Allocating too much space

[jtb720]

Hello. I just got a new external SSD drive to put some larger games on to free up some space on my laptop, but as I've installed games on that drive I've noticed that Steam is allocating way too much space for some games and that empty space is remaining unavailable after the game has been fully installed. It's showing I have 119 GB of allocated used space even though I only have 65 GB of actual files on the drive. Going game by game, for instance, Stellaris is taking up 28.5 GB of allocated space even though the folder only contains 10.9 GB of actual files. On my internal laptop SSD and another external HDD the actual disk space and allocated space match up, even when testing it with the same games, so I don't know what's wrong with this one new external drive. I've tried clearing my Steam download cache and uninstalling/reinstalling the affected games with no change. It's draining my free space at almost double the rate of what it should be, so any help would be greatly appreciated!

[ReBoot]

Check with something else first. Whatever "it" is that you're speaking about, get a second opinion from a second tool.

[jtb720]

Sorry, "it" is TreeSize, a file exploring app.

[ReBoot]

TreeSize also shows where the space is allocated. Is it in the game folder itself, or Steam's downloads folder?

[jtb720]

Hmm, not sure. Trying to figure out how to see that. I haven't used TreeSize very long and don't know it that well.

[jtb720]

It looks like the extra allocation is spread through multiple different files in each game's folder in the steamapps folder. There's an extra 7 GB allocated in the workshop folder as well.

[ReBoot]

From your description, that's nothing out of the ordinary, to be honest.

[jtb720]

I dunno. Stellaris showing 10.9 GB disk space and 10.9 allocated space on both my internal laptop SSD and external HDD, but 10.9 GB disk space and 28.5 GB allocated space on the external SSD doesn't seem ordinary. No reason it should be different on one and not the other two. Something is messed up.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by jtb720:

I dunno. Stellaris showing 10.9 GB disk space and 10.9 allocated space on both my internal laptop SSD and external HDD, but 10.9 GB disk space and 28.5 GB allocated space on the external SSD doesn't seem ordinary. No reason it should be different on one and not the other two. Something is messed up.

What are you using to measure what? So far, you said you're measuring using TreeSize. I've literally no idea how I could map what you're describing here to TreeSize. What's the difference between disk space and allocated space?

[jtb720]

A screenshot would be much easier, because I'm honestly not really handy enough to describe it well, but there's a 54 GB difference between actual files installed of disk space and total allocated space. Both TreeSize and the drive's properties window now show 74 GB of actual installed files on a drive that started with 465 GB, yet 127.5 GB are somehow allocated so I only have 338 GB of free space, which is not making sense to me. I don't know how to clear the seemingly unused allocated space. The free space should be 391 GB, because I have installed 74 GB of files, but it's not. I don't know how else to explain it.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by jtb720:

but there's a 54 GB difference between actual files installed of disk space and total allocated space. Both TreeSize and the drive's properties window now show 74 GB of actual installed files on a drive that started with 465 GB, yet 127.5 GB are somehow allocated so I only have 338 GB of free space, which is not making sense to me. I don't know how to clear the seemingly unused allocated space. The free space should be 391 GB, because I have installed 74 GB of files, but it's not. I don't know how else to explain it.

Does TreeSize/Explorer inform you of those 127,5 allocated GB? How much free space do TreeSize/Explorer show?

Let's make it quick: clear Steam's download cache. This step is easy to do even without fully understanding what's going on as it's got no downsides (if you got no downloads running, that is).

[jtb720]

Oh man, finally figured it out. I was messing around and looked at the format and saw that the file type was exFAT on the new SSD drive and NTFS on the other two drives. I don't even really know what that means, but I switched it and reformatted the new SSD to NTFS and it worked. Tested out reinstalling Stellaris and now it's 10.9 disk space and 10.9 allocated, so it's all matched up and the available free space is correct. Whew. I have very basic knowledge of this stuff so it took some stumbling through it. Thanks for trying to help. I know what I was saying probably didn't make much sense.

[ReBoot]

Gotta hand it to you, nice find! I sure would've never guessed that! Despite having been of literally 0 help, I am glad you got it sorted!

[Iceira]

Its know as cluster disk size, and now you know why detail matter and the diffrence in computer tech person and normal user.

ps.
this is not to correct you, more a good to know and what happend here.