Check your page file on the drive where Windows is installed

[Slides 1,552]

I have no direct proof that is is MSFS related but it seems more than a coincidence. 

Since I installed MSFS (MS Store version) on a different drive than my Windows installation, my storage space on the Windows drive has been going down pretty dramatically. 

I could not figure out why. Today I had only 200MB left on my Windows drive and from looing at Storage usage, it said my pagefile was using 54GB of drive space!

I have 32GB of RAM, so there is no reason for Windows to want to create such a huge pagefile. 

I had to change the pagefile settings from having Windows mange it to a custom more appropriate pagefile size. Never had this issue before with Windows managing the pagefile.

So, check your pagefile!

[cianpars 1,162]

My MSFS is now on a 1 TB m.2 drive but I've noticed that my main drive has been expanding a bit of late.  I may move the page file onto my m.2 drive which has loads of space.

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

1 hour ago, Slides said:

I have no direct proof that is is MSFS related but it seems more than a coincidence. 

Since I installed MSFS (MS Store version) on a different drive than my Windows installation, my storage space on the Windows drive has been going down pretty dramatically. 

I could not figure out why. Today I had only 200MB left on my Windows drive and from looing at Storage usage, it said my pagefile was using 54GB of drive space!

I have 32GB of RAM, so there is no reason for Windows to want to create such a huge pagefile. 

I had to change the pagefile settings from having Windows mange it to a custom more appropriate pagefile size. Never had this issue before with Windows managing the pagefile.

So, check your pagefile!

The biggest issue with old windows 10 installs is actually the way it collects every redundant Windows Update you ever downloaded. On many systems doing a disk-cleanup in settings, selecting the system option (then waiting an hour or so while it does its thing) and ticking the updates box for deletion does wonders.

Edited January 17, 2021 by Glenn Fitzpatrick

[Slides 1,552]

7 hours ago, cianpars said:

My MSFS is now on a 1 TB m.2 drive but I've noticed that my main drive has been expanding a bit of late.  I may move the page file onto my m.2 drive which has loads of space.

If you have enough RAM, you shouldn't need such a massive pagefile. 

[desbean 357]

mine is 4.75gb. In windows 10 you can take control of the page file: Control Panel-System and Security-System-Advanced System settings-Advanced Tab-Performance Settings-Advanced Tab, Change virtual memory settings, uncheck Automatically manage....

Also check to see how big your hiberfil.sys file is. If you don't use hibernate, there is a simple way to turn it off and delete that file. google it. Mine was 14gb.

Edited January 18, 2021 by desbean

[CJ1045 469]

I have the latest Win 10. I have MSFS on my Windows drive. My pagefile is automatically managed by Windows. I have had MSFS since it was released and use it pretty much daily. My pagefile is 2.4GB. I suspect the problems above are not down to MSFS.

CJ

[cianpars 1,162]

5 hours ago, desbean said:

mine is 4.75gb. In windows 10 you can take control of the page file: Control Panel-System and Security-System-Advanced System settings-Advanced Tab-Performance Settings-Advanced Tab, Change virtual memory settings, uncheck Automatically manage....

Also check to see how big your hiberfil.sys file is. If you don't use hibernate, there is a simple way to turn it off and delete that file. google it. Mine was 14gb.

Yeah, it's a pain that the hyberfil file has to reside on the boot drive.  I've stopped using it recently as I'm utilising my 3070 for crypto mining when I'm not simming.

[orchestra_nl 923]

18 minutes ago, cianpars said:

Yeah, it's a pain that the hyberfil file has to reside on the boot drive.  I've stopped using it recently as I'm utilising my 3070 for crypto mining when I'm not simming.

I can understand the logic behind this. It's the only drive that is more or less guaranteed to be available. A second drive could theorically be disconnected on the next boot, creating a possible dataloss when coming out of hibernation.
For desktops hibernation isn't as usefull as for laptops so disabling it shouldn't be an issue.

For the record, my pagefile is only ~ 6GB for 32 Gb ram.