Pagefile on SSHD.

willhub · 11 Nov 2019 at 10:24

Just umming and arring.

On my 2tb Fircuda SSHD I have pagefile, I have 2 NVME drives in my laptop in 3 partitions.

I have 16gb of ram also, should I keep the pagefiel on my SSHD?

TheVoice · 11 Nov 2019 at 13:55

I'd keep it on whatever SSD Windows is installed on (and do so on my own systems). Realistically the additional read/writes aren't going to dramatically affect the lifespan of the drive.

willhub · 11 Nov 2019 at 13:57

Would a pagefile on an NVME hinder it's lifespan as they're a bit more critical on lifespan compared to a HDD or even an SSD so I hear.

Journey · 11 Nov 2019 at 20:12

willhub said:
Would a pagefile on an NVME hinder it's lifespan as they're a bit more critical on lifespan compared to a HDD or even an SSD so I hear.

You hear wrong, any drive will easily outlast normal everyday usage of a system. If you manage to get less than 10 years of life from any sort of NAND flash I'd be surprised.

Rroff · 11 Nov 2019 at 20:16

This day and age you shouldn't really see any significant life time issues with the pagefile.

Personally I've always had the best results from setting the pagefile to the fastest drive in the system and using initial size 1024MB, Maximum 8192MB (or higher if a power user who is actively utilising 32+GB RAM).

System managed tends to allocate a lot of space it isn't using in any meaningful way and result in significantly higher writes for no real good reason from what I can see and the guy who originally developed it doesn't recommend using Microsoft's settings either - though his approach does need to be customised individually for your usage with some knowledge of how commit works and the rather archaic storage structure used, etc.

willhub · 12 Nov 2019 at 09:49

Ok so I decided to move my pagefile to my Intel NVME, and leave a bit on the samsung OS drive, removed totally from the HDD's and WOW, cities skylines whilst still crap frame rate doesn't freeze anymore, I used to have to zoom into the city, and move around for 5 mins to get it all loaded, this doesn't happen anymore!

JasonM · 14 Nov 2019 at 05:10

willhub said:
Ok so I decided to move my pagefile to my Intel NVME, and leave a bit on the samsung OS drive, removed totally from the HDD's and WOW, cities skylines whilst still crap frame rate doesn't freeze anymore, I used to have to zoom into the city, and move around for 5 mins to get it all loaded, this doesn't happen anymore!

This is because an SSD is the best place for page file due to random access.

You should also where possible span the page file over multiple SSD's, it gives a RAID 0 effect and speeds page file access even more.

This also shows that 16GB is not enough for your computer, and you would benefit from more RAM.

Rroff · 14 Nov 2019 at 05:57

JasonM said:
This is because an SSD is the best place for page file due to random access.

You should also where possible span the page file over multiple SSD's, it gives a RAID 0 effect and speeds page file access even more.

This also shows that 16GB is not enough for your computer, and you would benefit from more RAM.

I'm not 100% on how it works on newer OSes but from what I understand when using multiple page files over multiple drives:

-If there is a big difference in performance between drives Windows will almost always end up using the fastest one making the extra page files somewhat redundant. (Like with RAID the biggest gains are when the drives are somewhat matched).
-To some degree Windows will try to use the disc that is least busy which can provide a performance boost in situations where paging is happening from multiple sources so to speak but if your system is that busy with page file access then you seriously need more RAM in most cases and performance will already be sub-ideal.
-Windows won't generally split pages over different discs where it can avoid it reducing the potential RAID like performance increase. (I don't think it will actually split them at all but I can't rule it out either).

willhub · 14 Nov 2019 at 11:11

I definitely need more RAM for cities skylines, but can I justify 100 quid just for one game? Probably not.

Bluecube · 14 Nov 2019 at 11:35

If you’re getting hours of enjoyment from it then hell, yes you can justify it! 16Gb of memory isn’t £100 anymore. I’ve seen prices below £70 for good quality memory.

JasonM · 14 Nov 2019 at 12:48

willhub said:
I definitely need more RAM for cities skylines, but can I justify 100 quid just for one game? Probably not.

Just to clarify are you booting from the SSHD? Also, do you have space on any of your SSD drives?

If the answer to both the above is yes, then with one of your SSD drives enable ReadyBoost via properties on one of your SSD's. 32GB is the max space that can be allocated per drive and you may as well use this amount if available.

There will be people now that say it won't work, but don't listen to them, enable the ReadyBoost and see how the computer feels afterwards.

willhub · 14 Nov 2019 at 13:47

JasonM said:
Just to clarify are you booting from the SSHD? Also, do you have space on any of your SSD drives?

If the answer to both the above is yes, then with one of your SSD drives enable ReadyBoost via properties on one of your SSD's. 32GB is the max space that can be allocated per drive and you may as well use this amount if available.

There will be people now that say it won't work, but don't listen to them, enable the ReadyBoost and see how the computer feels afterwards.

I have one NVME on my desktop and 2 in my laptop

The NVME I'd boot drive and page file, it flys now!

JasonM · 14 Nov 2019 at 13:58

willhub said:
I have one NVME on my desktop and 2 in my laptop

The NVME I'd boot drive and page file, it flys now!

The ReadyBoost option only works if your booting from a spinning disk, if both your computers are booting from solid state, then forget the ReadyBoost option.