Our subsequent SSD improve must be a software program replace

SSD costs are dangerous proper now. Storage drive prices rose alongside memory and different {hardware} throughout the AI growth, they usually present no signal of coming down anytime quickly. If 2026 is something to go by, anybody requiring new storage goes to be forking out some severe money in 2027 and past.

But what if there was one other method? Storage costs aren’t the one drawback with the {hardware} shortages. In some instances, builders may be held accountable for placing extra stress on our storage drives, with huge recreation recordsdata requiring a whole bunch of gigabytes — solely to reverse the necessities in some instances.

So, earlier than you attain deep into your already overstretched pockets so as to add extra capability, learn how a lot of what is in your system maybe does not must be there.

SSDs are costly, however some builders are handing storage again

Where did it go to start with?

We know that SSDs are costly. Storage is at a premium in every single place you look, so it is attention-grabbing that some builders are taking inventory of their creations and realizing they won’t want as a lot area.

2024 smash-hit Helldivers 2 is a chief instance. The recreation initially launched with an set up dimension of roughly 154GB, placing it proper up there among the many greatest PC video games by file dimension, as per GameRant. By the tip of 2025, Arrowhead managed to scale back the Helldivers 2 Steam set up by 85%, reducing it from 154GB to simply 23GB.

Writing on Steam, Arrowhead mentioned that the corporate made the reductions by “fully de-duplicating our knowledge,” basically optimizing its knowledge recordsdata by eradicating the duplicate recordsdata primarily designed to hurry boot instances on older laborious drives.

With simply 11 p.c of Helldivers 2 gamers utilizing laborious drives, it meant the opposite 89 p.c of gamers had been struggling this huge set up dimension. The discount triggered minimal affect on HDD mission load instances, and everybody will get again an enormous chunk of storage.

Helldivers 2 is not the one recreation in recent times to present again some storage. The August 2026 Marvel Rivals Season 9.5 Update delivered a texture compression overhaul that dropped the set up dimension by 40GB on PC.

Similarly, Sea of Thieves is receiving a second size-saving move from developer Rare that ought to cut back its set up dimension by 50%, dropping from round 130GB to 65GB or so, and some years again Fortnite managed to slash its set up dimension from 90GB to 35GB with some file restructuring and compression.

Developers aren’t at all times hoarding your storage on goal

That does not give me extra SSD area, although

Credit: Shaheer Khan/MUO

In many instances, it seems like builders are simply lazy, however that is sometimes removed from the case; it is tempting, however flawed. There are clear the explanation why these space-munching trade-offs are made, and why in some instances, they’re reversed.

Helldivers 2 is the right instance, once more. Duplicating property spares a mechanical drive from searching throughout the disk, so Arrowhead constructed the PC model round that. The drawback was the premise: the trade load-time figures it relied on turned out to be flawed, and many of the recreation’s loading time comes from stage era slightly than asset loading. Swapping it round lower the bloat.

Other main storage handbacks have come from builders altering how their recreation operates. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 launched with a whopping set up dimension of 310GB, however that immediately dropped to 90GB in the event you eliminated the bundled Modern Warfare property — however that wasn’t made clear to most customers, who needed to discover the total disk area. If you simply needed the BO6 marketing campaign and multiplayer, it was simply 56GB or so.

So, not a case of Treyarch and Raven colluding to drive you to purchase extra storage, though it felt prefer it. It was only a case of actually poor communication, whipped up by some media hysteria about huge installations.

The greatest drawback is that for each Helldivers 2 that takes the time to work with a workforce to scale back its file dimension, there’s an Ark Survival demanding a whole bunch of gigabytes both method, so the payoff on your storage capability feels futile.

Before you purchase an even bigger drive

While you are ready for different video games to chop the chaff, do that

There are a few options for those moments when you need space in a hurry.

1. Some video games could have a separate possibility for a high-resolution texture pack. Part of Marvel Rival’s huge set up dimension discount was compressing texture packs. Other video games may assist you to take away ultra-high-quality texture packs, like Fallout 4, Monster Hunter: Wilds, and others.
2. Remove recreation modes and related content material you do not want. You can examine a recreation’s set up web page for modules you possibly can drop, although that is much less frequent.
3. The last, and most blatant, is to examine your Steam, Epic, Itch, and different recreation libraries for these titles you have had put in for years however have not performed in a very long time (or ever — darn you, Steam Sales!).

Everyone has video games they’ve meant to play put in, and eradicating these is a sure-fire option to seize some much-needed storage again throughout these instances of want. My personal Steam listing pictured above is a chief instance; I’m not a lot of a gamer as of late, but I’ve heaps of video games put in always!

When will storage costs come again down once more?

Yeah, about that

In November 2025, TweakTown reported that main SSD controller producer Phison mentioned all storage makers had already offered out of 2026 capability, a message echoed by different producers. It’s the same story for 2027, with Samsung, SanDisk, Micron, and different NAND flash (and DRAM) producers largely promoting out their capability for the subsequent 12 months and extra.

That means one factor: greater storage costs will proceed till morale improves.

Given the AI growth exhibits no signal of slowing down, the most affordable time to purchase storage is probably going now, as a result of it is extremely unlikely to vary subsequent yr. Is that the tinkling of Santa’s sleigh I hear within the very far distance? Or the massed mobs of Black Friday deal-hunters queuing earlier than daybreak?