Allocating disk space can take hours for large games

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mattf0124 Jul 17, 2017 @ 2:33pm

Allocating disk space can take hours for large games

I have been experiencing problem for years on many machines, present system is an Acer Predator Helios 300 laptop, i7 7700HQ/ 16GB ram / 6GB GTX1060 / 256GB M.2 SATA SSD / 2TB Firecuda Hybrid drive (where Steam and games are installed) , before the download starts, the allocation operation can take hours for games say 25 GB or larger (which is most these days).....I have brought this up before and routinely search for solutions but always strike out, I find many with this issue but no solutions......everything is fine once downloaded, but this makes downloading a royal pain, you also cant queue other downloads until the allocation process is complete......HELP!!!!

Last edited by mattf0124; Jul 17, 2017 @ 2:33pm

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Showing 1-15 of 459 comments

HEART Jul 17, 2017 @ 2:36pm

Download to the SSD (which allocates much faster) then transfer to the HDD.

~Black Cat~ [EH] Jul 17, 2017 @ 2:42pm

You can do:

Originally posted by MiSOKΛ:
Download to the SSD (which allocates much faster) then transfer to the HDD.

Or you can defrag your hd and after that let it just download games at night so it doesn't bother you, the process is going to be the same always.

mattf0124 Jul 17, 2017 @ 2:47pm

The hard drive is brand new, installed less than 72 hours ago......why does dthis happen? It doesnt happen on Origin, downloads start very quickly, and installation is complete shortly after the download is over.....there has to be a practical way , sans juggling drives or downloading before bed to improve this situation.....What exactly is it doing that takes so freaking long to simply "prepare" for the download????

~Black Cat~ [EH] Jul 17, 2017 @ 2:51pm

Origin doesn't do that it just downloads without reserving space on disc. Steam does reserve space in the file system to make sure you have space when the download ends.

Satoru Jul 17, 2017 @ 2:53pm

Preallocation happens so that the system knows that the space actually exists to install the game. Otehrwise you could start the download, then half way through run out because you decided to download every linux iso on the planet.

mattf0124 Jul 17, 2017 @ 2:54pm

Why does it take so long just to map out disk space.....a few minutes, sure.....but sometimes this can take well over 2 hours.....sometimes bigger games take less than smaller....sometimes not, its all pretty random.....and VERY aggravating when you are loading a sizeable library on a new system......

HEART Jul 17, 2017 @ 2:56pm

Originally posted by mattf0124:
Why does it take so long just to map out disk space.....a few minutes, sure.....but sometimes this can take well over 2 hours.....sometimes bigger games take less than smaller....sometimes not, its all pretty random.....and VERY aggravating when you are loading a sizeable library on a new system......

Why are you responding as if no one is replying to your thread?

Pay attention to the answers.

Red Shift Jul 17, 2017 @ 2:58pm

Was Arkham knights one of the games that takes hours for you, because that just took 2 minutes to allocate on to my internal hardrive.
Not much help, sorry, but at least that would narrow down the possibilities a little.

mattf0124 Jul 17, 2017 @ 2:58pm

If you are positive there is enough space, which in all my cases there is.....when I get to 75% capacity I start clearing things out or upgrade to a larger disk.....that we can skip this step.....or for gods sake just speed it up, .....a 50GB game can literally download significantly faster than it takes the "allocation " process to complete.....this should not be.

mattf0124 Jul 17, 2017 @ 3:04pm

Originally posted by MiSOKΛ:
Originally posted by mattf0124:
Why does it take so long just to map out disk space.....a few minutes, sure.....but sometimes this can take well over 2 hours.....sometimes bigger games take less than smaller....sometimes not, its all pretty random.....and VERY aggravating when you are loading a sizeable library on a new system......
Why are you responding as if no one is replying to your thread?

Pay attention to the answers.

I am not getting the answers I need, I am getting the same replies as usual.....install here, then move to there.....not a good solution......why does it take so long? because it does.....that doesn't help....why do they do it? to see if you have the space.....Obvious, and IMO pretty pointless for the amount of time it takes.....hell....15 minutes would be a miracle if that's the longest it took at times.....these are absurdly long wait times.......and downloading a bunch of games consecutively is a form of torture .....and it makes no sense in the how's or why's...

Addition, if a 10GB game takes say 10 seconds to allocate....why does a 40 GB game take sometimes hours....and not 40 seconds?? I honestly want to understand exactly what is happening because I am pretty certain it doesn't HAVE to be this way.

Last edited by mattf0124; Jul 17, 2017 @ 3:08pm

#10

~Black Cat~ [EH] Jul 17, 2017 @ 3:06pm

Well we are giving you the info about how it works and why it does that. If you want to rant about it open a steam support ticket and complain to them maybe they will listen.

I'm happy with how it works because it never lets the hd full with a download half done at a % and It's just easy leaving the pc at night on with steam downloading the games and the next day after work It's done.

I am not getting the answers I need.
-you want someone to tell you how to turn it off and it can't be done.
why does it take so long?
-beause sometimes things take time to be done.

You seem bothered about the issue and it's something you should not take on people that come by and try to explain things to you. We are not mods or steam employees, we are steam users like you. Again if you don't like the info we can give you open a steam support ticket and ask them.

Last edited by ~Black Cat~ [EH]; Jul 17, 2017 @ 3:15pm

#11

MancSoulja Jul 17, 2017 @ 3:23pm

Originally posted by ~Black Cat~ EH:
Well we are giving you the info about how it works and why it does that. If you want to rant about it open a steam support ticket and complain to them maybe they will listen.

I'm happy with how it works because it never lets the hd full with a download half done at a % and It's just easy leaving the pc at night on with steam downloading the games and the next day after work It's done.

I am not getting the answers I need.
-you want someone to tell you how to turn it off and it can't be done.
why does it take so long?
-beause sometimes things take time to be done.

You seem bothered about the issue and it's something you should not take on people that come by and try to explain things to you. We are not mods or steam employees, we are steam users like you. Again if you don't like the info we can give you open a steam support ticket and ask them.

No you're not. It's not normal for large games to take hours to pre-allocate. Even on a slow 5200 rpm drives, the largest games shouldn't take longer than 10 minutes.

Last edited by MancSoulja; Jul 17, 2017 @ 3:24pm

#12

mr Jul 17, 2017 @ 3:28pm

I remember when i downloaded 40+gb game it allocating took only like 15-20 minutes, and it was to an old crappy slow hdd...

#13

Watermelon {JESUS IS LORD} Jul 17, 2017 @ 3:31pm

Allocation only takes about 5-10 minutes for me

#14

TheRogon Dec 10, 2017 @ 2:44pm

Well I just tossed in a freshly formatted thumb drive(it is 3.0). 400mbs read / 300mbs write. I installed a 8.9gb game and it took over an hour to preallocate and 5 minutes to download.

Anecdotally this sort of preallocation has happened on my HDD but I don't have those details in front on me as I do this thumb drive.

Last edited by TheRogon; Dec 10, 2017 @ 2:46pm

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