Slow hdd cause stuttering in games?

[peter234]

Hi, I've been starting to get stutters when i play games and i was wondering if it could be my hdd. I've had it for 4 years and its a 2 tb one so that's where i store all my games. I've got an ssd as well but that's only for the OS and other programs.

Here's an overview of the current performance.

 

[rgd1101]

And the rest of your system spec?

 

[peter234]

And the rest of your system spec?

I5 4690k
16 gb ram
gtx 1070 ti

 

[Solandri]

HDDs are about a thousand to over a hundred thousand times slower than RAM. The two main ways they can cause stuttering in games are:

• 
  ■A pagefile on the HDD. Windows considers the pagesfile an extension of RAM, so gives pagefile accesses the highest priority and will freeze everything (even the mouse cursor) while it waits for the HDD to complete the pagefile read/write. Since you have a SSD, make sure the pagefile is on that and not your HDD. Don't bother trying to "save" your SSD from extra wear by moving the pagefile to the HDD. If that's really an issue, you need to add more RAM to your system.
  ■If you fill up your GPU's VRAM, the game will start dumping textures to make room. The vast majority of VRAM is used to hold textures "just in case" they will be used, so dumping some of them is the safest move. If the GPU has dumped a texture and suddenly needs it (you spin around in the game and something with an unloaded texture suddenly comes into view), the game will freeze while it waits to read the texture back from the HDD. The easiest fix for this is to turn texture quality down one notch. That'll drop texture VRAM use by 75%.

If neither of these work, the sure-fire way to determine if the HDD is the problem is to temporarily copy a game to the SSD, then disconnect the HDD and try playing the game off the SSD.

 

[seagate_surfer]

Hello peter234. What brand is your HDD? If it is a Seagate, then you can run our free Seatools software to check on the health of the drive.

 

[peter234]

Hello peter234. What brand is your HDD? If it is a Seagate, then you can run our free Seatools software to check on the health of the drive.

Unfortunately not but i was looking for one to buy as it seems my current one is slow.

 

[bigsmilingbear]

well i think you answered your question.
the quickest alternative is to play games that can preload all the needed files for a full stage to RAM.