Not enough space on SSD for WoW after 8.1 Patch

Community General Discussion
41

If you don’t have space for the update, you might consider disabling the download, waiting for the release, then uninstalling WoW completely, and downloading it fresh, and pre-patched.

I know that this can take a lot of time, but also at the same time, it gets rid of any cruft you’ve accumulated over time. Because in the end, the game will not be whatever it is now + 16G, the bulk of that patch will overwrite data you already have. Downloading it fresh eliminates that overhead.

Also, you might be really surprised how playable the game is with only a fraction of it downloaded. Blizz is really good about incremental content and game play. If you don’t intend or expect to run all over the entirety of azeroth, (i.e. just going to be in, say, Stormwind and BfA), the game during down load won’t have to download all of those zones you’re not visiting. It will eventually, but it can almost-but-not-quite-stream and download stuff on demand depending on your internet connection. There will certainly be lags if you do this, but, again, suffer those minor bits to get to your playable areas. Don’t try to fly from Moonglade to Tanaris.

It’s a different experience, some resolutions aren’t there, some ancillary stuff isn’t there. I did this once and the load screen it used was from original WoW, not the then current expansion, for example. But it’s playable. Once you get in to a zone for, say, some WQs, or a BG, or a dungeon, it works really well after a pause. It just won’t be a completely seamless world until it’s all down. But why wait for Northrend, Pandaria, Outland, and Draenor to download if you’re not going there right away.

Obviously if you have a really lousy connection, this is a bad idea. But if you don’t have the space, just wait a day or so after release, and redownload the game. With a good connection you should be able to start play pretty soon, get your stuff done, and then let the rest finish up over time.

1 Like
42

SSD ones are that price ? Must be only in the US aka not in Canada.

43

Yea, I just don’t understand why I can’t do this and then… I dunno… ‘stop downloading’ until I reach an area where I need the content. That way so long as I never say: Visit Wailing Caverns, I’ll never need the game files for it.

So much of the game is ancillary and unused, so why am I struggling for space?

(I’ve downloaded steam versions of games without cutscenes to limit the size of the download. Hand WoW a shakeweight, make it wiggle out about 10gb worth of content that I never use, and I’ll be happy as a clam at high tide.)

44

I’m in the same boat. 7GB left after pre-patch.

I have no sata ports left for a new drive, so I plan to just buy an external SSD and run it off my USB 3.0

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45

I said goodbye to Pillars of Eterinity 2 to get it on my hd. It was my own fault. For some reason I had the urge to play mass effect andromeda the other day. So I reinstalled it. Those animation are still horrible. And their hands. Our poor hands, they must hurt so bad…

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46

Yeah, this happened to me when BFA came out. The good news is 500 GB SSDs can be had for under 100 bucks these days. Upgrade !

47

I only keep Windows 10, small apps and all of my Blizzard games on my 500GB SSD and it’s only half full. 150GB seems a tad small. :slight_smile:

48

i have a 250 gb ssd drive decided to just move it to my 1tb hard drive instead ill get a bigger ssd drive one day hopefully.

49

While its nice for all these folks to recommend upgrading the OP’s SSD, people are missing an important point - the patch download is 16.4 GB, and I just did a brand new fresh install of WoW on a brand new machine just over a week ago, and the total download was about 54 GB.

That means this 8.1 patch is 30% of the size of everything that was already included in WoW, including Vanilla, TBC, WotLK, Cata, MoP, WoD, Legion, and BfA.

Why is a x.1 patch 30% of the size of the original game plus 7 expansions?

I was able to play the game during download after only a couple of GB downloaded, so the core game files aren’t that big, meaning the rest is graphics for the most part.

For an x.1 patch to be 30% of all that came before it means they would be updating a huge percentage of all previous graphics files. And why would they be doing that? And why wouldn’t those updated files just replace the old ones? Why keep both versions?

Inquiring bovines need the answers to these questions, not just the OP.

/moo :cow:

6 Likes
50

Go into your Warcraft folder and then go into the folder called Data. In there is a 20gig folder called RNG. Delete that for more space.

51

It was pretty early in their rollout, and at the time - games were generally around 20-30gb on average, and WoW only needed 35.

We’ve now doubled that, and how long again until we double once more? In 4 years will I get a reply to my future topic telling me that my 500GB drive is small?

52

Everything you see on screen. Scenery, armor, textures, etc, are all in the client. New zone, new warfront = more data. Buy a 512 GB Samsung drive or larger. They also have a good drive clone utility, but you’ll need an external USB interface for the new drive to do the copy.
Otherwise, external USB3 SSD and just move your whole WoW folder to it and change the launcher to point to the new location (Easiest method, but it requires carrying the external drive around if you travel a lot.

53

You can almost do this in an ad hoc way.

As I understand it, the download is within Battle-NET, not within the game itself (though the incremental loader is in the game).

So, you might be able to do this by simply shutting down Battle-NET. Mind, this only goes so far, as you can’t go back and delete Wailing Caverns after you’ve left it. Over time, the size will just grow and grow.

But you might be able to curtail the overall size if you keep Battle-NET shut down.

May not be worth the effort, though.

This all happened to me in the past, come home to a full disk. I bought a USB SSD drive to put all of Blizzards stuff on.

It would be an interesting suggestion for them, however, to make this more of a first class concept in the game.

P.S. Apparently I can’t put links in a post, and it considers the text Battle . NET to be a link.

Good times.

54

But in 4 years, you’ll be able to buy a 1T drive at the grocery store for $20 from a display by the candy, chips, and batteries next to the cash registers.

“Hmmm. Latest Enquirer, or 1TB drive…decisions, decisions.”

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55

:clap::clap: I been looking for this fix!! Thank you kind sir! :ok_hand:t2::ok_hand:t2::ok_hand:t2::+1:t2::+1:t2::+1:t2: Here’s a free dinosaur on the house. :t_rex:

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56

After all the file overwriting, it brought things down to just 10GB. But that’s still a whopper of a patch. Those vendors they’re adding for Azerite, Island Expeditions, and PvP must be monsters. :eyes:

57

Solution: 1 TB SSD drives are $120 now.

58

It’s showing as $329 for me.

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59

i think part of the reason the new patch is so large is Blizzard is finally fixing an old issue so the game will actually use multi threading or something like that Bellular gaming had a video on it that explained it about a month ago. Not sure if that’s the only reason the patch is so large though.

61

Is it normal to have 2 SSD drives? I’m in the same boat with a single 150gb drive. I can’t decide if I want to upgrade it to a 250gb SSD +1tb hdd and fart around with transfering my Windows install, or to just buy a second 500gb SSD and use my external usb hard drives for storage