I stopped letting Windows Update hoard 20% of my SSD, and gained back real performance

Published Sep 17, 2026, 6:00 AM EDT Hamlin has been in the tech field for over nine years. Since 2017, his work has appeared on MakeUseOf, Android Police, OSXDaily, Beebom, and more. He served as the Senior Editor at Valnet's MakeUseOf for over two years before joining XDA. He uses a high-end gaming rig for desktop use and a MacBook for traveling, but dislikes some of the quirks of macOS. You're more likely to catch him at the gym or on a flight than anywhere else. When I built my current PC in 2020, I reused the 250GB Samsung 860 EVO SSD from my old PC as my Windows boot drive. At the time, it made perfect sense because it was still fairly new. Windows didn't need anywhere near 250GB on its own, and I had a much faster 2TB Gen 4 NVMe for games anyway. I figured I could leave Windows on the SATA SSD and forget about it. But Windows itself is only part of the problem. You also have update files, apps, downloads, and sometimes an entire previous Windows installation competing for that space. When I finally went looking for what was using mine, I noticed Windows Update taking up close to 20% of my drive. Now, that may not even matter if you have a 1TB or 2TB drive, but considering mine's only 250GB, that absolutely makes a difference. Windows makes this straightforward to an extent And I didn't even have to touch anything remotely important The good news is that I didn't have to go through obscure folders to reclaim some of that space. I just went to Settings -> System -> Storage, like most of you probably would when you're low on storage. I clicked on Temporary files to get a better idea of what was actually taking up space, and I found Windows Update Cleanup, Delivery Optimization files, and a previous Windows installation, along with the usual suspects like Downloads and temporary internet files. One thing to note is that a previous Windows installation typically shows up for only 10 days after upgrading to a new version of Windows. Selecting those categories (except Downloads) and clicking Remove files took care of a decent chunk of what had accumulated over the years, but I didn't want to end up in the same situation again. Now, this is where Storage Sense comes in, which is something I had already enabled. Except that, by default, it was set to run only when I was low on space, which sort of defeats the purpose. So I went in there and set Run Storage Sense to Every month instead. You could argue I was able to reclaim more space than usual because I just happened to upgrade Windows recently, but that still wasn't everything I could get rid of. The DISM command got me even more space back WinSxS was still holding onto superseded components If you don't know, WinSxS is a folder that Windows relies on for things like servicing, optional features, and updates, so this definitely isn't something you want to start deleting files from manually. Still, that doesn't mean everything inside it needs to stay there forever. Windows can hold onto superseded versions of components even after newer ones replace them, and those are exactly the kinds of files DISM can clean up. Just type the following command into CMD as an administrator to see how much space the component store is taking up: DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore In my case, it was taking up 26.84GB, but that doesn't mean I had another 26.84GB waiting to be deleted. However, Windows recommended cleaning it up, which is why I ran the following command: DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup This removes those superseded components without me having to do the guesswork and accidentally deleting anything important. Unfortunately, this command doesn't show exactly how much space it frees up once it's done, but from what I could tell, it was close to 5GB. There's also another DISM command (DISM /Online /Set-ReservedStorageState /State:Disabled) you can use to disable Reserved Storage, which sets aside space for Windows updates, temporary files, and system caches. But I wouldn't use it if you think your drive could run low on space. I keep a close eye on mine anyway, so I'd rather have those extra few gigabytes at my disposal. Freeing up space won't automatically make your SSD faster But a nearly full boot drive can absolutely become a problem Now, I don't want you to think this is a guaranteed performance boost just because you're freeing up some space. If you have a 1TB or 2TB drive, you probably won't notice a difference at all if you already have plenty of free space. SSDs can manage themselves, so going from, say, 500GB to 550GB free won't change how Windows feels. The problem starts when a drive gets close to full, because the SSD has fewer free blocks to work with for things like garbage collection and wear leveling, and Windows itself also has less room for temporary files, updates, and other background activity. That's why I made it very clear that I was using a 250GB SSD as my boot drive right away. Windows itself didn't feel twice as snappy or anything, but I did notice it was able to sustain higher write speeds for longer during file transfers. I don't think I need a bigger boot drive anytime soon Of course, the better solution would be to just use my 2TB NVMe for Windows or get a bigger SSD specifically for Windows. But I don't really see the point, especially with how I have Storage Sense set up right now. Even if my Downloads folder gets large enough to become a problem, that's something I can quickly move to my NVMe drive that I use for games. What I don't want is Windows holding onto gigabytes of superseded components and temporary update files I don't need anymore. Now that I know how to keep all of that under control, I think my 860 EVO will be just fine until its health becomes a problem.