[How To] Cut Your WoW SSD Installation Down to 14GB~ (Updated for MoP!)

[Griezz]

There's a pretty big thumbnail that says "click me" showing exactly which files to use the links on. Perhaps you should go ahead and click it. :P

And, with all due respect, perhaps you should re-read what I said in my message. I saw the bit about those specific MPQ files; that wasn't in question. I was talking about all the *OTHER* files or directories that should be moved, such as log files.

---------- Post added 2012-09-28 at 06:50 PM ----------

Sadly placing the more often written files into HDD will negate most of the speed benefit gained from this kind of trickery. I wouldn't worry about it, your SSD will be long gone and replaced by a bigger drive by the time the write count is used up. So far in last three years I've gone from 60 to 120 to 250 GB of SSDs, four in total, and all of those still work perfectly. Including the notorious OCZ Agility2.

Well, the SSD I ended up going with is the OCZ Vertex 4 with a capacity of 256 GB. As I understand it, while the Vertex line is naturally better than the Agility line, the SSD I supposedly made better because the Sandforce controller was replaced by an Indilinx one. As for length of use, I guess there's no way to know for sure unless I use it. Also, the 256 GB drives are supposed to be better and faster than the 128 GB.

IF I understand it right, though, one directory that I should be able to leave on the HDD and have little effect on shortening load times would be the Interface folder. Am I right that the contents are loaded up only on initial startup or on a UI refresh?

[glo]

And, with all due respect, perhaps you should re-read what I said in my message. I saw the bit about those specific MPQ files; that wasn't in question. I was talking about all the *OTHER* files or directories that should be moved, such as log files.[COLOR="red"]

I don't understand what you're asking here. I'm pretty sure you have misread part of the guide. Basically:

1. Move the MPQ files listed in the screenshot to your SSD for linking.
2. Leave everything else on the mechanical as implied by the guide.
2. Profit.

If you want to move additional things over to the SSD, go for it. But it isn't going to change anything performance wise. If you're looking for an explanation of which each file and directory is and what they do, unfortunately I don't have the patience to write up all of that. It's a shit ton of information.

[vesseblah]

IF I understand it right, though, one directory that I should be able to leave on the HDD and have little effect on shortening load times would be the Interface folder. Am I right that the contents are loaded up only on initial startup or on a UI refresh?

Totally wrong on that. Interface folder takes the longest to load because it can easily have 5-10 thousand small files, and seek times & IOPS is what SSD does best. Back when I was still on mechanical disc (Samsung Spinpoint F3) the game with zero addons took about 20 seconds to load, with my 50 usual addons three times that. You can actually see with your own eyes which part is addons and which part is game data loading the game from HDD. When the blue bar stops at 90% WoW has stopped loading it's internal data and starts loading addons.

Also Interface folder has nearly zero writes, only when you update addons anything is saved there. What gets written a lot is auction data because it's saved for weeks/months if you run some addon for that. Recount saves it's data if you haven't reseted it before logging out.

[glo]

I think I already said this before, but addons don't load all at once, that's why I didn't suggest moving them all over. Upon login you're only loading what's currently being requested. As you use the different facets of an addon, they load themselves on demand, not all at once. Unless someone is rocking like 200 addons, leaving them on the mechanical should be fine.

And again, the whole read/write thing is more of a bonus I guess. The point of this guide is STILL for people will smaller SSDs that want to save some space.

[Hishiro]

I have an Intel 330 series 120GB SSD, 1TB WD Caviar Black HDD, with Windows 8 Pro 64bit installed on the SSD. I followed the instructions on the first post for using symbolic links for the selected WoW files. Now, when I log into WoW, it must not see that those files are linked to the SSD, because it begins to re-download the game files. What did I miss?

[Zhuki]

Is there benefit to treating BF3 in the same way?

[glo]

I have an Intel 330 series 120GB SSD, 1TB WD Caviar Black HDD, with Windows 8 Pro 64bit installed on the SSD. I followed the instructions on the first post for using symbolic links for the selected WoW files. Now, when I log into WoW, it must not see that those files are linked to the SSD, because it begins to re-download the game files. What did I miss?

Are you sure it's not just repatching after a fresh install? That happens quite often. I'll typically have to download the whole game, have it say that it's done, launch and then exit and relaunch for another couple gigs.

[abecker1313]

I just used this guide to free up 14GB.

Glo, thank you very much for your expertise.

[MBR]

Hey Glo, thanks for the guide. This helps me out a ton!

I am just curious, would this also work for Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2? I don't have either of these games installed at the moment as I just did a fresh OS install, so can't see how the game handles files.

If anyone has done this for either of those games and could let me know, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks again.

Edit:
So I tried this method using the Beta Launcher and WoW would not load. Not sure why, but I really hope they don't make it mandatory.

[Hombre Lobo]

Thanks very much, great guide. Now I can fit WoW on my SSD!

[Deleted]

Moving the WTF and interface folders to your SSD makes sense as well. The load times will improve, and the writes to WTF... Well that is just neligible.

[Erous]

When you're writing the WoW CombatLog to the HDD via these options, will it slow down the wow client?

[Deleted]

When you're writing the WoW CombatLog to the HDD via these options, will it slow down the wow client?

Not in any measurable way.

[lloose]

One of the best threads on the internet right now. Ive kept wow off of my laptop because it only has a 120gb ssd in it. Now I can toss it on without sacrificing all of my space. Thanks!

[Blazin Monkey]

That above statement by Vesseblah is completely on target. I wouldn't fret over your writes to your SSD. I know for a fact, I replace my computer parts entirely every 3 years MAXIMUM as a gamer. It's near impossible to stay on target with performance any other way... If I didn't play games, I'd probably go 3-5 years instead. But with cost only being every 3 years etc... It makes no sense to worry about the writes to a SSD. That's the cheapskates way of saying... I am too cheap to just purchase a new SSD. What are they? 100-150 now for a good one? That's cheap if you're a working man.

[glo]

That above statement by Vesseblah is completely on target. I wouldn't fret over your writes to your SSD. I know for a fact, I replace my computer parts entirely every 3 years MAXIMUM as a gamer. It's near impossible to stay on target with performance any other way... If I didn't play games, I'd probably go 3-5 years instead. But with cost only being every 3 years etc... It makes no sense to worry about the writes to a SSD. That's the cheapskates way of saying... I am too cheap to just purchase a new SSD. What are they? 100-150 now for a good one? That's cheap if you're a working man.

So, not to be that guy... But the thread was made over 1.5 years ago. Costs were not the same, write endurance wasn't the same (even though that's not the point of this thread) and small drives (60-128GB) were the norm. The idea was to save some space for other stuff on your SSD. Doing what I've detailed typically saves a rather large amount of space on your SSD once your sound cache and a few other things build up over time.

[Deleted]

I just used this guide to free up 14GB.

Glo, thank you very much for your expertise.

tencharacters.

[Flayshow]

I followed these steps and when I launched the game, it started to redownload the MPQ files and never used my links.

[MBR]

Can anyone confirm that method is working when using the battle.net beta app?

So far it has not been working for me, so just not sure if doing something wrong or it just won't work.

[elamalaka]

Still works as of patch 5.4.7. Thanks! However, your use of the word Navigate had me expecting that the application I just installed was going to prompt me. You should have just said Browse.