How to turn off reserve memory in Windows 10

Reserved Storage – Reserved storage is a feature of Windows 10 that keeps the system running smoothly. However, if you think this feature is not necessary, you can completely turn it off.

What is Reserved Storage?

Since the beginning of 2019, Microsoft has made some changes to the way Windows 10 manages disk space and released Reserved Storage. Reserved Storage is a portion of space occupied by Windows 10 to prepare you for updates, apps, temporary files, and system cache. Without memory to spare, when you have used up disk space, the system will have difficulty managing system files. This can lead to Windows applications not working properly.

Reserved storage will automatically be supported on Windows 10 computers from version 1903. The feature will automatically run in the background.

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How much space does Reserved Storage take up?

The capacity of Reserved Storage will be on average 7GB. However, the amount of space taken up can change over time based on how you use your PC.   

For example, temporary files that take up free space now on your device may consume space from the reserved storage in the future.

In addition, reserved memory can also be increased by two factors including: optional features and installed language packs.

How to view Reserved Storage size

Follow these steps to check your reserved memory size:

Step 1: Press Windows + I key combination to open Settings. On the main screen, select System.

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Step 2: Select Storage in the left menu >> Show more categories.

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Step 3: Open System & reservations.

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Step 4: Now you can see the size of your Reserved Storage.

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How to disable Windows 10 Reserved Storage using CMD

Reserved memory is actually a useful component that you shouldn't turn off. If you use up all the hard drive space, the operating system will not have enough free space to operate the system files, leading to some instability problems.

However, if you think you're not going to use up all the space and want to save 7GB for something else, you can completely turn off Storage.

You enter cmd in the search box, then open Command Prompt under Administrator (Run as administrator).

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You enter the following command and press Enter to check the status of Reserved Storage.

dism /Online /Get-ReservedStorageState

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As you can see above, Reserved Storage is in the 'enabled' state. So enter the following command to turn it off.

dism /Online /Set-ReservedStorageState /State:Disabled

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Please note that after the reserve memory is turned off, this amount of space will not be lost immediately. You need to wait a while before reclaiming the free space.

In the future, if you ever want to re-enable Reserved Storage, simply enter the following command:

dism /Online /Set-ReservedStorageState /State:Enabled

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Conclude

And that's how you check, enable/disable the memory reserve. If you still have a lot of problems in managing your drive, please refer to the article How to clean up your computer fastest. Good luck!

Micah Soto

Update 24 December 2021