Why does the SolidWorks 98 library take up 70MB on my hard-disk. Isn this going to inflate the size of my assemblies?
The library is only 70MB in the SolidWorks 98 version. When installed under SolidWorks 99, the library takes up less than 25MB. This is due to more efficient data-handling within later versions of SolidWorks. The overall size of the library is larger, in order to keep the individual part files smaller. For example, in a typical assembly are cap screws in sizes M4, M6, M8 and M12, but not M36 etc. Each one of those files is modelled with the correct head dimensions, the configurations representing different shank/thread lengths. By representing different diameters in separate files, better overview is maintained. While this makes it harder to program, it makes it easier to use – 1000 configurations in one part are easy to program, but much more difficult to use. Unless you use all 1000 sizes simultaneously, who wants to carry that kind of overhead in their files? The installation size for the 99 and 2000 libraries is only about 12MB. Due to advances in purging files of redundant surface
