My MSFS Install is almost 250Gb!

I just noticed that my install of MSFS is almost 250Gb, and that is just with ‘normal’ world updates.
Is that usual?

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Well I’m up to 286Gb with all the world updates and just a couple of add-on aircraft currently installed. Looks like you’re keeping it pretty slim :rofl:

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Great. Thanks for that.

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You’re running lean.

1.2TB with sim and addons currently.

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Base installation is about 185GB without most of the updates. There are users with Community folders running 1.5 - 2.5x the size of the full MSFS install with all DLC enabled. So they’re closer to 1.5 - 2TB.

I went into the content manager and uninstalled everything I don’t use, for example the bush trip, activities and lessons have extreme size!

Also aircraft, airports and WU I don’t fly. Around 180Gb now with many add-ons installed.

My FSX build was 300GB+

My MSFS build is going on 500GB+ (I blame all these cool freeware high quality photogrammetry addons😉)

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I thought about doing that, Does the sim seem to load any faster?

Not really, maybe, it depends… Loading time (start-up msfs) seems to depend alot on day, time and mood. However, you have space for many other stuff!

250GB is a good start.

This drive has nothing except MSFS and add-ons. (I am a bit of a collector.) It’d probably take a half-hour to load if I didn’t have MSFS Addons Linker. :slight_smile:

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I have resorted to using Windows 11 native file compression feature for all my add-on airports, AI models and scenery meshes. It saves much space and if the lightweight file compression is enabled on the folder or drive you to store files it doesn’t significantly degrade performance when loading.

I was pushing 800 GB until I deleted almost all the freeware scenery I had. I only have a few payware airports, as I’ve never felt the need to upgrade most scenery.

I own nearly every aircraft though, which takes a lot of storage. I don’t know what I’m currently up to, but I’d guess around 600 GB.

I use that excellent addons linker but I never enable/disable stuff (Id find it too much of a pain having to exit-restart to fly in another area I’d initially disabled in AOL) .

I have 300GB in the Community Folder and the game takes 4 minutes from start to get to the menu screen. I have the game on a Samsung Evo 750GB SSD.

Out of curiosity you can try leaving everything enabled and see how long it takes - you might be pleasantly surprised.

Contact support

I concur with this statement. I use MSFS Addons Linker for organization only. I keep 4 or 5 aircraft disabled because I’m told they cause conflicts, but otherwise everything stays active on my system. My load times were significantly improved with either the last, or one of the most recent updates.

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Yeah. My 500gb SSD is no longer cutting it. I had to remove some add-ons in order to survive. I am considering an external SSD for add-ons as a new laptop is not on the menu.

My suspicion is Microsoft has it’s Peta bytes of data littered all over it’s users PCs. We are part of the collective and we don’t even know it…yep I am tired and I need to go to bed. Good night and good flight.

Exactly the same reason as me. Very handy for organization and management :slight_smile:

I also noticed faster load times and in fact I timed mine to less than I said. Its about 210 sec to the menu screen.

That AOL is a fantastic little app, its likely the most downloaded. The author needs a flight sim award! He has saved us from Community folder management chaos.

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I also use it because so many third-party airfields cause conflicts with each other. (Killing airport services, etc.) Limiting the loaded add-ons to the regions I plan to fly in helps avoid that.

Oh I see , I understand now. AOL is so handy for that.

If only they had given MSFS the ability to rescan the Community folder from the main menu. Than users will not have to exit-restart the game to enable another region in the AOL.

X-Plane 11 can do this with airplanes which I found very handy for testing.

Ideally, Asobo would add an option to store a snapshot of whatever data structures and caches it is building from the content folders at startup and just reload that snapshot the next time unless time stamps have changed.