Steam Disk Usage Slow? Try These Methods to Fix It

Steam disk usage refers to the amount of disk space Steam takes up per second to write/read data on your storage device while downloading a game. Normally, the Steam disk usage limits how fast the game will be downloaded. To be specific, if you find Steam disk usage slow, the game downloading will slow down too, even stop.

Why is my disk usage so low on Steam? How to do with Steam slow disk usage? How to increase disk usage on Steam? To get the answers, pay attention to the following content.

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Why Is Steam Disk Usage Slow

You may wonder what makes Steam disk usage slow when your Steam disk usage keeps dropping, especially when Steam disk usage drops to 0. Well, some possible reasons are listed as follows:

• Poor network connection
• Insufficient storage space
• Misconfigured Steam settings
• Hard disk failure
• Software conflicts
• …

How to Fix Steam Slow Disk Usage

In this part, this post summarizes a couple of solutions you can try to fix the “Steam disk usage low” issue. Just read on.

Solution 1: Check Your Internet Connection

As mentioned earlier, an unstable or weak network connection can affect the speed of the game downloading. So, it’s important to test your Internet connection when facing the issue that Steam disk usage drops to 0.

To make sure you have a great Internet connection, you can try restarting your router and modem or switching to a wired connection. If there is no network connection problem but the issue persists, you should then continue with other troubleshooting fixes.

Solution 2: Expand the Partition

The “Steam disk usage slow” may also occur if Steam is running on low disk space. In this case, you can try cleaning up disk space by deleting unused files. Also, you can try enlarging the specific partition if there is more than one partition on your disk.

To extend the partition, we’d like to recommend you make use of MiniTool Partition Wizard. It’s a professional partition manager that enables you to extend a partition from contiguous/non-contiguous allocated space or free space of another partition, which is not supported by Windows native utilities – Disk Management and Diskpart.

In addition, MiniTool Partition Wizard also allows you to partition a hard drive, format USB to FAT32/NTFS/exFAT, clone a hard drive, delete disk partitions, convert MBR to GPT without data loss, migrate Windows 10 to SSD/HDD, and more.

Download and install MiniTool Partition Wizard on your PC. Then follow the steps below to extend the Steam partition.

MiniTool Partition Wizard FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Step 1: Launch this free partition software to enter its main interface.

Step 2: Right-click the target partition and then select Extend from the context menu.

Step 3: Select unallocated space or another partition to take disk space from. Then drag the blue block to decide the amount of disk space you want to extend. Once done, click OK.

Step 4: Finally, don’t forget to click Apply to execute the pending operation.

If there is unallocated space adjacent to the Steam partition, you can also apply the Move/Resize Partition feature to expand the partition with the simple guide.

1. Launch MiniTool Partition Wizard. Highlight the target partition and select Move/Resize Partition from the left action panel.
2. Drag the left triangle handle leftward or the right triangle handle rightward to get more storage space.
3. After that, click OK > Apply to save the change.

Solution 3: Set Steam’s Priority to High

When Steam disk usage keeps dropping, you can try setting Steam to high priority as well. By doing so, Steam will be allocated with more system resources and boost its disk usage. You can learn how to increase disk usage on Steam in this way from below.

Step 1: Right-click the Start icon and select Task Manager.

Step 2: After you open Task Manager, go to the Details tab.

Step 3: Scroll down to locate steam.exe. Then right-click it and select Set priority > High.

Solution 4: Change the Steam Download Region

Certain outages with the download server you are currently using may also result in the “Steam disk usage low” issue. As for this, you can try to fix it by changing the download region. Here’s how to do this.

Step 1: Launch the Steam client on your desktop. Then click Steam at the top-left corner and select Settings from the expanded menu.

Step 2: In the pop-up window, switch to the Downloads section.

Step 3: On the right side, choose a different location from the Download region drop-down menu.

Solution 5: Turn Off Limit Download Speed

Another way that may help with the “Steam disk usage slow” issue is to disable the download speed limiter in Steam. This method can increase Steam disk space and downloading speed easily and efficiently.

To complete the operation successfully, you just need to open Steam, navigate to Steam > Settings > Downloads, and then toggle off the Limit download speed option from the right panel.

Solution 6: Temporarily Disable the Antivirus

The third-party antivirus software and Windows Defender Firewall may sometimes interfere with the game downloading, causing Steam slow disk usage. On this occasion, you’d better disable the antivirus temporarily to avoid the bothering issue.

It’s worth noting that viruses or malware may infect your system with the antivirus programs disabled. Hence, turn on these programs once you finish downloading the wanted Steam games.

Solution 7: Clear the Steam Download Cache

If some of the Steam previously cached files get corrupted, you are also likely to suffer from the issue that Steam disk usage keeps dropping. To troubleshoot it, we highly recommend you clear the Steam download cache, which might resolve issues downloading or starting apps. The following are detailed steps.

Step 1: Open the Steam app and then go to Steam > Settings > Downloads.

Step 2: After that, click the Clear Cache button in the Clear Download Cache.

Solution 8: Check Your Disk for Bad Sectors

The bad sectors on your hard drive may be another possible reason for the “Steam disk usage slow” issue. To figure out if your drive is corrupted and contains bad sectors, you need to perform a disk check. Here we discuss how to do this in detail.

Step 1: Press the Windows and R keys at the same time to open the Run dialog.

Step 2: Type cmd in the text box and then press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to run Command Prompt as an administrator.

Step 3: In the elevated Command Prompt, type chkdsk *: /r and press Enter. Replace * with the drive letter of your Steam partition.

In addition to the CHKDSK tool, you can also take advantage of MiniTool Partition Wizard to check your drive health. It supports scanning for bad sectors with a few clicks. Here’s how to utilize MiniTool Partition Wizard to detect bad sectors on your hard drive.

Step 1: Download, install, and launch MiniTool Partition Wizard on your computer.

MiniTool Partition Wizard FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Step 2: Right-click the target partition and select Surface Test.

Step 3: In the Surface Test window, click the Start Now button to begin scanning bad sectors.

Step 4: Wait for the scanning process to end. If any bad sectors are found, they will be marked with red. Then you can refer to this guide to repair them: Can We Remove Bad Sector from Hard Disk Permanently?

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Solution 9: Reduce Disk Load

In some cases, the issue of Steam disk usage low may happen due to the huge disk load. Disable the Connected User Experience to decrease the disk load and get rid of the Steam disk usage issue. You need to run Command Prompt as an administrator and then execute the following commands one after another.

• stop-service diagtrack
• set-service diagtrack -startuptype disabled

Solution 10: Uninstall and Reinstall Steam

If none of the above methods works, it may indicate there is something wrong with Steam. In this situation, you can uninstall this app from your computer and then install it back for repair.

Step 1: Open the Run dialog and type appwiz.cpl in the box. Then click OK to open the Uninstall or change a program window.

Step 2: Right-click Steam from the program list and select Uninstall. Follow the on-screen instructions to uninstall the app completely.

Step 3: Restart your computer and reinstall Steam from its official website. Then you might be able to download the failing game with a normal Steam disk usage.

I experienced the issue of Steam disk usage slow last week. Luckily, I solved my problem effectively with the methods offered in this guide. I’d like to share it with you if you get stuck in the Steam disk usage issue too.Click to Tweet

Bottom Line

This post discusses “why is my disk usage so low on Steam” and shows how to get rid of the “Steam disk usage slow” issue. If your Steam disk usage drops to 0 while downloading games, you can try the above methods to fix it.

For any problems related to MiniTool Partition Wizard, please contact us via [email protected]. We’ll reply to you as soon as possible.