In 2021, I purchased what I thought was a state of the art Dell Alienware computer, specifically to allow playing Microsoft Flight Simulator without significant constraints. Among other things, my purchase included a one Terabyte SSD drive. I then proceeded to download the game and over many months a variety of addons (mostly aircraft, airports, other scenery and liveries). In the last week or two, I began receiving messages that various updates and downloads were encountering hard drive capacity limits – and indeed my hard drive (surprisingly) seemed to be up around the 900 Gigabyte level. A few days later, I found that I could not load the game at all. And worst of all, attendant to a Windows update two days ago, my computer crashed and could not be rebooted without a factory reset, which, because I could not access Windows, would prevent me from backing up my files and then would wipe them out.
Since then, I have been casting around for a way to solve the Windows problem without losing all my game-related (and other) data. It looks like I might have to trade up to a two Terabyte disk and then have a technician transfer the data from my old drive to the new one. In any event, the process looks like it will be very expensive as the new drive could cost up to $1500, plus whatever it costs to install it and transfer my data (which of course is essential if I want to avoid re-downloading the game and all of my adding).
I am frankly surprised that I cannot get by with a one Terabyte disk. And of course I am aggravated by all the expense and lost of access to the game. Has anyone else encountered this problem? Does my circumstance make sense?
Which PC or specifically mainboard do you have? If it is fairly new, you can just add another drive or preferably another SSD. We just need to know which mainboard you have, to check which free slots you have available.
A new 2TB SSD would cost you 150-200€, so nowhere near the estimate you mentioned
You also don’t need to replace the existing one, normally you can just add one.
I did the same actually, my PC had a 1TB SSD and I added another 2TB, on which I only have 800GB left, rest is all MSFS Addons…
Protip: Always keep your operating system on a separate drive. Dont replace your current drive. Have a second drive, preferably an NVME SSD, added and have your non-OS stuff transferred.
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Thanks for your reply. Also, dxtr, thanks for yours. Quite understand that it would be ideal to to just add a second drive. However, I am told by Dell that my computer does not support a second SSD drive. The tech people there did say that a traditional mechanical drive could be added, but I would rather not do that.
That said, I am gratified to hear that the cost for a replacement 2TB drive is not likely to be in the range quoted by Dell.
Thats because Dell jacks up their prices on everything, especially alienware (which used to be fairly reputable as far as pre-builts go).
Other than that, don’t bother with a data transfer. It would take the same amount of time to reinstall MSFS fresh on the new drive as it would to transfer the files. It sucks and everyone hates doing it, but i’ve found you get less issues if you uninstall and reinstall fresh vs copying the data. If it’s truly important, to the transfer yourself and save yourself some money paying someone else to do it.
I have the game + W11 installed on a 1TB Samsung 980 Pro NVME and i still have 300 some odd gigs left. But i’m also not trying to download all sorts of content off the internet nor i don’t have all the World updates. It takes me 10 minutes to get to the menu on a bad day.
My advice: Triage what you use frequently and delete the rest. How long has it been since you visited that one obscure airport in the Caribbean or when did you last use that retro livery on that freeware plane you used one time? Personally as a rule of thumb, i don’t get addons (paid or free) unless I intend to use them frequently or absolutely need them. I bought LHR from ini but i hardly fly there. No reason for me to have it installed and boom i just saved 5 gigs.
Quite sure that I could slim down those extras, especially the surplus aircraft liveries. However, I do use my extensive scenery addons – I hate the stock airports, so I have tended to add a lot of free and payware airports, and I do try to vary my flights so that I can enjoy the fruits of my expenditures.
OP - I just purchased a state of the art PC as well. Not only MSFS, but X-Plane 11-12-FSX and maybe COF. So I got 2TB ssd primary drive.
You may be experiencing some SSD failures as well. They do have issues and especially if at or near 80% capacity. Move all or most of the CF folder to another place and only load up the things you are going to use on the flight you are working on/in now.
Try to have at least 30% free space. I defrag (MS Says you don’t need as well as some PC experts, don’t care do it anyway) my drives weekly, perfect disc 14, or the newest version for W11. I have way less than 50% use on Primary C drive. You can “scan the drive” and see if it’s showing issues. Several very good YouTube Videos on SSD and limitations.
You can indeed add more drives to any recent Alienware desktop. There are several options potentially available: If you have an R13 or later, there is a second NVME spot on the mother board, plus several SATA connectors that you can use for traditional HDD’s or SATA SSD’s.
On my R9 I had a 500MB NVME C drive, a second 2TB NVME drive mounted on a small board that plugged into a free PCIE slot and 2 500MB SATA SSD’s operating in Raid 0.
On my R13, I have the original 1TB C Drive, a second 2TB NVME drive on a second spot on the motherboard and the 2 SATA 500GB disks in spots where a normal HDD could be.
So, you have lots of options…assuming you Alienware is a desktop…if it’s a laptop, then the options will be different and likely more restricted.
Good defrag software, does something called “SSD Optimize”, not defrag perse’. My second laptop has had it done for 3 years, with no issues. I keep that drive no more full than 70% or so. My current desktop gets done every couple weeks. It works fine. It does not “defrag” in the common usage.
I know MS has built in optimize programs in it, you can use those if prefer. It’s scan disk is very good, but most of my portable drives are WD, and as such, they have a utility which is better if I want to truly try to fix a disc badly corrupted. If the disc is failing, it will tell you, then I format it as many times as I can before it quits so it can be disposed of and recycled.
What I do not fully understand is, that SSDs can degrade over time, guess I will have to look up and see exactly what that process is and how to mitigate it if possible. WD as well as Samsung has notice out, some of their SSDs need a firmware update, and JayTwoCents mentioned it on one of his videos several months ago as well on his YouTube Channel. My next drive purchase is to replace my 4TB Metal WD drive with a SSD External 4TB running USB 3.2 so it’s transfers speeds are higher. I will use that in travel as needed. Hope the price comes down.
Having started this thread, it seems only fair to complete it. I hired a local Seattle IT guy to take a look at my Alienware computer. He concluded that because my capacity issues had pushed Windows 11 into a repeating loop, there wasn’t any way to simply add an additional SSD to overcome the problem. Rather, he needed to image my old one Terabyte drive to retrieve my data first and then copy the data onto a new drive. To avoid running into the issue again, I opted to buy a 4 Terabyte drive instead of reusing the old one and adding a second. The economics were not all that different. I also used the occasion to add some RAM. Hopefully, when the tech is done, all will come back without substantial change. I guess the moral of the story is to recognize that the game (which nominally only uses 150 GB of capacity) is actually quite a hog if the owner is into adding scenery, etc. And of course, one should recognize, as I did not, that ignoring those capacity warnings comes with an expensive degree of peril.
