[Tip] Disable Reserved Storage Feature in Windows 10

Windows 10 version 1903 and later come with a new feature called “Reserved Storage” or “Reserved Disk Space“. With the help of this feature, some hard disk space is set aside by Windows 10 to be used by system updates, apps, temporary files and system caches to ensure that critical and important operating system functions always have access to free disk space.

When newer versions of Windows 10 are installed, Windows automatically reserves some disk space on your hard disk drive for this new Reserved Storage feature.

The default size of Reserved Storage is approx. 7 GB, however the size may vary according to users activities, number of installed updates, apps, etc.

Reserved Storage space helps Windows 10 in downloading and installing important updates without having to free up disk space if your hard disk contains less disk space. Similarly, when system apps and processes need to create temporary files or cache, these files are automatically stored in Reserved Storage. These temporary files and cache will not occupy other free space available on user’s hard disk drive.

You can check how much Reserved Storage is being used by Windows 10 in your computer using following steps:

Open Settings app from Start Menu or by pressing WIN+I keys together. Now go to “System -> Storage” section. In right-side pane, click on Show more categories link and then click on System & reserved section. On the next page, you can check Reserved Storage space amount in your Windows 10 device as shown in following screenshot:

We reviewed Reserved Storage feature in details in following exclusive article:

[Tip] How to Delete and Disable Reserved Storage in Windows 10?

There might be many Windows 10 users who may not like the concept of Reserved Storage feature and may want to deactivate and disable Reserved Storage to free up disk space.

In past, users needed to use Registry tweaks to disable and remove Reserved Storage feature (the required registry tweak has been given at above mentioned link).

Now Microsoft has added new commands to disable or enable Reserved Storage feature in Windows 10 newer versions (version 2004 and later). (Thank to our reader Vipul for sharing the commands).

If you are using newer versions of Windows 10 and want to disable Reserved Storage feature without using registry tweak, following simple steps will help you:

1. Open Command Prompt as Administrator using any method given here.

2. Now run following command:

Above mentioned command will check the current status of Reserved Storage in your Windows 10 device. If Reserved Storage feature is enabled in your computer, it’ll output “Reserved storage is enabled” message. If Reserved Storage feature is disabled in your computer, it’ll output “Reserved storage is disabled” message.

3. To disable Reserved Storage feature, run following command:

It’ll take a few seconds in executing and you’ll get “The operation completed successfully” message. That’s it. You have successfully disabled Reserved Storage feature in your Windows 10 device.

You can again check status of Reserved Storage in your computer using command mentioned in Step 2.

PS: If you decide to enable Reserved Storage feature in your Windows 10 device in future, you can run following command:

Also Check:

[Tip] How to Free Up Hard Disk Space in Windows 10

[Tip] Automatically Free Up Disk Space in Windows 10