Steam using double the drive space.

[PycassoClaudiu]

Let me elaborate.
While installing a game or moving it from a drive to another it takes double space. After that it goes back to normal.
I tried to install Witcher 3 (about 50GB) on my SSD. It had 70 GB free space. After a while a popup appeared on my screen telling me that the C drive is full. The game wasn't fully installed either.

Is there something I'm missing?

[Realigo Actual]

This is not directly related to your point but I just wanna mention that at some point in time, Tekken 7 decided it no longer wanted to back up to 45~ gijjabijja and instead wants to only back up to the full 70+. shenanigans.

[cinedine]

Download size is not install size! Downloads are already compressed. Also Steam first downloads a file before moving it to the actual directory, so with huge archive files you can easily take up double space.

[Tharon]

Originally posted by cinedine:

Download size is not install size! Downloads are already compressed. Also Steam first downloads a file before moving it to the actual directory, so with huge archive files you can easily take up double space.

Moving a file on the same drive doesn't take or need space. The files are always in the same place, only the index in the file table (MFT) is changed.

[flying_night_slasher]

For me steam took up most of my 1tb hard drive kinda like around 400 or 800 GB.

[Komrade]

You should leave your OS drive 20% empty minimum.

[rawWwRrr]

Originally posted by PycassoClaudiu:

Is there something I'm missing?

more hard drive space

[ranoutofcharac]

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

Originally posted by PycassoClaudiu:

Is there something I'm missing?

more hard drive space

+1

[PycassoClaudiu]

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

Originally posted by PycassoClaudiu:

Is there something I'm missing?

more hard drive space

I forgot to mention this. I also have 2x1TB half empty HDD drives. In the end I did install the game on one of those drives. That's how I noticed the game takes double the space while installing.

So, I still don't understand why steam does this.

[D3AD]

Hdd's also hit a point where they are full whitout being full due to page fileing... sounds like you are still using them... sdd's dont have a cap limit you can fill all 300 gigs of your 300 gigs and be fine... hdd's you never fully fill one... not one anyway you use for gaming... i would also suggest to get a secondary hardrive sdd . leave your c drive for windows and major programs you need to run... ( maybe 1-2 games you main ) than put all your games on a second drive. and than all picture/obs/vid storage on a third drive. after taht you;re set for years. btw . if any of your drives get to the point where you only have 50 between them. its time to upgrade as you leave your windows with next to no upgrade space and those require at least 10 gigs on the side. even though most never right more than 1

[Mortem-Zequax]

eny work around i would like to reinstall Middle-Earth :Shadow of war but only got 110,000 ish MB space and it take around 100,000 MB

[Nx Machina]

Originally posted by Zequax:

eny work around i would like to reinstall Middle-Earth :Shadow of war but only got 110,000 ish MB space and it take around 100,000 MB

Example:

Size on install screen 90gb.

Download size is reduced by approx 1/3 to 60gb.

Installed space required 150gb (60gb download + 90gb install).

Download is unpacked and written to install location.

Upon completion the 60gb space taken by download is freed up and the space becomes available again.

For piece of mind double the size indicated by the install screen.

[rawWwRrr]

Originally posted by Zequax:

eny work around i would like to reinstall Middle-Earth :Shadow of war but only got 110,000 ish MB space and it take around 100,000 MB

You shouldn't be limiting the free space of your hard drive like that. There's no reason to fill every byte. As a matter of fact, you do more harm to your system by doing so as it severely limits the space that it has to operate in, thereby slowing it down. You should always maintain a specific amount of open space, or what we call "overhead" . As you use files and they change, your drive needs somewhere to write to before it deletes the older version. You need space to download, decompress, decrypt, and install. Space is used for caching.

Either delete some games already on it that you're not playing or invest in a bigger or extra hard drive.

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by PycassoClaudiu:

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

more hard drive space

I forgot to mention this. I also have 2x1TB half empty HDD drives. In the end I did install the game on one of those drives. That's how I noticed the game takes double the space while installing.

So, I still don't understand why steam does this.

It's simply because it doesn't just dump the game as it ends up. It's encrypted data, so it needs to reserve both the space it will need for it's eventual storage PLUS workspace to do all the fiddly unencrypting.

So it's usually about double the space and somtimes more.

Think of it like this - physical filing with paper a filing cabinets. You are moving one file to another cabinet - easy. Same space needed. But what if that file needs to be reorganized before refiling. Well then you need a table to sort it on, then the final space in the filing cabinet. You see?

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by Zequax:

eny work around i would like to reinstall Middle-Earth :Shadow of war but only got 110,000 ish MB space and it take around 100,000 MB

That is not something you should be doing AT ALL.

Valve recommend that you reserve at least 10% of your drive, pereferably more as it will affect performance and stability.

[Elee Tadpole]

Sorry to necro this, but I had the same issue. Once I had the game installed I went to the properties for the game on steam, then to local files, and then pressed "verify integrity of game files." Witcher 3 went from taking up over 100gb to around 50-60 which is what you would expect. This won't help if you don't have enough space to download it in the first place though.