But the cache has mainly filled up with information you no longer need. So losing it doesn't matter, that's why the speed boost comes after the restart. If you decrease the cache, it would fill up faster meaning you would have to restart sooner. you can have 8GB free, but SQL has already cached the max number of pages. It will still slow down. Move it to a faster drive (e.g. SSD) or restart the SQL instance.
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