PC gamers are running out of SSD storage space fast, according to latest data

An ever-growing game collection is a problem for your storage, but it might be bigger than we all realised. The June 2025 Steam hardware survey has some interesting nuggets of data that point to gamers not having much space on their drives, leaving some tough decisions to be made - which games to keep, and which ones to trash?

Jokes aside, it's no wonder that Steam gamers are seeing their free storage capacity come under strain, with the biggest budget games just taking up more and more disk space (we're looking at you, Call of Duty). It's not as if we're short of good storage options, as our best gaming SSD guide shows, but this hardware survey suggests that gamers aren't necessarily filling up their PCs with extra SSDs to cope with the demand.

In this new June 2025 Steam hardware survey, Valve confirms that 15.66% of the gamers who responded have only 10GB to 99GB of free storage available, with a further 23.05% having between 100GB and 249GB available.

Of those with a more measured approach to their storage habits, 22.43% of Steam gamers have between 250GB and 499GB of storage available, while 11.43% are keeping 500GB to 749GB spare. There's also a cool 0.89% who are flying much closer to the sun with less than 10GB of free storage available, leaving some tough decisions about which files to keep in their near future.

If you're in this situation, you can always remove a game or two to free up some room, but it might be time to consider an upgrade to your storage. An SSD upgrade, even an M.2 SSD, is one of the easiest for newbies to perform, and our how to install an M.2 SSD guide provides a clear run-through of what to do if you've never given it a go yourself.

These Steam surveys are always an interesting slice of gamers' habits. For instance, the September 2024 Steam hardware survey revealed that Windows 11 only became the most popular operating system for gamers that month, despite being three years old by that point.

With modern games growing larger and larger in size, the demand for even bigger, faster storage will only continue to grow. If you're facing such a shortfall yourself, you might want to check out our WD Black SN8100 review. It's the fastest PCIe 5.0 SSD for gaming right now, and with a 4TB model available right now and an 8TB model coming soon, you'll be able to ready your PC for plenty of games in the future.

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