Optimal pagefile placement enhances performance. Consider these suggestions:
Optimal pagefile placement enhances performance. Consider these suggestions:
Just discovered why my HDD isn't stopping or idling properly—it’s because since installing it last summer, Windows has moved the pagefile there. Right now I run my PC from a 500GB SSD, but I’ll restart in March with a fresh 2TB drive that’s already installed. Am I correct about using an SSD for the pagefile? When I first built my rig, I placed the pagefile on a second drive to boost performance, which was before HDDs were common. I don’t recall much debate then, but the constant noise from the single HDD is annoying, especially since it’s meant for archival use only. Ten years ago, there was some talk about keeping the pagefile on an HDD even with an SSD, though that was a different time and size. It seems technology has improved, but I’m not sure yet. For now, moving it manually might be best, but I’d value any advice. Thoughts?
I'd use a Pagefile on an SSD or NVMe drive. It generally performs better, with some tests showing a slight boost in low-end FPS around 1% compared to HDDs. Keep in mind the page file only activates once RAM is nearly full, so you won't face constant write problems. I'd place it on the SSD since it's faster than an HDD.
Yes, put in on an SSD. I had pagefiles on HDD for a while and holy shit did my 2700X system at the time turn into £1200 wasted system. The noise didn't annoy me, the system slowdown did. In theory because pagefiles are now on an SSD it technically has more wear but in the real world there's no difference, within margin of error. Would get the same "wear" results by just installing 200GB CoD and uninstalling it straight away cause you've realized installing CoD was an accident cause no one plays it. I've now added a 1TB M.2 and just dedicated 100GB of it to pagefiles. I should be good for a while.
I usually keep a page file on my main OS drive, but it’s not recommended to run modern Windows on a traditional HDD. Putting it on a secondary SSD might actually help. The problem is, your page file usage stays very low—even after days of uptime—so it seems like an issue isn’t really there. "0%" is the goal, but I’m confused why that matters if it never gets used.
It was mainly the workload. After working on UE for some time, it consumed a lot of RAM. I experienced crashes and GUI issues, forcing me to adjust how I used my PC—similar to the UI in Cruelty Squad or Hypnospace Outlaw. Someone please find a screenshot I can't locate. That was really funny. A proper pagefile size helped stop the crashes, but rendering and compiling still felt very slow.
This could be helpful in certain situations, though 100GB might be too much overall. It's interesting I used UE5 (my term for "clay engine") and didn’t run into problems—just basic operations like movement were fine.
My RAM *never* reaches full capacity, though I occasionally see around 2.1% pagefile usage (that’s pretty precise). I didn’t notice any problems until I tried managing it myself—big mistake! Various stuttering issues popped up, so I just left the settings as default and everything worked fine.