I did a little digging around and a few results says that the game is downloaded, regardless whether you're Steam or not to

"C:\Users\<username>\Documents\My Games\FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn"

I looked there and there is a downloads folder, with a ffxivupdater64.exe file from 5/7/2024.

I'm having a hard time keeping 50gb free on c:\, windows keeps eating it up and then every once in a while releasing it, almost randomly I'll turn on the computer and wow! I have 25gb more free than yesterday.

Anyway I was hoping someone knew for sure, because I moved My Games over to an SSD with 300gb free via a symlink, and tested the game and everything was fine.

I almost wish I could test patching.