abacab Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 I discovered that the Waves folder on my PC was taking up almost 10GB of space on my system drive. Seems that they accumulate a lot of stuff here. Strangely enough, I found it at "C:\Program Files (x86)\Waves". So I moved the entire folder to my secondary drive, and replaced it with a directory junction at the original location, using an elevated (admin) command prompt: "mklink /J "C:\Program Files (x86)\Waves" D:\Waves". Waves plugins are running normally, and I clawed back 10GB of free space! 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Stanton Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 i use the WinDirStat app periodically to find folders that are "heavy" - Waves, and a number of products including Slate, any number of virtual instruments etc often install some large libraries and supporting files into the ProgramFiles and Documents folders as well as Program Files folders. i think at this point i have about 30 links to move this stuff off my C:/ drive on onto my contents drive. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted January 20, 2021 Author Share Posted January 20, 2021 14 minutes ago, Glenn Stanton said: i use the WinDirStat app periodically to find folders that are "heavy" - Waves, and a number of products including Slate, any number of virtual instruments etc often install some large libraries and supporting files into the ProgramFiles and Documents folders as well as Program Files folders. i think at this point i have about 30 links to move this stuff off my C:/ drive on onto my contents drive. I used to use WinDirStat, and that gets the job done. But I've switched to TreeSize Free, which does basically the same thing, but scans a lot faster. https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free I was surprised that I never noticed this big chunk hiding in the 32-bit "C:\Program Files (x86)" path before. Must have assumed that all of my recent additions to Program Files would be in the 64-bit path. Oh well, lesson learned. Just thought I would share. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Stanton Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 yeah, for some reason i find a bunch of stuff hiding in the (x86) including 32-bit apps when i'm pretty specific about 64-bit versions only... thanks for the link to the treesize, i'll give it a try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bitflipper Posted January 22, 2021 Share Posted January 22, 2021 I'm curious...what kinds of file extensions do you see in there? I have only a handful of Waves products, but there is only 71 MB in my \program files (x86)\waves folder. That includes old install bundles going back to 2015 (IIRC, the year Waves first offered a non-iLok option, and consequently the year I bought my first Waves product). The plugins themselves are typically half a megabyte in size, and though I don't follow Waves anymore I'm pretty sure their catalog hasn't expanded to 20,000 plugins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted January 22, 2021 Author Share Posted January 22, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, bitflipper said: I'm curious...what kinds of file extensions do you see in there? Basically all of the resources that make the Waves plugins tick, for every Waves version I have ever had installed. Except for the Waveshell VST and VST3 files, which are where you would expect them to be, in their respective plugin paths. Edited January 22, 2021 by abacab Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Stanton Posted January 22, 2021 Share Posted January 22, 2021 (edited) yeah, my Waves folder is about the @ 9.6GB (after clearing cache and using on v11/v12 plugins), Slate @ 7.7GB, CbB @ 3.5GB (Dim Pro, etc), Kontakt libraries @ 15GB total - but they're all on the D drive where i have content and project files. within the Waves folder are all kinds of file types which are the working bits and only the shell DLL are in the VST and VST3 directories. Edited January 22, 2021 by Glenn Stanton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted January 22, 2021 Author Share Posted January 22, 2021 2 minutes ago, Glenn Stanton said: yeah, my Waves folder is about the @ 9.6GB (after clearing cache and using on v11/v12 plugins), Slate @ 7.7GB, CbB @ 3.5GB (Dim Pro, etc), Kontakt libraries @ 15GB total - but they're all on the D drive where i have content and project files. Good point. Definitely also clear your Waves Central cache. I always seem to end up with a few GB left in there after I install plugin updates. I am only showing 3MB in there now, but I recently cleared a bunch out of there as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Stanton Posted January 22, 2021 Share Posted January 22, 2021 the cache will be replenished when you install plugins but it can be greatly reduced by clearing old stuff first ? i think mine is 980MB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted January 22, 2021 Author Share Posted January 22, 2021 Band in a Box can be another offender, although you have more choioces. Even though you tell the installer to install the RealTracks and RealDrums content elsewhere, if you take the default for the main BB folder, it goes onto (C:). I assumed that would only be the program and resources folders, but it was about another 20GB on my system with the UltraPak version. At least the installer lets you choose a different folder for that at install time. So I uninstalled it and reinstalled the entire thing on my (D:) drive. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bitflipper Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 Ah, yes, that makes sense. IR files can take up a lot of space. They are, after all, wave files. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno de Souza Lino Posted January 24, 2021 Share Posted January 24, 2021 The bulk of those files seems to be, as usual, AAX plugins. Somehow they always get installed, even if you untick their box in the installers. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starship Krupa Posted January 24, 2021 Share Posted January 24, 2021 Also, I notice that @abacab seems to have a couple of Gigs in "unused plug-ins" folders. That seems....wasteful, if they're actually not being used? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted January 25, 2021 Author Share Posted January 25, 2021 5 hours ago, Starship Krupa said: Also, I notice that @abacab seems to have a couple of Gigs in "unused plug-ins" folders. That seems....wasteful, if they're actually not being used? And they will stay that way, as I do not want to bork up my Waves installs. I think that overall the Waves plugin architecture is a delicate train wreck in motion, and I don't care to upset the balance by deleting anything. Waves can kiss my a**, but I do intend to keep using the plugins that I have bought. Besides, I moved that Waves folder to a secondary drive that has hundreds of GBs of free space. This topic was about getting the sh*t off of the [C:] drive, so mission accomplished for me! 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno de Souza Lino Posted January 25, 2021 Share Posted January 25, 2021 18 hours ago, abacab said: And they will stay that way, as I do not want to bork up my Waves installs. Exactly. The Waves developers can break those without any help. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PittsburghSteelMan Posted July 7, 2021 Share Posted July 7, 2021 Have you tried changing the sample libraries data folder location in Waves Central setup? I moved the location to another drive on my Dell e6420 using an adapter that replaces the DVD drive with a hard drive. Moving them freed up a little over 46GB of space on the system drive. I've never had any serious problems with Waves, and they're a lot easier to manage than some other vendor's plugins. The important thing to remember is not to manually move around files without understanding the consequences. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted July 7, 2021 Author Share Posted July 7, 2021 50 minutes ago, PittsburghSteelMan said: Have you tried changing the sample libraries data folder location in Waves Central setup? I moved the location to another drive on my Dell e6420 using an adapter that replaces the DVD drive with a hard drive. Moving them freed up a little over 46GB of space on the system drive. I've never had any serious problems with Waves, and they're a lot easier to manage than some other vendor's plugins. The important thing to remember is not to manually move around files without understanding the consequences. If you re-read my OP, you will notice that I moved everything Waves to my "D:" drive with a directory junction. Using that method, the Waves system still thinks I'm using "C:". Less chances of breaking the delicate Waves plugin structure, IMHO. Although YMMV. I'm glad to hear that Waves Central fixed it in your case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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