How Much Storage Does a Steam Machine Need?

Start from the games you keep installed, not the library you own

A Steam library can run to hundreds of games, but a drive only has to hold the ones installed at once. The useful question is how many large games you keep ready to play and how often you are willing to download one again. Someone who plays two big games a year and uninstalls when finished can live with far less than someone who keeps a dozen open-world games and a competitive shooter permanently installed.

Publishers state an install size for PC in each game's Steam system requirements, and those are the figures above. They are the best public number available, but they are not fixed: patches, downloadable content and high-resolution texture packs add to them over time, and a figure read today can be out of date in a year. Treat them as a floor for the games you care about.

Valve's page lists the storage options and says nothing about how much of the drive the operating system and its updates occupy. We therefore count against the nominal 512GB, 1TB, 2TB and 4TB and say so; the real free space on any of them will be somewhat less.

512GB, the base model

On the publisher figures above, 512GB holds 3 of the largest games at once, with 82GB of nominal space left over for everything else, before the operating system is counted. That is a workable machine for a small rotation of big games plus smaller titles, and a frustrating one for anyone who dislikes uninstalling.

Valve sells a 2TB model as well. Launch prices were reported by the press (not by Valve) at $1,049.00 and $1,349.00, a $300.00 step; the upgrade table above shows what a 2TB drive that fits costs on its own today, which is the number to set against that step if you already own the base model. Valve's own page states the two options as "Two Steam Machine models: 512GB NVMe SSD / 2TB NVMe SSD / Both models include a high-speed microSD card slot".

1TB and 2TB

A 1TB drive roughly doubles the rotation. For most people who play several large games in parallel it removes the weekly uninstall decision without paying for space they will not fill. A 2TB drive holds every game on our list at once with room to spare, and is the size most people who ask this question end up at.

Price per terabyte usually falls as capacity rises within a product line, but the step is not always even. The table of cheapest drives prints each one's figure; if 2TB costs little more than 1TB on the day, the larger drive is the better buy, and if the step is steep, the smaller one is.

4TB

Four terabytes suits a large installed library, a household sharing one machine, or someone who keeps games installed indefinitely. Whether a 4TB drive fits the Steam Machine depends on its length: according to iFixit the slot takes 2230 or 2280, and 4TB drives are almost all 2280. If your unit takes 2280, 4TB is available at desktop prices; if it did not, the choice would be far narrower.

Why GTA 6 is on this page at all

GTA 6 is the game most storage questions are asked about this year, so it belongs on any page about how much space to buy. The honest answer for a Steam Machine owner is short: Rockstar has published no install size, and has announced the game for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S only. There is no PC version to install.

The widely repeated size figure is a rumour with a specific origin: a post by the GTA 6 Intel account in March 2024, which ScreenRant reports has since been taken down. We do not print a size for GTA 6, on this page or on our PS5 page, until Rockstar or a store listing publishes one.

Installs grow after launch

A publisher's storage figure describes the game as it stands when the requirement was written. Patches, seasons of downloadable content, optional high-resolution texture packs and shader caches all add to it, and a figure you read today can understate the space a game occupies a year from now. The gap varies enormously by game, which is why we print only the publisher's own current number and do not add an estimate on top of it.

The practical rule is to leave headroom. A drive that is exactly full on the day you install your games will be over-full after the next round of updates, and most systems also need free space to download and unpack an update before the old files are removed. Buying the capacity that leaves a comfortable margin after your current rotation is cheaper than buying twice.

The other route: a microSD card

Both Steam Machine models have a microSD slot. Valve's page calls it "high-speed" and does not name the bus standard - UHS-I, UHS-II or microSD Express - and those three differ enough that the right card for one is the wrong card for another. We will add a card page once the standard is sourced. Until then, an internal SSD is the capacity upgrade we can price and recommend with confidence.

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