Why do games uninstall in seconds ?

[Det. Dave Starsky]

It can take me a few hours to download certain games, the bigger the size the longer it takes..
GTA V takes me 4 1/2 hours even though I have fiber bb..

I made space on my ssd for it , I uninstalled a few games to make space..
The games I uninstalled too a mere second or 2 to uninstall..

Why are games uninstalled so quickly ?
If only they would download as quick too....

[マスキュリン]

Because most Filesystems mark "data" as deleted without deleting them. And then something needs the space of your HDD/SDD they overwrite it. That's why "File recovery" Tools work to begin with, since they unmark the Files.

[[Lethalvriend]]

Originally posted by Masqurin:

Because most Filesystems mark "data" as deleted without deleting them. And then something needs the space of your HDD/SDD they overwrite it. That's why "File recovery" Tools work to begin with, since they unmark the Files.

This pretty much, nothing is deleted.

[Det. Dave Starsky]

Edit: I just read what @Masqurin wrote, this makes sence to me, thanks.

I'm confused, if nothing is deleted why does file explorer say that my free space has increased ?

Does it just mean that the space isnt free and will be used if I install another game ....

[Muppet among Puppets]

Read about ssd and trim.
Then you understand and know important things about data.

And you learn already in early childhood why uninstalling is faster:
It takes long to build the tower, and whoosh one wipe it falls down.

[Det. Dave Starsky]

Thanks, this makes sense.

[Muppet among Puppets]

Originally posted by Toast:

If you have an SSD, I think it might actually be erasing the data though. SSD's work differently than normal hard drives and are faster because they have no moving parts.

Ssd need the os to tell them what data is trash. Otherwise it moves them around still. Which reduces lifespan.

Again, ssd and trim.
Read it

[Muppet among Puppets]

And technically its the smarter way to keep burnt data after "erasing" until its overwritten.
Other wise you would have around 2 write steps additional.

But its bad in security aspects, especially if hardware leaves your possession.

[Muppet among Puppets]

If you overwrite a file on ssd several times, you might end up with several of these overwrites and the original file

[Blaagh]

on a harddrive the blocks dont have an "empty" state. its just ones and zeros. the file system table keeps track which of the blocks have valid data.

when you write a file it actually has to write the blocks but on erase only the file table is changed. to get rid of the data you need a program that overwrites a harddrive with ones and zeros. that will take a very long time depending on speed and size however.

[sfnhltb]

Originally posted by Toast:

I'll take your word for it. I'm too lazy. I just remember reading something about how when you erase data from a thumb drive or an SSD, it's legitimately gone for good and can not be recovered like you can do with a regular hard drive. Perhaps it's true for thumb drives and *mostly* true for an SSD. As in, you write over the data ONCE an it's gone forever, as opposed to the numerous writes that can be done before data from a normal hard drive is unrecoverable.

SSDs generally work the same on initial delete as spinning platter drives in that the space used is marked as unused and none of the data is overwritten (or depending on your settings just moved to a recycle bin, and then clearing the recycle bin just marks the space unused), so they can be recovered with certain tools.

If this unused space is then blanked out/overwritten - by a inbuilt tool which might fire off regularly to secure erase this unused space for security reasons, but at the cost of lost files being irretrievable as soon as that happens, or third party software that is when your comment relates - overwritten data on an SSD should be unrecoverable by any means (with a few special cases like data stored in a cache somewhere or similar).

Whereas on a spinning platter drive even after hundreds of overwrites it may be possible to read off the original data using certain forensic techniques - this is because of the way write heads on platters don't always write in precisely the same spot every time, so you can still find small sections of the track that have older data writes still present from where the successive writes to that track don't overlap exactly on top of each other. So if you break open the drive and run the entire thing through a powerful microscope you could potentially reconstruct the files that were previously on it (unlikely to be an issue for most people given the costs involved in running such an investigation, it is not exactly like it is an easy way for someone to steal your bank details from your old hard drive).

[Viper]

All it actually does is remove the files form the HDs file list. There is no need to change 1s and 0s that are not marked as used. It will change them the next time it copies something there. This is also why deleted files are so easy to recover unless something has been copied over them. Many criminals have thought they cleared evidence off there PCs by deleting files...Wrong!!