Disorder inevitably exists in realistic samples, manifesting itself in various exotic properties for the topological states. In this talk, we briefly introduce several of our works over the last few years, regarding three topics about disorder effects in topological states. For weak disorder, the robustness of topological states is demonstrated, especially for both quantum spin Hall states with Z2=1 and size induced nontrivial topological insulators with Z2=0. For moderate disorder, by increasing the randomness of both the impurity distribution and the impurity induced potential strength, the topological insulator states can be created from normal metallic or insulating states. For strong disorder, the disorder causes a metal-insulator transition. Due to their topological nature, the phase diagrams are much richer in topological state systems. Finally, the trends in these areas of disorder research are discussed.