Windows using another disk 100% slowing down the PC

[utnalove]

Hello, I have a powerful PC:

• 
  ■ CPU i7-4930K 3.40GHz
  ■ SSD C drive
  ■ 16GB fast RAM

I use it mostly for Chrome and Outlook. When I use chrome with many tabs open, the computer is very slow. If I want to open some old tab it sometimes takes 2-3 minutes before I can use it.

I noticed that during this time the PC reads a secondary disk... where I only have backups of photos.
The OS with Windows 8.1 is installed on SSD disk C: ... and the photos are on Disk F.

Here you can see the task manager before and after having clicked on a old tab on chrome:

What can I check? It's like cache is being saved on disk F :/

 

[SkyNetRising]

Check System protection status on F: drive. System protection should be enabled on C: drive only.
Check health of your F: drive. Use Hdtune health, post screenshot.
If could also be disk defragmenter running on your F: drive.

 

[rhysiam]

That looks like your F Drive might be in the process dying. First thing I would do is make sure you have an up to date copy or backup of any and all important files that are stored on that drive. Then (and only then) do you start further diagnosis. I might be completely wrong, but on the chance I'm right, disks often fail progressively, so if you act quickly you can get some or all of your data... wait and the drive can go from partly usable to completely dead very quickly.

Once you have a backup/copy of any important files from the F Drive, here's what I'd be checking.

1) Make sure you don't have a Pagefile on your F Drive. Use these instructions to look at your current PageFile settings (BUT STOP AFTER STEP 7! - Don't actually change any settings): https://www.geeksinphoenix.com/blog/post/2016/05/10/how-to-manage-windows-10-virtual-memory.aspx
Is Windows set to "Automatically manage Paging File size for all drives" (it should be, unless you have a good reason to change it).
In the greyed out box listing the paging file size for each drive, is your F drive set to "None"

2) Download a SMART monitoring tool like HDTune. Look at the SMART data tab and post a screenshot here for your F Drive

 

[utnalove]

Hello I think this may be the reason. What do you think?

And here is hdtune:

 

[SkyNetRising]

11GB paging file. Yes - that's excessive.

It would be recommended to move paging file to C: , but you have only 5GB free there.
Uncheck "Automatically manage paging file";
Set custom size for paging file on F: - 1GB initial, 8GB max.

Health of the drive is fine btw.

And check system protection status.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/4533-turn-off-system-protection-drives-windows-10-a.html

 

[rhysiam]

Well the (sort of) good news is that your SMART data for that drive looks fine. It's strange that it would lock the system up, however. That really shouldn't happen.

Windows is, for some reason, storing your PageFile on your F Drive, which seems to be a slow WD Green... about the worst drive you could use for a pagefile.

Does your SSD have plenty of space? Are you happy adding a few write cycles to that drive? If "yes" is your answer to both of those, I'd consider moving the PageFile to your SSD. That still doesn't really explain why the pagefile is getting hammered when you open Chrome, but it's a better performance move long-term anyway (assuming you have the space on your SSD).

Just FYI, some people don't like having a pagefile on your SSD as it does increase the writes and will, technically, wear the drive out sooner. For reference though, I've had my Pagefile on my Samsung 850 Evo for at least two years now and it's currently used 2% of it's rated writes. While it's theoretically possible to run into problems, the concerns are completely overblown IMHO.

 

[rhysiam]

Ah - @Skynet picked up more info than me... follow his advice!