Steam Takes Forever to Reserve Space! [Help]

[Behroon]

Hello y'all I tried searching for solution but I can not find one for my situation. So I have 3 drives and all of games on them. One is a Gen 4 NVMe SSD (500GB), the second is a 1TB Samsung 860 EVO SSD, and the third is a 2TB Firecuda SSHD. I have no issues with both SSDs however when I try to download games through Steam with my SSHD it takes as long as it does to download an 80GB game. I do it overnight so I don't have to bare it. As far as I can tell it doesn't happen 100% of the time but pretty frequently. Another side note is I did have a problem with the drive before. The SATA data cable doesn't click, talked to Seagate support and they wanted me to RMA the drive and I was going to because it didn't seem to work but I got it to work eventually and decided to not RMA the drive as it was a big hassle. Also my download speed is around 40-50 mbps if it's performing as it should. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Reserving space writes the full data to the disk normally, as empty failes.

 

Check task manager, your are probalby limited by the speed of the hdd in this case.

[Behroon]

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Reserving space writes the full data to the disk normally, as empty failes.

 

Check task manager, your are probalby limited by the speed of the hdd in this case.

I've had HDDs in the past and they haven't done this. However, they were 7200RPM and not 5400RPM. It's weird though because the amazon page states that the drive should be the fastest out of the Baracuda and Baracuda Pro. It's active time is at 99% and it's 125mb/s out of 250mb/s as of checking it right now.

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, Behroon said:

I've had HDDs in the past and they haven't done this. However, they were 7200RPM and not 5400RPM. It's weird though because the amazon page states that the drive should be the fastest out of the Baracuda and Baracuda Pro. It's active time is at 99% and it's 125mb/s out of 250mb/s as of checking it right now.

I think some of those are smr, so they will be much slower in some writing workloads.

 

But this is pretty normal, and my hdd for games does the same thing.

[Behroon]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

I think some of those are smr, so they will be much slower in some writing workloads.

 

But this is pretty normal, and my hdd for games does the same thing.

huh, thought the drive was just acting weird. Might have to just get all SSD storage. thanks for the reply!

Edited July 15, 2020 by Behroon

[Behroon]

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

I think some of those are smr, so they will be much slower in some writing workloads.

 

But this is pretty normal, and my hdd for games does the same thing.

I just wanna confirm that this is normal to you?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Behroon said:

I just wanna confirm that this is normal to you?

The speeds should be much higher,

 

That appears to be a smr hdd, and those can be 10x slower in some workloads, and this appears to be one of those workloads.

[Behroon]

6 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

The speeds should be much higher,

 

That appears to be a smr hdd, and those can be 10x slower in some workloads, and this appears to be one of those workloads.

Ah shucks so basically I just got a drive bad for my use case?

this is what it is doing now. The bar is half full and it says 8 mins remaining but I downloading everything

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Behroon said:

Ah shucks so basically I just got a drive bad for my use case?

well only writes, so once you download the game, it will run it just as fast as a normal drive would.

[Behroon]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

well only writes, so once you download the game, it will run it just as fast as a normal drive would.

oh rip I updated the post you replied to. Also if you don't mind, what is the point of an SSHD then if it will run the game just as fast as a regular HDD?

[Lord Vile]

Just now, Behroon said:

Ah shucks so basically I just got a drive bad for my use case?

this is what it is doing now. The bar is half full and it says 8 mins remaining but I downloading everything

They're not advertised nearly as clearly as they should be (SMR drives) wouldn't say it's your fault. 

 

It'll be checking stuf

[Behroon]

Just now, Lord Vile said:

They're not advertised nearly as clearly as they should be (SMR drives) wouldn't say it's your fault. 

 

It'll be checking stuf

I suppose do, I didn't even know there was different types of drives. I had to search up what SMR drives mean/are LOL

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Behroon said:

oh rip I updated the post you replied to. Also if you don't mind, what is the point of an SSHD then if it will run the game just as fast as a regular HDD?

OOPS kinda forgot about the sshd.

 

Should load games a bit faster than a normal hdd, but not as fast as a ssd. Probably designed more for os drive use than games, as there is no way that whole game is being cached on teh nand

[Lord Vile]

Just now, Behroon said:

I suppose do, I didn't even know there was different types of drives. I had to search up what SMR drives mean/are LOL

Think the only difference between SMR and normal drives is the model number sometimes and that's normally just a number tacked onto the end. 

[Behroon]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

OOPS kinda forgot about the sshd.

 

Should load games a bit faster than a normal hdd, but not as fast as a ssd. Probably designed more for os drive use than games, as there is no way that whole game is being cached on teh nand

ahhh I see, thanks for the info! I do appreciate it

[Behroon]

Just now, Lord Vile said:

Think the only difference between SMR and normal drives is the model number sometimes and that's normally just a number tacked onto the end. 

like listing wise I assume? Kinda sucks how it was advertised on the Amazon page. 

[TheZorch]

Some games are starting to require SSDs because of how they load assets. Asset streaming is being used by a few games now including Star Citizen, Dual Universe, and the upcoming New World. The new consoles will take advantage of this too. In Star Citizen they use Object Container Streaming which reduced the game client's rendering load and completely eliminates the need for loading screens. This means when you ride an elevator or a train from one place to another it isn't a disguised loading screen like the subway in Spider-Man for the PS4. That train and/or elevator moves through the game world in real-time. So, when you're flying over New Babbage and you see the hyperloop train shooting along the track from the star port to the city that isn't just a pre-baked animation. That train is actually there and if you zoom in you can see players on it walking around. This is the kind of things asset streaming will make possible and a lot more games are going to start adopting tech like this.

[Behroon]

1 hour ago, TheZorch said:

Some games are starting to require SSDs because of how they load assets. Asset streaming is being used by a few games now including Star Citizen, Dual Universe, and the upcoming New World. The new consoles will take advantage of this too. In Star Citizen they use Object Container Streaming which reduced the game client's rendering load and completely eliminates the need for loading screens. This means when you ride an elevator or a train from one place to another it isn't a disguised loading screen like the subway in Spider-Man for the PS4. That train and/or elevator moves through the game world in real-time. So, when you're flying over New Babbage and you see the hyperloop train shooting along the track from the star port to the city that isn't just a pre-baked animation. That train is actually there and if you zoom in you can see players on it walking around. This is the kind of things asset streaming will make possible and a lot more games are going to start adopting tech like this.

I see but I don't realize how this has an impact on starting a download on Steam? Also I believe a few games on current gen use this and current gen ships with a 7200RPM HDD with base consoles I believe, so does it have to be an SSD?