwashed in the realm of enterprise caddies, but there are SATA female to SATA male adapters on Amazon, for instance, for around U$6-7. $6-7 for an adapter to take the brunt of the insertion stress would be ideal, but I don't know the potential downsides of these adapters.
oh shoot, this is actually a really cool idea. shame to have this idea at the time where storage is hella expensive, but if i could somehow remember this, this'd be sick to keep in mind.
...or well hell, if the only task that's gonna be done is to store data for one game, i suppose buying a used drive wouldn't be the worst idea.
Is there a script to make it run a specific .exe file or a shortcut that's in a specific location in the drive instead of using steam ? Cuz I'd love to try to make my own usb-cartridge hybrid
Very cool, but obviously not ideal for games that get regular updates. Anything old though, top tier idea and I love the physical nature.
I kind of want to put a 2.5" drive reader into my media computer now so I can do this without having to make custom hardware, just print the lables and stick them straight on the SSD's. Hell yeah. Bookshelf full of games again is awesome
Yeah, live-service games just live on my main drive. Having to update everytime you plug it in and having to wait before you can play defeats the purpose of this haha
Cool! Talked about stuff like this during the physical media debacle. Exactly the solution I proposed, though yours requires that you own the game on Steam, so it's not a backup for say losing your account.Â
I'd love to see support for GOG installers such that it starts the installer if the game is not installed, and launches if it is.Â
u/Jibril-sama Have you considered designing an internal 5.25" 3D model that could connect to sata/psu instead of usb adapter? then you can slot the ssd into the front of a tower pc (if it has 5.25" bays) and it would be wired up inside.
Bless your awesome soul! Awesome answer! Providing the code for the simple folk like myself.... you need a cape, cause you're my Hero! Thank you for you gift to humanity. Keep up the Love!
Just thinking about this pretty great idea for recycling older SSD's just curious how you did the labels, to me that seems like the hardest part, inkjets are trash so maybe ordering stickers?
Might as well not put any SSD in it if it's gonna be just for show. This is meant to be used. I made this project for myself first and foremost. And I am using it.
u/Jibril-sama we're working on an open marketplace that respects consumer rights and devs and I've been noodling on how to compliment that with physical releases
very much enjoy your efforts here and would love to talk and see if there is room to collaborate
no pressure but check out our stuff https://gamakura.com/ and ping me if you're open to it
you can open an issue on github. but as a sanity check, did you register the script into the trust list? do you have any entries in the %LOCALAPPDATA%/PC-Cartridge-System/trusted_scripts.sha256 ?
Someone on YT pointed out the data on those SSDs would degrade if not used for 6 months, and another pointed out that someone could in-theory, create a sort-of docking station for those cartridges to receive a small amount of power to keep them in-tact.
Curious to see if this can work with "Non-Steam Games" that have been added to steam. This way we can use GoG games and return to Monke (physical media)
Launching non-steam games through steam with the url protocol is probably not possible. but if you dont care about them being launched through steam, for playtime count and the status, then you can just have the script launch the .exe/.sh of the game directly
It was designed with the EC-SSHD in mind. But if this other adapter of yours is similar in shape and size, you can try to modify the 3D files to make it fit
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u/ArcSyn Jul 16 '26
Extra storage? In this economy? đ