How to Check Total Hard Disk Space in Windows 11

To check total hard disk space in Windows 11, press Windows + E, select This PC and read the “free of” line under each drive, such as 312 GB free of 475 GB. To see the full size of the physical disk, including hidden partitions and unused space, right-click Start and open Disk Management.

A new game says it needs 150 GB and you are not sure how big your drive is, let alone how much of it is free.

Drive Size or Disk Size: Which Number You Need

Two terms get mixed up here. A disk is the physical SSD or hard drive inside the PC. A drive (Windows also calls it a volume or partition) is a lettered section of that disk, such as C: or D:. Many laptops have one disk with one lettered drive, plus small hidden partitions that File Explorer never shows. So the size of C: is usually a little less than the size of the disk.

Your question	Best place to look
How much room is left for a download or game?	File Explorer > This PC
What is using the space on C:?	Settings > System > Storage
How big is the SSD or hard drive itself?	Disk Management, or Disks & volumes in Settings
Is there unused space that isn’t part of any drive?	Disk Management (look for Unallocated)
I want exact figures to copy or compare	PowerShell

For the game example, the File Explorer number is the one that matters: the game needs 150 GB free on the drive you install it to.

Check Every Drive in File Explorer

This is the fastest check, and Microsoft’s own free up drive space guide starts here too.

1. Press Windows + E to open File Explorer.
2. Select This PC in the left pane. File Explorer opens to Home by default, so you may need to scroll down to find it.
3. Look under Devices and drives. Each drive shows a bar and a line such as 312 GB free of 475 GB. The second number is the drive’s total size. The bar may turn red when a drive is nearly full.
4. For exact figures, right-click the drive and select Properties. The General tab should list Used space, Free space and Capacity in bytes and in GB, with a pie chart.

USB drives and memory cards show up here too while they’re connected. If you’re not sure which drive holds Windows, finding the C or D drive in Windows 11 explains the icons and names.

See Storage Details in Settings

Settings shows the same total for C: and breaks the used space into categories.

1. Select Start > Settings, or press Windows + I.
2. With System selected on the left, choose Storage in the list on the right.
3. Read the bar at the top. It shows used space against the total for the drive Windows is installed on, for example 163 GB used of 475 GB.
4. Below it, categories such as Apps, Temporary files and System & reserved show what fills the drive. Select Show more categories for the full list.
5. To check other drives, expand Advanced storage settings. Look for Storage used on other drives and pick a drive to see its categories.

Under Advanced storage settings you should also find Disks & volumes. This page lists each physical disk with its volumes underneath, which makes it the Settings way to see the size of the whole disk. Select a disk’s Properties button for details. On many PCs it also shows the media type (SSD or HDD) and, for some drives, a health readout. Labels on this page can vary between Windows 11 builds, so compare with what’s on your screen.

Find the Total Size of the Physical Disk in Disk Management

Disk Management is the clearest view of the whole disk. Microsoft describes it as showing each drive on your computer and all partitions, along with how much space is allocated or used.

1. Right-click (or long-press) the Start button and select Disk Management. You can also press Windows + R, type diskmgmt.msc and select OK.
2. Look at the lower half of the window. Each physical disk has a label on the left, such as Disk 0, with its total size underneath (for example 476.92 GB).
3. Read the blocks to the right of the label. Each block is a partition with its own size: usually a small EFI System Partition, the large C: drive and a Recovery Partition.
4. Check for a block marked Unallocated with a black bar. That space belongs to the disk but isn’t part of any drive, so File Explorer doesn’t count it.

Warning: You’re only reading here. Don’t right-click partitions and choose Delete or Format, and leave the EFI and Recovery partitions alone, since Windows needs them to start and repair itself. Microsoft notes that Disk Management might show those two partitions as 100 percent free even though they hold files Windows needs. Microsoft’s Disk Management help page lists the other ways to open the tool, and opening Disk Management in Windows 11 covers fixes if it won’t load.

Found unallocated space? You can put it to work by extending the C drive when the space sits right after C:, or by creating a new drive as shown in partitioning a hard drive on Windows 11. A brand-new second disk may show as Not Initialized, and initializing an SSD in Windows 11 walks through that setup.

