Games are the element that occupies the most disk space in a gaming PC , and it is normal that most users want to have this space organized or at least compartmentalized to always know where they are installed. For this you can create partitions, volumes that behave as if they were a separate storage unit, but is it worth partitioning an SSD ?
Normally, when you have a low-capacity storage device, you don’t bother with partitioning of any kind, but if your SSD is 1 TB or more then you probably want to have your games well organized and located. To do this you can always partition your storage unit with the aim of creating specific “units” to store certain types of content, such as PC gaming games, or Windows programs.
SSD is not worth partitioning
From the outset you should know that partitioning any type of drive means losing part of its usable space , since the partition table and the index occupy some space, so right off the bat if your SSD is low capacity it doesn’t deserve the worth doing any kind of partition.
Another reason why it is not worth partitioning the space of your SSD is because you would be limiting the storage space of these. Imagine that you have a SSD with a capacity of 1 TB, 1024 GB, and you want to make a partition of 512 GB for games and leave the other 512 GB for the operating system, documents and programs. You will then be limiting the maximum space that your games can occupy to 512 GB, and in the end you will be forced to delete some to make room for others, install on the other partition (so having partitions would lose the sense) or extend the partition , taking up drive space for the operating system, which is a hassle.
On the other hand, you must also bear in mind that in order to install all the games on the same partition you will have to make a series of initial configurations, since some game managers forcefully install these in the same place where the installer is. For example, on Steam the games will normally be installed in C: Program Files (x86) Steamsteamappscommon and although the installation directory can be changed, there are other managers such as Origin that do not allow it. By this we simply mean that you should bear in mind that each installer must be configured properly, which can also be a hassle.
In short, creating partitions on an SSD for your games can help you to have everything more organized, but it can become a hassle in terms of configuration and, in the end, you will earn more by creating the C: Games directory for example and making all your programs install the games there, having it also perfectly located and organized.
What configuration is recommended if you want partitions?
If in spite of this you want to make partitions, we are going to tell you what the recommended capacity configuration would be under our reasoning. Let’s assume that the main drive (C 🙂 is the operating system and main programs; taking into account that the installation of Windows with all the updates installed occupies the order of 25 GB and you have to leave room to “grow” with future updates, and that the main programs can occupy between 10 and 50 GB approximately depending on what you have installed, we would tell you never to leave less than 100GB on your main drive.
Thus, in 128 GB SSDs it will not be worth partitioning of any kind, while from 256 GB it would be advisable to make a 100 GB main partition and leave the rest for games, if you want. In any case, what we would recommend is that you leave at least 25% of the space on your SSD for Windows and the programs, always with that minimum of 100 GB that we have mentioned; for example, if your SSD is 1 TB then we would make a partition of 250 GB for the system and 750 GB for games.