SharePoint 2013 – enable the Blob Cache

The blob cache (one of four cache types in SharePoint 2013) is a disk based cache to improve the speed at which pages load (it also reduces load on the database server).  Enabling this requires editing the web.config file on each web front end server in the farm:

1. Open IIS Manager
2. In the Connections pane expand the server, expand sites and then right-click the site for the required web application and choose Explore
3. Make a copy of the web.config file
4. Open the web.config file in Notepad
5. Locate the following line:

   <BlobCache location="C:\BlobCache\14" path="\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|jpe|jfif|bmp|dib|tif|tiff|themedbmp|themedcss|themedgif|themedjpg|themedpng|ico|png|wdp|hdp|css|js|asf|avi|flv|m4v|mov|mp3|mp4|mpeg|mpg|rm|rmvb|wma|wmv|ogg|ogv|oga|webm|xap)$" maxSize="10" enabled="false" />

    

6. Change the location attribute as required (I am using E:\BlobCache as this disk has lots of free space) and change the enabled attribute to “true”.  Optionally, change the maxsize attribute to increase beyond 10GB (it is not recommended to set the cache size below 10GB)
7. Save and close the file

Note: This change will apply to all site collections within the web application.