I recently installed the 40th Anniversary update on my PC on one of my SSD HDD’s. Before I did so, I had 80+ GB free. After installing this update, it dropped to 40+ GB free according to File Explorer and the color of the drive when viewed on the “This PC” tab went from being Blue to Red. I checked the drive at the Command Prompt it too reported that I had 43+ GB free. This drive is where MSFS 2020 is installed, all of the Catalog files and the Cache file. Normally, Windows 10 only flags a drive as Red when you are down to less than a few GB left. Does this have something to do with latest Anniversary Update? Is there now a problem with the MSFS 2020 Cache file perhaps? Do I need to be concerned about this? Thanks in advance for any and all help provided.
Roger
My System Specs.
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-9700K Processor (8x 3.60GHz/12MB L3 Cache)
Memory: 32 GB [8 GB x4] DDR4-3200 Memory Module - Corsair Vengeance-LPX
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER ASUS DUAL EVO
Motherboard: ASUS ROG STRIX Z390-H GAMING – RGB, Gb LAN, USB 3.1 (6 Rear, 4 Front)
Power Supply: 750 Watt - Gigabyte G750H - 80 PLUS Gold, Full Modular
Low disk space isn’t a problem (being shown as red), especially for an SSD. As you can maybe tell, “low” is based on a percentage of the total drive size so in this case 40GB or so it not particularly small.
I would expect that subsequent patches will be back to their normal size so I wouldn’t be worried about that 40GB disappearing any time soon. There was a lot of content in this release.
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The Red in windows is based on Percent of drive space left, not Gbs free…so that is normal…and yes the update is big…41gbs.
If…you’d like to free up 60gb instantly from your drive follow this guide.
2 things…
I’ve done this and not had any issues because of it.
Apparently these files are supposedly used in the case that you play the sim in Offline mode, or get forced into offline if the servers are down.
As i said i did this process to free the 60gb…and on the 11th I like everyone else recieved a handful of Offline messages…they only lasted at max 5-7 min then the window went away…the point is, at no time did my textures turn to blur or dissapear etc…everything stayed looking fine…so again I’m not convinced in the need for those files, also because 60gb to map the globe…no thanks…whatever it takes to run the sim using those files is something I’d never do.
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Thanks so much for your reply, I appreciate it.
Thanks so much for the reply and guide link, I appreciate it.
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ähmm, a note: low amount of free disc space is in special for SSDs a problem. Therefore exist mechanism like “over provisioning” etc.
@FriendOfJah … more content in an update also mean more used disc-space. So may be you should think about a bigger ssd. A cleanup can may be also help, e.g. uninstall content in content manager you not need. May also reduce rolling-cache-size to “normal size” if you have increased that, etc. ( but the normal default place for rolling-cache is the %AppData%\Micro… folder, so not the second SSD ).
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I would add to this. Instead of plain deleting them, just move them to a drive where you have more space (even external USB or a slower mechanical HDD on your system) and make a symbolic link to the folder in the original location fs-base-cgl. That way if it does ever need them, it seamlessly thinks they are still there.
If it’s not there after a sim update it throws a wobbly so you do still have to have them. I found this out after the SU11 update lol
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I haven’t had any issues updating to su10 and su11 with these files deleted.
But yes, if concerned copy them to another drive for safekeeping and if your experience points to you needing/using them, symlink them or put them back.
But again I’ve had no issues since deleting them (updating or in sim)
If you’d like, check the files “Last Accessed” date…
They’re not used imo
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Thanks so much for your reply. I just wanted to make mention because I purchased MSFS 2020 on Steam the folder structure is as follows: E:\MSFS_2020_Cache\Official\Steam\fs-base-cgl\CGL. I’m copying all of these numerical folders to a spinner drive, then I’ll delete them from the SSD and reboot. I’ll let you know if I run into any problems. Thanks again.
Thanks for the Path…will help people no doubt.
(I’m steam too btw)
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Unfortunately, the path only applies to your installation because it was not installed on the system disk.
With steam installation without changes (on the system disk), the files are in the AppData\Roaming folder.
Path:
C:\Users\ [your PC name] \AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator\Packages\Official\Steam\fs-base-cgl\CGL
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True, i didn’t even catch that.
Thank you