Suppose I have a 6 GB page file on an SSD and another 6 GB page file on a traditional mechanical 5400rpm SATA drive. Does Windows take into account the difference in the performance characteristics between the two drives when deciding which page file to use?
If it matters, I'm asking about Windows 7 and higher.
I reviewed this similar question but it doesn't appear to factor in the case of dissimilar storage speeds.
Well if they didn't change anything about page files from XP it should use the least active drive. So whatever drive has more usage it will pick the other drive.
The paging file on the less frequently accessed partition is used most frequently because it is on a partition that is least busy. - https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/314482
Also a page file is a fixed size if set by hand. So it getting bigger would not be an issue. Also having a page file on your SSD could potentially wear down your SSD quicker.
The best way would be to disable the page file on the HDD, and only enable the page file on the SSD. You probably gain nothing from having two separate page files anyway, especially from one that is on a HDD while you have a much faster SSD available.
Just uncheck "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives" in the Virtual Memory setting dialog, then set the settings manually.
I just wanted to come here to say that if you have a storage or backup drive, or a slow drive that doesn't get used a lot in your pc like I do, windows has probably selected that automatically, like it did in my case, I have two SSD's one for boot, one for games and programs, and a slow asf hard drive for backups, and it was destroying performance in ram heavy programs because windows was using it for paging. Definitely set it manually to a faster drive.
