Disk Usage is a Huge Problem in Modern Games.
The Problem first showed up 10 years ago with EA's Star Wars: The Old Republic. Swtor's hard disk requirements was exactly 60 GB ! These days 60 GB was and still is huge amount of hard disk space for only one game and this issue makes most of Gamers starting having multiple problems like performance problems if they install their games on C drive (limitations on Windows Filesystem demand 15% and more free space for Windows OS to work properly) or what game should delete to find free space for the new games, etc!
Purchasing a new SSD or m.2 NVme disk is always the easiest and best solution for performance but there is a small problem here. How many times you will buy bigger SSD or m.2 / NVme disks or how many available m2, ssd available slots your motherboard has ? if for example you choose to buy one bigger ssd you have to spend more than 200 euro for a 2 TB ssd (December 2020 prices in Greece).
200 euro for an update is almost the half money for a modern Gaming Console PS5 or XBox Series and we will still remain with a solution that you can install 8 complete call of duty: COLD OF WAR ( 250 GB ! ) full games and as gamers we know that we want to have as much as possible games installed in our pc and in our lan network !
So what we can do except spending more money than console gamers for bigger ssd every year or creating new memes for our "big fat" games and their updates like this one below ? Joking ofc no hard feelings here please.
The Solution.
The solution should always cost less than the problem. this should always be our principal as humans and what we can do to avoid spending money every time we want to play a game that takes a lot of space in our Gaming SSD ? we should use our New or Old Big Hard Disks as Gaming Alternative Locations. If you move your existent gaming folders you can free up space for the new one you want to install or update and replace them with a SYMBOLIC LINK in their old position.
After Win 7 we can create Symbolic Links for a folder that we have moved to another location and these Symbolic Links are not working the same way as the old shortcut links. they are acting like the folder is never moved from a location even the folder has moved to another disk.
So if you have 2 disks (one for windows and one for your games) you can install one or more Hard Disks to your PC and use them as the new locations for existent old games. if you have big old hard disk it's fine and this solution cost you nothing at all. But if you don't have like me the cost to buy a Hard Disk is 1/4 of the new SSD disks same size. i spent 75euro for a 3TB* Hard Disk, December 2020. so compared to a 2TB ssd is like i spent 50euro for 2TB of disk space instead of 200euro. definitely a much cheaper solution !
How To Create Symbolic Link.
Method 1. Manually
1. Open an elevated Command Prompt ( WinKey + Q => CMD => Right Click on Cmd App choose [Run As Administrator] ).
2. Accept to run the command prompt with administrator rights.
3. Type the command below into the elevated command prompt that says: [Administrator Command Prompt] as Title, and press the Enter key on keyboard.
mklink /D "Link" "Target"
Explanation:
a) mklink /H is the command that creates Directory Symbolic Links and not the Usual Soft Symbolic Links we can create with right click on any windows object => Create Shortcut.
b) "Link" is the folder Path where we want this Directory Symbolic Link created. when we are speaking for Games is the full path of the game's installation folder and this is why we always using "" because there is possibility spaces or special characters break our command.
c) "Target" is the new folder path of our game. it is the place we moved our game.
Method 2. GameLink App
If you confused how to use embedded on Windows MKLINK command prompt command, or like have an easier solution to create Symbolic Links, i created a Front-end GUI app for windows that executes this windows terminal executable for you and you can download and use it for free of course by pressing the Download Page Button below.
* i will explain in a future post why i bought a 3TB and not a 2TB hard disk. there is a reason. there is always a reason 😃
