Having enough room on SSD

[humanecats]

I'm a newbie and really don't have any idea what I'm doing. My question is how do I keep enough room on my SSD (3T) so I can buy and install more games? I already have numerous games I know I want to keep and replay. Thank you

[TheFamousPoundy]

what do you mean?
if you ever run out of space, remove games (or other files) that you no longer play/use

[Iceira]

if your pc have spare room for for slot with big fat slave game disk, thats what most do today.

[Supafly]

As it fills you need to remove stuff to add more. You can't magically add more space without removing data already on it. So when you want to install a new game and you don't have enough space you'll either need to pick 1 or more things to remove or get another drive. Remove costs less and you're not losing the games as they are permanently tied to your Steam account.

[nullable]

If you need more space, you buy more space. Otherwise you uninstall programs or delete data you don't need to free up space when you need space.

Those are your choices. No real magic or trick there.

[steven1mac]

Remember that it is hard on a solid state drive to fill it 100%, and lessens if life expectancy. A good rule of thumb is to keep around 20% of the SSD space free.

[nullable]

Originally posted by steven1mac:

Remember that it is hard on a solid state drive to fill it 100%, and lessens if life expectancy.

No it doesn't. You can't quantify how it's hard on the SSD or how much it lessens the life expectancy. It's nice and vague so you can claim there is "some impact" even if it's insignificant and unmeasurable.

For some reason people love old wives tales and magical thinking. A SSD is just storage, using it isn't going to hurt it. Filling up the SSD will lessen its performance a little bit, while it's at capacity. That's pretty much it. It won't hurt the drive, or the user. The user may not be thrilled at less than optimal performance, they always have the option to clear extra data off the drive though to restore its performance.

Originally posted by steven1mac:

A good rule of thumb is to keep around 20% of the SSD space free.

In general I'd agree with this, but not because of magical unsubstantiated FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt). At 80% capacity the drive will still operate at pretty close to full speed. At 99% capacity the drive may be slower, not impossibly slow, not painfully slow, not slower than an HDD, just slower than optimal.

It's not the worst thing in the world. Having a little headroom is a good idea. Trying to avoid "harming" your SSD is a silly game for laymen.

Of course there's also never been much of a use case or user desire to fill up their storage to 100%. I'd argue that's pretty edge case anyway, which further makes dire warnings about the scenario seem a little silly. Especially when the solution is, move some stuff off the drive and there's no real consequences.

[Supafly]

Originally posted by steven1mac:

Remember that it is hard on a solid state drive to fill it 100%, and lessens if life expectancy. A good rule of thumb is to keep around 20% of the SSD space free.

HHD = more space needed for defragging
SSD = empty space for better perofrmance.......but not a lot.

How much is recommended to be left free on HDD/SSD will depend on the drives. I've got various SSD and Nvme and most are set with 10% for over provisioning. That's the manufacturers set % for how much space the recommend to be keep free for best performance.

I have HDD in my NAS and I actually contacted the manufacturer to find out how much I should be leaving free on them and got told 0%. I can fill them up completely without any performance loss. Wouldn't go into detail why I didn't bother asking. I suspect the drives already have extra space that isn't on it's spec sheet specifically to prevent over filling.

Point is it depends on the drive and each manufacturer.

[Iceira]

im sure you did not ask the right way superfly, huge diffrence in filling something up and execute apps from it that need to expand temp files or update its game content,
im sure you try to help others here, and we cant stop you from write and advice the way you do.
but you will get alot of heat from such remark, or should get it.

this is the second time you get caught in what you dont know in disk performance and how things work, and this is not IT education places, get you fact straith from book or education.
just because something is said in post or wiki page dont make it right. and im sure that support places dont know all angle on the subject. and you was feed off with a standard reply with a support that dont know better.

again you might not like what i wrote, this has nothing to do past post this is simple this one with filled disk, sure its not a problem as long you dont execute apps from them. some of them do make temp files or other ways need more space and they can crash on such filled disk.

noone here will sit and explan 1000 of ways not to do. and thats the problem with steam and how wrong information is.
even if i said world is flat as a pancake and you will drop down from the edge, noone can remove such information.

point is you need to be a expert to know all the can do and do not do that.
i think you mixup with same ways we use to filled floppy disk up with zip archive and disk with apps that get execute from them.

keep in mind both is media and both use same old terms they are the same and user most know what he is doing.

and i bet you forget in a moment with steam billion of users , lets say 1% of them do as you told them and fill disk up, im sure you will get angry reply with all of them cant install anything and dont know whats wrong.

and it still end up with user own problem even no matter what you try to say or explan,
its every day you see use dont know game and how dlc is not explan and take up more free space or pacth in the end that not explan in how much space it now take.

im sure you can see a issue now with user dont know better and its still user own problem for not know better, so your words in fill disk up can be a issue depend on who read it.

and you will losse the debat, game devs cant update if patch and free room aient there.
i will not say you have shoot yourself in the foot here, but im sure other wont agree on full disk is a good idea at all.

[FooL Hack CSGOSKINS]

hmmmm

[Iceira]

I can tell you if ppl keep doing this, steam might add a buffer zone with 250 to 500gb or TB or more as workspace and warn ppl every time it goes down, if user cant figure this out, and learn how pc work, this will be forced down in our steam ways, because casual player dont know how things works on a pc. stop thinking other ways is not seen before in how to deal with lack of understand in IT

Other app and OS have done such in the past, so its nothing new.

[Supafly]

Originally posted by Iceira W10:

*Snipped

EDIT: deleted main content as

Actually, I give up. Do what you want. /Blocked and /unsubbed

[Iceira]

Nah snip yourself you are a troll and dont know basic hard information and lack education.
i bet you dont even have pc basic traning

[nullable]

Originally posted by Iceira W10:

Nah snip yourself you are a troll and dont know basic hard information and lack education.
i bet you dont even have pc basic traning

I think there's a difference between warning people not to fill a disk up because "it will harm the disk", and warning people not to fill a disk up because having space available provides some obvious utility.

Where the former is weapons grade bolognium and the latter is filed under "In other news water is wet."

You seem to be stuck on grinding some axe that has nothing to do with the discussion.

[Iceira]

nope he said he have talk with a supporter and he told him not a performance issue even that is wrong, its simple matter of detail, and its here you forget most steam user now think its okay to fill disk up. and it dont effect performance, because filled disk cause no issue, gl with that idea. here. as i said you need ot be a expert for know and do such , steam user here execute app to run so its already doomed in that debat we dont talk about dead data such as backup we talk about app launch and game devs need to update and so on.


this is not DAT tape or other media, this is game install and concequence of it, and free room is needed even defrag will work slowly on full disk, and why do i need to explan this. jesus man you need to be expert to know this.

and what about virtual mem even that dump on disk. nofree room and system can crash EoD