Check Disk Space With PowerShell

PowerShell gives you exact numbers you can copy into a note or support ticket. Right-click Start and select Terminal (it opens PowerShell on most Windows 11 PCs), then type one of these commands and press Enter.

• Get-Volume lists every volume. The Size column is the drive’s total and SizeRemaining is its free space. To see just one drive, use Get-Volume -DriveLetter C.
• Get-PhysicalDisk lists the physical disks, with a Size column for the whole disk plus HealthStatus and OperationalStatus.

Microsoft’s reference pages for Get-Volume and Get-PhysicalDisk show sample output. Both commands only read information, so they can’t change your disks.

Older instructions often use wmic logicaldisk get size,freespace,caption. That no longer works on up-to-date Windows 11 PCs. Microsoft’s WMIC removal notice says the tool has been removed from currently supported versions of Windows 11, including 24H2 and 25H2, can’t be added back as an optional feature, and that PowerShell is the replacement.

Other Quick Views

• Task Manager. Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc, open Performance and select a disk. The details under the graph may include its capacity and type. The graph itself shows activity, not how full the disk is.
• System Information. Press Windows + R, type msinfo32 and press Enter. Under Components > Storage > Disks, look for each disk’s size and model.

Why Windows Shows Less Space Than the Box Says

Your drive isn’t missing space. Two things make the number smaller.

Different ways of counting. Drive makers count 1 GB as 1 billion bytes, a convention Microsoft also states on its Surface storage page. Windows counts in binary units, where 1 GB is 1,073,741,824 bytes. A “1 TB” drive holds 1,000,000,000,000 bytes, and dividing that by 1,073,741,824 gives about 931 GB. That’s the figure File Explorer and Disk Management show.

Advertised size	About what Windows shows for the disk
256 GB	238 GB
512 GB	477 GB
1 TB	931 GB
2 TB	1.82 TB

Hidden partitions. On a typical PC, Microsoft’s default partition layout includes a system (EFI) partition of at least 200 MB, a 16 MB Microsoft Reserved partition and a recovery partition whose size varies. They have no drive letter and don’t appear in File Explorer, which is why C: is smaller than the disk.

A new PC also comes with Windows, preinstalled apps and updates that take a significant amount of space before you save anything. Settings groups much of that under System & reserved.

If a Drive Is Missing or Nearly Full

• A drive is in Disk Management but not This PC. It may have no drive letter or be unallocated. Check its status in Disk Management before changing anything.
• A USB drive doesn’t appear anywhere. Try another port and cable, then work through fixing a USB drive that isn’t showing up.
• The drive is almost full. Freeing space is a separate job. Start with seeing what’s taking up space on your PC, use Cleanup recommendations in Settings > System > Storage, and turn on Storage Sense so temporary files and old Recycle Bin items are cleared automatically.

Disk Space Questions

How do I tell whether my drive is an SSD or a hard drive?

Open Settings > System > Storage > Advanced storage settings > Disks & volumes, where the disk entry usually names the type. In PowerShell, Get-PhysicalDisk | Select-Object FriendlyName, MediaType, Size shows a MediaType of SSD or HDD on most PCs. The drive’s model name, searched on the maker’s site, also confirms it.

Can I add up all my drives to get the disk size?

Only roughly. Adding C: and D: leaves out the hidden partitions and any unallocated space, and a USB drive or second disk would add space that isn’t on the same disk. Disk Management’s size under Disk 0 is the accurate figure.

How much free space should I keep?

Microsoft doesn’t publish a single number. Its free up drive space guide says low space can slow your PC and get in the way of updates, so leave a comfortable margin rather than filling C: to the last few gigabytes.

Are the steps the same in Windows 10?

Mostly. This PC, drive Properties, Disk Management and the PowerShell commands work the same way, and Settings > System > Storage exists with a slightly different layout. Microsoft ended Windows 10 support on October 14, 2025.

With the free space and the disk’s real size in hand, you can decide whether that 150 GB game fits on C:, belongs on a second drive, or needs some cleanup first.