DCS Filling Up My Computer Hard Drive

I just purchased a new high end gaming laptop with a 500 gig hard drive.

Now it seems that every time I want to purchase a new module from DCS half my other games have to go away.

I love DCS but it's taking over my computer. Why is it so HD storage intensive?

I've had to delete over half my other games just to have DCS on my computer.

I want to purchase the F-14 while it's on sale but again it's requiring a huge amount of my HD space just to download it.

Why is the F-14 also telling you that your hard drive space requirement will depend on your graphics settings. What's that all about. Your graphics setting should only affecting GPU or CPU requirements.

I am literally down only a couple other games just so I can have DCS.

I own the F-16, F-18, F-5E, Mig-29, P-51, F-86 Sabre, F-15C, The Normandy upgrade, Blue Nosed Bastards upgrade, Super Carrier and just uploading the Persian Gulf upgrade required me to again delete another game.

It's going to get to the point where I have to delete DCS modules to load others.

Replacing the disk with a larger one is not an option? I’ve replaced mine twice over the last three years.

If you don't mind plugging in, you can connect your laptop to a external hard drive via USB3 for quite reasonable performance. Not as nice as direct SSD, but usable and cheap. Say 4TB drive stand alone / dock / enclosure with USB3 cable.

Get a larger hard drive. 500gb is not enough to todays gaming. Especially for flight sims. I have a 1tb SSD and a 1tb HDD and filled the SSD. Also to make some space go through your hard drive and clean out what you dont need. It will help till you can get more space

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

You can save a few Gbs by deleting some of the useless skins that are included in the default installation.

^ Only to have them auto-reinstalled each time the game updates? Not a good idea in the long run.

Check all the _update and such directories in the DCS root directory.

Mine shows as 136GB. Last Oct I upgraded my old PC w/ a 1TB SSD. It was about $150 for the drive and the connector tool to clone the old drive.

^ Only to have them auto-reinstalled each time the game updates? Not a good idea in the long run.

Well, everything is more or less like this, for example, VR shaders. :music_whistling:

fighting disk space issues is an uphill battle. buy an imaging software and a larger drive. migrate current drive to new drive. i have also done this several times. i have acronis true image. it also does backup for me.

You can save a few Gbs by deleting some of the useless skins that are included in the default installation.

They actually have skins for aircraft that aren't even available?

Where are these found?

[update]

However if they are just going to keep re-installing every time you load the game why bother.

Buy a bigger disk. Its a only solution.

If you don't mind plugging in, you can connect your laptop to a external hard drive via USB3 for quite reasonable performance. Not as nice as direct SSD, but usable and cheap. Say 4TB drive stand alone / dock / enclosure with USB3 cable.

I would gladly do this if it works but I have a few questions first:

> Can you load DCS onto an external drive without it being in your program files and still run the game?

> Can you actually run the game from an external HDD and get the same performance?

> If not is there a way to install the DCS game on your SSD in the laptop but save the modules on the external drive?

I'm seriously considering building a home system since that's the only time I do DCS anyway.

Don't walk around with flight controllers in my laptop case. But that's for another thread.

Looking to get some insight on what the best system to build.

Yep its the curse of having lots of nice things in dcs :)

 

solution is buy more hard drive space

 

or

 

manage what you download, install only what you are focusing on at the time.

The only problem with that is DCS takes so long to download individual modules.

Especially when it starts downloading torrent files.

thats just not very big a hard drive these days.

thats just not very big a hard drive these days.

Actually for a laptop it was one of the biggest you can get. Or so I was told.

The only other option was to get a 256 gig SSD coupled with a 1 TB HDD.

I didn't like the idea of only having 256 gig on my main drive.

Like I said it looks like I'm going to have to break into the piggy bank and build me a home unit.

Just want to make sure when I do it it's compatible with all my stuff. And expandable.

I hated the days of downloading games only to find out that the particular video card I had installed wasn't compatible with that game.

Hope those days are behind us.

I would gladly do this if it works but I have a few questions first:

> Can you load DCS onto an external drive without it being in your program files and still run the game?

> Can you actually run the game from an external HDD and get the same performance?

> If not is there a way to install the DCS game on your SSD in the laptop but save the modules on the external drive?

i think you can locate the modules directory separate from the binaries by using window's link function, but i dont think you should mess with it because ultimately theres nothing to gain in insisting that binaries be located on your os drive.

i have dcs installed in its own dedicated ssd.

