Moving PageFile

indyit · 8 Sep 2010 at 14:25

I have a 40GB SSD with my windows installation and a regular 1.5TB 7200RPM HDD as my storage. I've been getting fed up with the SSD always being so very close to running out of space because my pagefile takes up 8GB on its own. I went into advanced settings and changed it to only use the other HDD. Are there any negatives to doing this? Should I not have?

indyit · 8 Sep 2010 at 20:16

Thanks for the advice, I might move it back then. No I don't need it to be that big, it's what Windows recommends (actually a bit more) because I have 8 GB RAM. I'll move it back to the SSD and reduce it to 4GB.

indyit · 8 Sep 2010 at 23:37

NathanE said:
8GB RAM means you should have a minimum 8GB page file... period.

There is such an unbelievable amount of misinformation on this subject.

Yeah, that's why I'm pretty confused on the matter. So should I leave it on my HDD or take up the space on my SSD? (I have 10GB free on it now, I just hate stressing about it because temp files etc. keep making it close to completely full).

indyit · 10 Sep 2010 at 15:09

Wow, there truly doesn't seem to be a right answer here. I'll take NathanE's advice on this one but I'll set the initial size to be 4GB and make the maximum 8GB... been keeping watch on my RAM use and the current things I'm putting the computer to use for never exceeded 4GB.

indyit · 11 Sep 2010 at 14:11

chaosophy said:
Forgetting the pagefile for a minute another thing to check is to see if you have a hiberfil.sys in the root of c:? If you do and you don't hibernate you can get rid of that.
Open a CMD window and type 'powercfg -h off' and then it should let you delete it.

tbh if you are clever about where you install/save stuff and use something like CCleaner to keep on top of your temp files and hotfix uninstallers etc then 40GB should be more than enough for the o/s inc a decent pagefile.

Yeah I turned that off, hibernation is redundant now so I took that away which freed up quite a bit of space. I have near to nothing installed on the SSD, but a lot of "programdata" and some games' save files end up on C. It's fully possible to have a 8GB pagefile on my SSD now.

That said I brought this thread up was for two reasons:
1) What are the pros/cons/consequences of having the pagefile elsewhere
2) What are the pros/cons/consequences of reducing the pagefile size.

From what I've gathered:
1) Leave it on the SSD
2) There are varying opinions on what size the pagefile should be but generally in my case have at least 4GB or just let Windows regulate it. I've taken the middle ground by leaving it in a 4 - 8 range.