Windows 10 upgrades

My shack PC runs Windows 10. Up to now this has been fine.  Sadly it only has a small 32GB SSD. Despite plugging in an external hard drive temporarily is still wants 8GB of space on the C drive of the PC to install the latest upgrades. Even with removing junk I only have half of this space. I guess it means I cannot continue to upgrade Windows 10 in future.

This begs a few questions:

• What am I missing?
• Does it matter?
• How do I permanently disable windows updates to avoid these annoying messages?

If probably tells me it will soon be time to upgrade the shack PC!

UPDATE  1633z: I have just found this at  https://www.windowscentral.com/how-stop-updates-installing-automatically-windows-10, which others might find useful too. I think you can then decide whether or not to install an upgrade. I have not tried it. There may be a way to turn all Windows 10 upgrades off for ever which is probably what I need.

"To permanently disable automatic updates on Windows 10, use these steps:

1. Open Start.
2. Search for gpedit.msc and select the top result to launch the experience.
3. Navigate to the following path: ...
4. Double-click the Configure Automatic Updates policy on the right side.
5. Check the Disabled option to turn off the policy."