I have a fairly large nvme I’ve dedicated to msfs, but even so, every update adds many gigabytes and even more gigs If you want to actually install the new content in the marketplace. I have several other SSDs/HDDs connected to my computer that are readily available for additional content but I don’t think it’s currently possible to split msfs into different drives. They should add this if it’s not because at the rate they’re going the games gonna be many hundreds of gigs by the time they stop updating
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Time to start culling and curating. Do you use the the Tutorials or need them anymore? Are you using the default liveries? Do you only fly certain stock aircraft?
I bought another SSD to offload everything else to it, and only MSFS (1.6 GB core install + Official Packages), Rolling Cache, Community Folder live on the very fast but relatively small NVME drive for max performance.
Ya obv you can do that
I want split installs, clearly something that would be very useful
They’re adding like 10 gigs every couple months, they say it’s a 10 year project + mods.
You can use symbolic links to move stuff to another drive
https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/complete-guide-to-symbolic-links-symlinks-on-windows-or-linux/
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How do you do this, remove tutorials etc?
I presume you’d uninstall them in the content manager, but won’t that make it try to download all of it again with each update?
symbolic links is all you ever need.
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I didn’t try it, but I guess this doesn’t work with the contents of the Official folder which also contains your Marketplace purchases, or does it?
One more reason on the big pile to buy externally and manage the Community folder using AddonsLinker which is SUCH a great tool.
The sim itself isn’t actually getting much bigger with updates. The main size difference is caused by the optional World Update packages from the Marketplace containing handcrafted airports etc.
it works everywhere for every folder.
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Theoretically yes, but I am not sure what happens if MSFS has an update for a specific package in the Official folder, my assumption is it will delete the symlink and place a new full folder there and you have to manually maintain (move and link) it again.
This doesn’t happen in the Community folder except if an installer updates your addon strictly to the Community folder (like the JustFlight Pipers) which causes exactly the same behavior.
This is a very good point, I have an 1TB M2 solely dedicated to the community and OneStore folder and I found myself now browsing for an expensive 4TB M2 to migrate the folders, as everybody else, I have plenty of Mods, liveries pack, world updates and the likes which are space hungry. The only thing that I moved today outside the M2 is the rolling cache which allows me to free up some space. Sooner or later this in app feature will come to us.
Happy flying!
Yes, use Content Manager.
The installer detects what you have and only pushes down those updated based on what’s installed (if there is an update). If it’s an Option that the user controls, it will not push down something you don’t already have. Stock Liveries, Training, Landing Challenges are 150+ items alone.
Thanks a lot
Just went thru and deleted Training and Landing Challenges (almost 6000 files total) and resulted in a gain of 2GB. Not much, but not bad either…
The installer is not going to delete fs-base folders. If you make a symlink for fs-base-cgl you have already moved 59 GB to another drive. fs-base is the next biggest at 15 GB. Leave all the smaller ones where they are.
The only other ones big enough to be worth moving individually are
microsoft-france-benelux-point-of-interest 7.1 GB
microsoft-uk-point-of-interest 5.3 GB
microsoft-nordic-point-of-interest 4.0 GB
microsoft-usa-point-of-interest 3.5 GB
I find it more convient to use powershell to make symbolic links (just type powershell in the windoes search box) since it remembers all you did in there (press up to remind yourself what you did 
)
For example I moved Elite Dangerous out of the way without re-installing
cmd /C mklink /J “C:\Users\Sven\AppData\Local\Frontier_Developments” “D:\Users\Sven\AppData\Local\Frontier_Developments”
First copy the files yourself (and delete at the source) since you can’t access the source directory anymore after creating the link.
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You have other big things on the SSD you run MSFS on ? I haven’t tested the below, @TenPatrol came up with a tip recently, when I look in my installed directory root (two levels above Community), I see a UserCfg.opt file.
When I open that file, the last line refers to the \Packages subdirectory. Maybe you could change the setting and move the whole \Packages branch to another place ? Official and Community.. here the line sais
InstalledPackagesPath "C:\Users\user1\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Packages"
In combination, you could use the link method Sven suggested, you may be able to point certain things back to your other SSD ? and balance things out better ?
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Just by removing stock planes I don’t fly, bespoke airports in regions I don’t frequent, Landing Challenges, Training Lessons, Liveries, Bush Trips - nearly 30GB back. That’s a lot of space.
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I have on my computer dedicated to FS2020 two HD: one 500 GB SSD and the other is a regular 1TB HD
Like may other simmers, my addons liveries, planes or sceneries downloads were clogging my SSD which had only less than 80 GB left… So I moved my Packages (the one
in the Local Cache folder, which is only including Community and Official) to my 1TB drive which was almost empty… When done, do not forget to look at the last line of the UserCfg in the Local Cache folder and change the name of the drive where you moved the Packages. Depending on the size of your Community folder, you will have now regained a good amount of space in your SSD, especially if you empty your recycle bin and your download folder. Moving the entire Packages folder from my C: drive to my E: drive did not change anything in terms of loading time for FS2020 (always around 2 minutes) or fps, or smoothness … I found this info on this forum and I am glad I have more room for downloading addons
With regard to the Community Folder - just download addon linker, move the files in Community to anywhere suitable and link them with Addon Linker.
Other advantages include:
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at update time you can create a profile of your current addons and then disable them all while updating and then put them back
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you can sort your addons by region, aircraft type etc and just enable or disable the ones you will be using for your next session reducing load times substantially
When that day comes. This gets bought.
SAMSUNG 980 PRO 2TB PCIe NVMe Gen4 Internal Gaming SSD M.2
But right now I’m running WIndows 10 and MSFS on a 512 GB PCIe 306 NVMe. With 220 GB free. Other games are running on some older SATA3 SSD’s or a HDD.
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