The OS itself isn't huge, but the process of upgrading requires a significant amount of temporary free space.
Updates to the kernel and power management systems have resulted in slightly larger driver caches and system hibernation files ( hiberfil.sys ), particularly on systems with larger RAM. windows 24h2 size
Windows 11 24H2 is marginally larger than its predecessors, with a clean install footprint increasing to approximately 22 GB. While the official minimum storage requirement remains 64 GB, this update emphasizes the need for larger primary drives (256 GB or higher) due to the introduction of persistent AI databases and the inevitable bloat of system updates over time. Users with 128 GB drives should perform a disk cleanup immediately following installation to avoid storage pressure. The OS itself isn't huge, but the process