Game files verification takes MORE THAN 24 hours

[quillquill]

I have downloaded God of War on an external storage. Today I tried to open it but it says it needs to verify the game files before it can launch. The problem is it says it will take more than 24 hours. At the very beginning the disk usage was about 82,6 Mb/s and Steam said it would take 1 hour and half (give or take). Then it dropped to a tremendous 6 Mb/s and now it says it'll take more than a day. And of course I can't turn my PC off because it'd start everything back from scratch.
My computer specs are:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6600K CPU @ 3.50GHz 3.50 GHz
RAM 16,0 GB, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
Killer E2400 Gigabit Ethernet Controller

Disk (C:) 254 GB (total), 64,2 GB (free)
Disk (D:) about 750 GB (total), 38,8 GB (free)

Any tip as how to speed the verification process up? Thank you in advance.

[Banco Itaú]

exactly the same issue, and there's been at least one more guy reporting the same over here, either a specific problem, or a ♥♥♥♥ up on the devs part

[Banco Itaú]

okay, i tried uninstalling the game and reinstalling, it took a while but it didn't need verification this time and the game seems to be working fine, maybe try that too?

[Elucidator]

External drives are by default extremely slow
They can only perform either read or a write operation, not both at the same time.
I assume disk usage in Steam's window drops when it is reading only or, maybe it is writing then. idk. Its better if you check your own Task Manager or Resource Monitor windows to see disk activity.

Here's a tip:
use an SSD instead. They're pretty cheap nowadays. You can use the external drive as a backup, but I recommend you to put the main library files on an SSD. The only speed limitation then is your internet speed (I assume, unless the ssd is for some reason very slow)

If your main drive is faster, set the game to be 'installed from C:' then copy the files from the external drive to C:
then verification should also speed up.

Last, keep the backup up-to-date.
so that... it doesn't need verification.

[quillquill]

OK YALL NEVER MIND I guess it was just a thing at the beginning. Now only 5 minutes are left. If you have the same issue just let the thing run for about 1 hour or so and if it's the same as me the disk usage will rocket up to over 700 mb/s and you'll be done with it fast. Thank you for the answers though!

[Iceira]

And you also ignore the last 10% free rule, things will be more slow, its a MS learn rule or should i said suggestion, on 2TB disk thats 200gb , and sense all disk is diffrent i can tell then i hit last 130gb on my disk things just get more slower, so when you hit that mark or already have, only you can tell.

[ladsladslads]

Originally posted by Elucidator:

External drives are by default extremely slow
They can only perform either read or a write operation, not both at the same time.
I assume disk usage in Steam's window drops when it is reading only or, maybe it is writing then. idk. Its better if you check your own Task Manager or Resource Monitor windows to see disk activity.

Here's a tip:
use an SSD instead. They're pretty cheap nowadays. You can use the external drive as a backup, but I recommend you to put the main library files on an SSD. The only speed limitation then is your internet speed (I assume, unless the ssd is for some reason very slow)

If your main drive is faster, set the game to be 'installed from C:' then copy the files from the external drive to C:
then verification should also speed up.

Last, keep the backup up-to-date.
so that... it doesn't need verification.

Useless tip simply spreading misinformation. An SSD is much faster but steams decision to sometimes verify downloads and sometimes not is inexplicable and it takes a long time even on fast NVME storage. 99% of times hard drives should not impact download bandwidth

[Krathoon]

Steam is pulling the same crap on my computer too. It is saying that it will take days just to verify files. I think you can ignore it.

[Elucidator]

Originally posted by ladsladslads:

Originally posted by Elucidator:

External drives are by default extremely slow
They can only perform either read or a write operation, not both at the same time.
I assume disk usage in Steam's window drops when it is reading only or, maybe it is writing then. idk. Its better if you check your own Task Manager or Resource Monitor windows to see disk activity.

Here's a tip:
use an SSD instead. They're pretty cheap nowadays. You can use the external drive as a backup, but I recommend you to put the main library files on an SSD. The only speed limitation then is your internet speed (I assume, unless the ssd is for some reason very slow)

If your main drive is faster, set the game to be 'installed from C:' then copy the files from the external drive to C:
then verification should also speed up.

Last, keep the backup up-to-date.
so that... it doesn't need verification.

Useless tip simply spreading misinformation. An SSD is much faster but steams decision to sometimes verify downloads and sometimes not is inexplicable and it takes a long time even on fast NVME storage. 99% of times hard drives should not impact download bandwidth

No, this is misinformation. The biggest issue with your comment is that you claim Verification is the same as Downloading, it is not.

Their Disk Activity was less than 140MB/s, meaning it was in all likelihood an HDD just performing a read task. I noted that their disk (a likely hdd) can, due to mechanical limitations only perform either a read or a write; so the graph shown refers to a single activity.
A second issue is that as such, it can only do a single task. Other activities on their system may occupy disk activity while Steam is trying to read. Windows tends to prioritize itself and Windows in the end decides the schedule for the disk activity. This is why I advised them to monitor their disk activity.
A tip I left out is to keep a HDD defragged, since Read in Sequence is faster than Read Random. (due to less seeking being required)

The read speeds are excessively greater on SSDs and Disk Reading is the only type of disk activity used in the verification of files. Therefore using and External SSD instead of a HDD (and just downloading the game onto this) would benefit the OP the next time they would install and update the game, since it makes the vefification process faster.
That is of course assuming the CPU can handle it and the external SSD is connected through USB4.

Verification can be slow for two reasons: loading all the files needed to be verified into RAM (reading from disk) -- disk activity
and the CPU running the verification calculation on them (actually verifying) -- CPU activity.
no download is involved here.

After one or more incorrect files are found, Steam will issue a download task once all verification is finished, not during. You can see this in the "Downloads" tab of the Steam Library.
(unless they changed this system and now do it during verification...)
Keep in mind that verifying game files will max out CPU usage. Doing other stuff on your system at the same time decreases the time needed to verify; you'll also hear your fans blow a lot.

[John]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.