I would gladly do this if it works but I have a few questions first:

> Can you load DCS onto an external drive without it being in your program files and still run the game?

Yes, you can. Just move the eagle dynamics folder onto the external path.

> Can you actually run the game from an external HDD and get the same performance?

It can run, but since the usb 3.0 interface is slower than the one used by internal drives, the performance will be slower as well.

> If not is there a way to install the DCS game on your SSD in the laptop but save the modules on the external drive?

Yes, you can move the /program files/eagle dynamics/dcs world/mods/aircraft/ folder to the external drive and then create a hardlink on its place. With a command like:

Mklink /J "/program files/eagle dynamics/dcs world/mods/aircraft" "D:/dcs mods/aircraft"

This is assuming you use dcs stand alone, as this probably won't work with Steam.

:thumbup:

I was looking at a couple of USB 3.0 high speed external SSD drives today that had read speeds of over 500 mb/s.

Is this fast enough to keep DCS running properly with everything still set at high as I have it now.

I was looking at a couple of USB 3.0 high speed external SSD drives today that had read speeds of over 500 mb/s.

Is this fast enough to keep DCS running properly with everything still set at high as I have it now.

Then again there's this little jewel with 2000 mb/s read speed.

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-FireCuda-Gaming-Accelerated-Performance/dp/B083GH4MQH/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=Seagate%2BFireCuda%2B1TB%2BSolid%2BState%2BHybrid%2BDrive&qid=1593247209&sr=8-1-spons&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzMkZJM0VTTjlHNUg2JmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwODMxMTAyMUE1NFZSUjJYQUE2UiZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwMTM0MDc5MTA2SjZHM1VRVUtCSSZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU&th=1

Then again there's this little jewel with 2000 mb/s read speed.

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-FireCuda-Gaming-Accelerated-Performance/dp/B083GH4MQH/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=Seagate%2BFireCuda%2B1TB%2BSolid%2BState%2BHybrid%2BDrive&qid=1593247209&sr=8-1-spons&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzMkZJM0VTTjlHNUg2JmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwODMxMTAyMUE1NFZSUjJYQUE2UiZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwMTM0MDc5MTA2SjZHM1VRVUtCSSZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU&th=1

It’s USB 3.2 Gen 2x2.. make sure that your laptop has such port before purchasing.

It’s USB 3.2 Gen 2x2.. make sure that your laptop has such port before purchasing.

Actually it's USB 3.0 2nd generation 2x2 technology whatever that is.

They have the USB 3. close to the 2 gen to make it look like USB 3.2

I know my new laptop has 3.0 plus the 4 port USB hub that I use is a"powered" 3.0 as well.

[Edit]

I stand corrected. Although the title says 3.0 when you read further down into the specs it talks about it being exactly that...USB 3.2 Gen.2 with 2x2 technology.

I assuming this would only move as fast as a USB 3.0 port would allow it to.

IS ANYBODY IN DCS PLAYING OFF AN EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE USING USB 3.0?

I was looking at a couple of USB 3.0 high speed external SSD drives today that had read speeds of over 500 mb/s.

No USB drive attains such speeds ... manufacturers are such liars ..they quote the disk speed raw, not measuring it at the computer's USB port, but instead at the disk port .. so, it has no relationship with the real-world performance.

Here is a real-world comparison between a Sata drive and an USB 3.0 drive.

https://www.flexense.com/usb3_vs_sata_disk_performance_comparison.html

I havent used an external drive with DCS, currently I have it on a Sata 3 SSD.

No USB drive attains such speeds ... manufacturers are such liars ..they quote the disk speed raw, not measuring it at the computer's USB port, but instead at the disk port .. so, it has no relationship with the real-world performance.

 

Here is a real-world comparison between a Sata drive and an USB 3.0 drive.

 

https://www.flexense.com/usb3_vs_sata_disk_performance_comparison.html

 

I havent used an external drive with DCS, currently I have it on a Sata 3 SSD.

I guess the bottom line is can I run DCS if it is loaded onto a USB 3.0 external hard drive without losing any performance?

IMHO DCS was not meant to be played with "dumb'ed down" graphics and specs.

What's the fastest read speed I can expect from a 3.0 USB port?