4

I have a 60GB SSD and a 2TB HDD and the SSD is used for one game, Total War: Warhammer(TWW), which takes up 34GB. To clarify, the SSD have ~55GB of usable space and the only thing on it is TWW á 34GB. This gives me ~22GB of free space on the SSD. Steam is installed on the HDD and I'm on Windows 7 64-bit system. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this but how TWW's patching work is that it needs to allocate the entire space of the game so that it can open each file and rewrite the code.

The issue is that each time TWW needs to patch itself it tries to allocate additional 34GB which I don't have on the SSD. Steam tells me "there is not enough free disk space". Instead, I've solved the issue by manually moving the game to the HDD and then back again to the SSD every time a patch is up, so it downloads the patch on the HDD then I move the game back to the SSD.

I would like to find an automatic patching of the game so I don't have to manually move the game between drives/discs every time there is a new patch. Ideally, the game would stay on the SSD and the download and patching would happen from the HDD so that it allocates the space on the HDD instead.

Can it be solved by removing the association to the library on the SSD for Steam and create a link that leads to the game folder on the SSD? I'd think that this way, Steam would download the patch on the HDD and then update the files on the SSD thinking that Steam would still be working on the HDD. Is this the best way to do it or does it involve future problems with patching TWW?

My question touches the concept of the answer to this question, "How can I move Steam games to another disk?", asked in 2010. In my case, I wouldn't use Steam Mover since I would only need the "mklink"-command but as described in the previous paragraph is this a bad idea and should I stay with my current solution?

8
  • Is it every patch for the game or just sometimes it does this? And how much of that SSD is actually usable? It's advertised at 60GB, but I think it's actually more like ~56Gb.
    – Timmy Jim
    Mar 30, 2017 at 10:53
  • 1
    It's for every patch even the minor ones and not just for me, 1 2 3. That's 34GB + 34GB for patches as minor as 100MB. The actual space is 55.8GB and the only thing I have on the SSD is TWW which means I have ~22GB of free space.
    – Chringo
    Mar 30, 2017 at 11:03
  • I see. So this seems to be related specifically to Total War: Warhammer. I added the tag. I'm going to look later on my computer to see if there are any workarounds besides what you are doing already (currently don't have Steam installed on the computer I'm using).
    – Timmy Jim
    Mar 30, 2017 at 11:28
  • At this point, having a 60GB solid state drive is laughable, you can get flash drives for larger than that. Amazon has a 250GB Samsung SSD on sale for $93 right now; might be worth the investment. The game would likely only get bigger in the future, exceeding the space available on the current SSD. Mar 30, 2017 at 13:13
  • Buying new hardware to keep as much free space as the entire game is only solving the symptom. What happens if I want more games on the new 256GB SSD that you're suggesting? Say that TWW grows to 50GB; I would have to reserve 100GB just so it can patch the game.
    – Chringo
    Mar 30, 2017 at 13:44

2 Answers 2

5

Unfortunately as it stands, this is currently not possible. I ran into the same issue with Hollow Knight last week, when an update was sent out. The update itself was only 1GB, but Steam automatically allocated an additional 9GB for the update. The only method seems to be to either clear out disk space before you install the patch or just stick the game on your HDD entirely and play it from there.

1
  • 3
    I'm afraid this might be true. Have you tried creating a link to a much smaller disc? If Steam thinks it patches a game on a disc with enough space, does it still allocate on the linked game that lies on the smaller disc and could this result in a much worse system error? I might have to clarify my question but I'm looking for a way to bypass this problem where a TWW patch tries to allocate additional 34GB on the smaller disc.
    – Chringo
    Mar 30, 2017 at 12:52
1

I'm not sure if this will help or not, but I think I figured this out on my Steam.

I went to steam->settings->Steam Library Folders

I added my other hard drive (G:/Program Files(x86)/Steam) as a new library folder, and set it to "default"

Then I cleared the download cache and tried again, and voila! It worked! It looks like it is using my G:/ drive folder as the download cache and then transfers the patch data to the other drive once it is done.

Hope this helps!

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .