Solved Stop killing your SSD: 6 must-do Windows 11 tweaks

FrancoDT said:

Ok, so being a curiosity killed the cat type guy I have turned off page filing on the 64GB machine, rebooted, and just confirmed it is still set to zero. Now I guess time will tell if any adverse effects will appear. Seems system diagnostics (crash dumps) will be lost as a side effect to no page file but will see how it goes.

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If anything goes south on you - I will swear I don't know you.

neldog said:

How does one go about doing that? I just turned mine off, I have 32GB of DDR5. I was hoping that would be enough - not a whole lot of open programs at one time going on here. I hardly ever use over 45% of available memory. Is that something, (the moving of the page file) that is not all that complicated to do with Windows Disk Management?

Thanks.

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Ghot said:

Just create a 30GB partition at the end of you SSD, and give it a drive letter.
Then... as in the pic below create a page file on that partition.
I choose: Custom and then set the min. and max. size to the same number. (some multiple of 1024).

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There is no "end" of an SSD. It just looks that way in partitioning tools because they are based on HDD. Partitions are an OS constuct.
An SSD internally is structured as a pool of blocks that are shared across partitions. It makes no sense to create a separate partition for any purposes other than organization of your data (e.g. to back up partitions separately) or to reserve capacity for overprovisioning.

There is no point in creating a separate partition on an SSD for the page file.

Windows is now designed to use a page file no matter how much ram you have as it acts as virtual memory which allows Windows to move inactive data out of RAM to keep the system responsive. Disabling it can lead to app crashes, low-memory errors, and system instability.
Some applications and games now require a page file to function properly or they will crash no matter how much ram you have.
Disabling can also cause loss of performance or cause instability on SSD.

KevTech said:

Windows is now designed to use a page file no matter how much ram you have as it acts as virtual memory which allows Windows to move inactive data out of RAM to keep the system responsive. Disabling it can lead to app crashes, low-memory errors, and system instability.
Some applications and games now require a page file to function properly or they will crash no matter how much ram you have.
Disabling can also cause loss of performance or cause instability on SSD.

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Hmm, some good points there, lot of conflicting info with PC Worlds article.

So the more digging I do the worse PC Worlds idea of disabling the page file becomes, note the part about some drivers relying on it. Gonna turn mine back on even with 64GB RAM.

Windows 11 can technically run without a page file, but it is not designed to run properly without one. The option to disable it exists mostly for legacy reasons and edge‑case power users, not because it’s a good idea for normal or even advanced systems.

Why Windows 11 expects a page file
Even with huge amounts of RAM, Windows relies on a page file for several core behaviors:
1. Memory compression + paging is part of the OS memory manager
Windows 10/11 aggressively uses:
• Standby lists
• Compression store
• Pagefile-backed sections
Without a page file, the memory manager loses one of its safety valves. That’s when you start seeing:
• Apps refusing to launch
• UWP apps crashing
• “Out of memory” errors despite gigabytes of free RAM
• System instability after long uptimes
2. Crash dumps require a page file
If you want:
• Kernel dumps
• Complete memory dumps
• Automatic crash analysis
…you need a page file large enough to hold the dump. Without it, Windows falls back to a useless “small dump” or none at all.
3. Some drivers and legacy APIs assume pageable memory exists
Even in 2026, you still have:
• GPU drivers
• Audio drivers
• Antivirus engines
• Virtualization stacks
• WSL2
…that allocate pageable memory regions. If the OS can’t page them out, you get unpredictable behavior.
4. Modern apps (especially Electron, Chrome, games) allocate virtual memory far beyond physical RAM
They don’t use it all, but they reserve it.
Without a page file, Windows can’t satisfy those reservations.

So why does Microsoft let you disable it?
Because:
1. Backward compatibility
Windows has allowed page file control since NT4. Removing the option would break:
• Embedded systems
• Kiosk builds
• Specialized VMs
• Certain enterprise lockdown policies
2. Some niche systems truly don’t need one
Examples:
• RAM-disks
• Diskless PXE boot environments
• Hyper-V guests with ballooning
• Systems with extremely fast storage and predictable workloads
These environments are controlled and predictable—unlike a general-purpose desktop.
3. Power users demanded control
Microsoft historically avoids removing knobs that sysadmins rely on, even if 99% of users shouldn’t touch them.

The real-world truth:
• You absolutely want a page file.
• You want it system-managed.
• You want it on the fastest SSD available.
Disabling it only makes sense if you’re doing something extremely specialized and you know exactly how your workload behaves.

PerpetualCycle said:

There is no "end" of an SSD

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@Bree already covered that in post #7

FrancoDT said:

So, the more digging I do the worse PC Worlds idea of disabling the page file becomes, note the part about some drivers relying on it. Gonna turn mine back on even with 64GB RAM.

Windows 11 can technically run without a page file, but < cut >

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Me too. Thanks for the good information.

for those who have Group Policy Editor installed you can configure the swap/page file.
1. encrypt the swap/page file
so data within the swap/page file cant be read by others.

2. force non-page pool usage
make the system use more RAM before swap/page usage.

open the Group Policy Editor to
Computer configuration > Administrative Templates
within this menu scroll down to and open

File system > NTFS
on the right and within this menu

Enable NTFS page file encryption >>set to => Enabled
Enable NTFS non-page pool configuration >>set to => Enabled

restart the system for the changes to take affect.
best of luck Steve ..

DJNelson said:

The article completely missed the fact most of the unnecessary wear on SSDs is caused by W11 having prefetch and superfetch enabled by default. You do NOT need either if your system has a SSD.

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If you don't mind me asking have you disabled yours? I'm thinking about it since it doesn't seem to offer any benefit.

FrancoDT said:

If you don't mind me asking have you disabled yours? I'm thinking about it since it doesn't seem to offer any benefit.

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i have 69 services disabled but SysMain have left alone and have set to Automatic
for the simple reason it moves most used programs to RAM

best of luck Steve ..

XxXxX said:

i have 69 services disabled but SysMain have left alone and have set to Automatic
for the simple reason it moves most used programs to RAM

What is sysmain, and why does it sometimes use a bunch of CPU? Can I disable it, and what happens if I do? - Microsoft Q&A

I know this doesn't seem like a lot but 10-15% is enough to make me worry about it and I've seen it cause way more problems on older computers of mine.

learn.microsoft.com

best of luck Steve ..

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Ah, so still a small benefit then.

FrancoDT said:

Ah, so still a small benefit then.

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i use a RAM disk/drive and move my browser cache files/folders to the RAMdisk
that will save you some wear and tear on an SSD.

AMD ramdisk

and then use cache relocator portable to move the browser cache folders
best of luck Steve ..

I don't screw with any of these settings. Now because I can't or don't know how, I just don't see the point. I don't do intensive gaming, video editing, etc. and I'm guessing that my SSD drives will likely outlast my computer. I still have a couple of old 256GB SATA SSD drives that are around 9-10 years old, they still come up in SMART as good with 80-85% life remaining.

FrancoDT said:

If you don't mind me asking have you disabled yours? I'm thinking about it since it doesn't seem to offer any benefit.

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Yes. Windows search is disabled too. Getting that to work without my machine freezing was a challenge, to say the least. The trick is disabling search before windows update adds the search experience host package.

PC World…

antspants said:

PC World…

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Lol, you know back in the 90's I subscribed to their hardcopy paper magazines religiously until they stopped publishing.

FrancoDT said:

Lol, you know back in the 90's I subscribed to their hardcopy paper magazines religiously until they stopped publishing.

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So did I Franco, but I don’t know if I read anything, ever. I bought it for the free software CD on the cover, back in the day.

antspants said:

So did I Franco, but I don’t know if I read anything, ever. I bought it for the free software CD on the cover, back in the day.

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I actually learned a lot from them as a newb with his first PC, pictured

i built my first computer with the help of PC World
a Intel Celeron 333 with 16MB (thats right megabyte) of RAM
a 3GB 3.5" HDD 4400RPM, 1.44MB floppy disk drive and a Voodoo 4MB graphics card

in its day a very fast machine (smile)
best of luck Steve ..

XxXxX said:

i built my first computer with the help of PC World
a Intel Celeron 333 with 16MB (thats right megabyte) of RAM
a 3GB 3.5" HDD 4400RPM, 1.44MB floppy disk drive and a Voodoo 4MB graphics card

in its day a very fast machine (smile)
best of luck Steve ..

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My first home computer was an S100 bus box with hand built wirewrapped boards in 1978. I started with the 8080 and then moved to the Z80. I salvaged 2KB static RAM from dead mini-computer boards to populate my memory boards. I used a propane torch to mass unsolder the memory from a 18" x 18" mini-computer memory board. A little clean-up, testing them in a home brew RAM tester, and they were ready for my memory boards. My first hard disk was an 8" 20MB Micropolis hard disk, I had to build a custom interface board to talk to it. The rig ran on Digital Research CP/M. Floppy drives were also 8" Microprolis drives. From the start with 241KB on the floppies, I moved up the scale until the double-sided models stored almost 2MB, that seemed like a lot at the time!