Nintendo Switch storage: how many games actually fit
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Nothing here is hardcoded, because all of it moves. Capacity, reserve, average size and install headroom change with the console, the generation and the game, and a size table written into this page would be wrong by the next update.
Results
| What the console shows instead | — |
| Gigabytes that vanish in the conversion | — |
| The same as a share, in percent | — |
| Left for games, after the system reserve | — |
| Games that fit | — |
| Free space left over after those | — |
| Missing for the whole library you wanted | — |
| Which is this much to buy, as written on a box | — |
The first gap is not marketing, it is two different meanings of the same word. Storage is sold in units of a thousand million bytes and reported by the machine in units of two to the thirtieth, which are seven per cent apart. The share is fixed, so it never surprises anyone twice, but almost nobody is told about it once.
The same loss at every size
| Written on the box | Shown by the console | Difference |
|---|
Read down the last column and the loss stops looking like rounding. On a small card it is a couple of gigabytes and nobody notices; on a terabyte it is nearly seventy, which is an entire large game that was never going to be there. The system reserve then comes off what is left, not instead of it.
How many games fit is a floor, and the install headroom quietly costs a whole slot. With the numbers this page starts from there is room for eighteen games if a game only needs its own size free, and seventeen if installing one needs the same amount again. The leftover of seventy four is plenty for an eighteenth game and not enough for the hundred that installing it demands.
That is why a drive that looks like it has space refuses a download. The number that matters at install time is not what the game occupies afterwards but what has to be free while it unpacks, and only one of those two is printed on the store page.
The last row converts what is missing back into the units a shop uses, because that is the number you will be paying for. Asking for the shortfall in the machine's units and then buying that many gigabytes leaves you short again, by the same seven per cent, which is a tidy way to make the same mistake twice.
Why does my drive show less than it says on the box?
Because the two numbers are counted in different units. Storage is sold in gigabytes of a thousand million bytes and reported by the machine in units of two to the thirtieth, and those are 6.87 per cent apart.
The share never changes, so the gap grows with the drive: a couple of gigabytes on a small card, and nearly seventy on a terabyte.
| Written on the box | Shown by the console | Difference |
|---|---|---|
| 32 | 29,80 | 2,20 |
| 128 | 119,21 | 8,79 |
| 512 | 476,84 | 35,16 |
| 1000 | 931,32 | 68,68 |
Is the system reserve the same thing?
No, and it is worth separating them. The conversion happens first and is pure arithmetic; the reserve is space the machine actually uses, and it comes off what is already left rather than instead of it.
That is why the two are separate fields here. One is fixed at 6.87 per cent forever, the other changes with firmware and can be looked up.
Why does a download fail when there still seems to be space?
Because installing usually needs room for the game and room to unpack it at the same time, so the last slot costs twice. With the numbers this page starts from, seventy four gigabytes of free space will not take a fifty gigabyte game that needs a hundred available.
The figure printed on a store page is what the game occupies afterwards, not what has to be free during the install, and only the second one decides whether the download starts.
How much more storage do I have to buy?
The page converts the shortfall back into the units a shop uses, because that is what you pay for. Buying the missing amount in the machine's units leaves you short again by the same 6.87 per cent.
It is a tidy way to make the same mistake twice, and it is the reason the last row exists at all.
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