How full can the hard drive be?

🙌

I have a 512 Gb Ssd in my laptop. Now I have over 380 Gb and want to download some games. I'm afraid that I will overfill them and then I will have no space for important things (updates etc.) and that the laptop will slow down. ⏩✅

How full can I "should" make it to the maximum, and how much does the performance decrease? ⚡

And can I store games on an external storage disk and then play them whenever I connect them to my laptop

The performance does not decrease at all. Windows warns you when you only have 10 GB free. → You should leave 10 to 20 GB free.

External hard drives are of course also possible.

You say roughly 80%.

At 90%, you should quickly look for an alternative.

Most SSDs already organize the storage space in such a way that about 10-15% remain free depending on the model (since the so-called over-provisioning already provides an invisible reserve of up to 28% of the storage space). Sometimes - e.g. With Samsung SSDs - the user can even determine the size of the over-provisioning using the SSD tool.

Of course, the reason for the need for free space on SSDs is not the physically different length of the tracks. With SSDs, free space is used as a reserve for failing memory cells and to extend the lifespan of the memory cells using TRIM and wear leveling, thus ensuring reliability. In addition, reserve storage space increases via over-provisioning for a significantly higher write performance.

Therefore, in addition to over-provisioning, SSDs are advised to always have a minimum available storage space of 10-15%. You can also easily define this reserve by simply not assigning a corresponding amount of space to a partition - this space is then automatically used by the SSD for dynamic over-provisioning. According to a study by Intel, a 10% reserve for over-provisioning increased the performance (Random IOPS) by 2.5 times and the lifespan by more than twice.

An SSD does not slow down when it gets fuller. And you can also play games on an external disk. Simply select the appropriate drive when installing.

but first load everything onto the ssd and if you need memory you can delete a game or postpone it.

If your hard drive is full, it is full. Then there's an error message for updates etc.
The PC shouldn't really be slower.

An external hard drive is sufficient, unless you are talking about a USB stick. It depends on the read / write speed of the disk.