Windows 10: Pagefile is battering my HDD's write usage for no good reason, even when unconfigured

I'm starting to have some strange issues with my PC this evening. It's a relatively new build but I started to have an unexpected issue this evening where I needed to reboot the machine & then it never came back up... Spinning dots in a circle, everything not responding

Initially, I thought it might be a disk issue. I have the following disks installed:

500GB Samsung EVO Plus M.2 SSD (This is my Windows 10 boot disk)

256GB SanDisk SATA SSD (Data disk)

500GB SanDisk SATA SSD (Formatted for Linux so Windows doesn't bother touching it)

1.5TB Seagate SATA HDD (Data disk)

2TB Toshiba SATA HDD (Data disk)

I think the 1.5TB disk might be on its way out, and to be fair, I've stripped all the data off it and reformatted it... Not really using it right now and plan to get rid one day when I get round to it... Unplugged that disk and it seemed to make a difference... I'm now able to boot into Windows, but the machine runs mega slow to start with.

Inspecting Task Manager shows that the Toshiba HDD is getting absolutely battered performance wise. 98% disk usage with pretty much maxed out write speeds. No read speed being registered, just write.

Inspecting Resource Monitor shows that the only file being written to on the Toshiba HDD is E:\pagefile.sys... I've never had this sort of performance hit before and as far as I'm aware, nothing has changed so I'm not sure why it's suddenly started battering the pagefile.

Mostly as a test, I have disabled the pagefile altogether. I have 32GB RAM in this machine so I don't really need a page file but I'm aware there are some applications that require it so it's best to have it on. After a reboot of the machine, the same issue occurs... but as you can see from this screenshot, Task Manager clearly states that the disk does not have a page file, despite Resource Monitor showing that E:\pagefile.sys is the problem file.

https://imgur.com/a/KMP7TgR

I find this very bizarre, and the machine seems to be taking quite a performance hit because of it. I can't even open the start menu for minutes at a time... and you can see in the background, I'm trying to make this post and it's caused Firefox to lock up completely.

Now, while I'm making this post, the disk usage seems to have fallen off a cliff edge. It's currently sitting at 0% disk usage... and when I check the disk with hidden files enabled, pagefile.sys doesn't actually exist. Or at least, it doesn't any more.

I'm about to reboot and see what happens... I think I did reboot earlier in this state and found it to perform fine, but re-enabling the page file seems to cause it to go haywire again.

I had the page file configured to be automatically system managed. It assigned no page file to C: and F:, assumed because they're SSD and the OS is intelligent enough to know that might not be a brilliant idea for disk longevity... and E: had it configured for a 51.2GB page file. This seems hugely excessive and might be part of the issue, but I assume it's picked that figure as 32*1.6 through some built-in logic.

Does anyone know why the page file might be causing this issue and how I can potentially fix it? The machine is pretty much unusable while the disk is being battered.

Thanks!

submitted by /u/nimraynn
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:)

 

Clear Pagefile on Shutdown


I've been looking into clearing the pagefile, and I found the following steps at a somewhat dated webpage:

1. In the registry editor, navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
2. Set ClearPageFileAtShutdown to the REG_DWORD value of 1.
3. Restart Windows.

I'm just wondering whether those steps are still valid, and, if so, does clearing the pagefile work as advertised?

 

Seperate hdd as pagefile?

What I've done for years that works extremely well for me is have on hdd for OS, one (or RAID) for gaming, and one large hdd for storage. I always put the pagefile on my storage drive and I get the best performance with that setup. It's been a while since I've done any bench's but I would suggest you try it out.

 

Slow HDD read and write speeds

Hi,

Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.

We will require a few more information from you to help you further with the issue. Please reply with the following details:

• In which device are you facing this issue?
  
• Are you using an external HDD or internal HDD?
  
• Are you getting the read and write speed issue on any particular application?
  

However, you can Disk Defragment on your computer to optimize the drive. To run Disk Defragment please follow the steps from the article

Defragment your Windows 10 PC.

Alternatively, you can check for the read and write speed of the HDD in task manager. Please follow the steps mentioned below to check the read and write speed of the hard drive:

1. Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc key together on the keyboard.
   
2. Click on Performance tab.
   
3. Click on Disk 0.
   
4. You will find the Read speed and
   Write speed at the bottom of the window.
   

Hope it helps.

Please reply with the status of the issue, we will be glad to help you further.

Nikhar Khare

Microsoft Community - Moderator