Originally Posted by
bungiefan
The HDD is not full. FFXI uses only about 10 GB of the ~38 GB available. The PS2 HDD requires that each program be installed to its own partition, and the largest known partition created by any game is FFXI's 8 GB partition. That partition is getting full, but isn't there yet, it's at about 5 GB at last count. The lack of space error was due to old patch files being retained, and that the install process used to copy files instead of moving them to the new location after download, so you needed twice the free space as the patch you were trying to download and install.
The space issue could be fixed, if the upper size limit of a partition in the PS2 HDD file system is 8 GB, by spreading the expansions across several 8 GB partitions. Programs can access data on other partitions, as shown by being able to save game files to the HDD save partition in some games (like Japanese Xenosaga Episode 1), and PlayOnline Viewer messages being saved to the POL user folder while running FFXI, as well as FFXI screenshots being saved to a POL file folder in the PlayOnline Viewer partition. Making the game use multiple partitions would allow it to use more of the hard drive space. The one limiting factor there could be that new partitions may have to be created from an install disc, which old model PS2s likely can no longer read, and the cost of making and shipping out the discs would be high.