Pagefile.

kmufc77

kmufc77

kmufc77

Soldato
Joined
15 Jul 2007
Posts
4,953
Location
South West
I need to gain a a bit of a space on my SSD as i have just installed a game which is 25GB so i only have 4 GB left.

Is it ok to move the page file from C Drive to one of my spare mechanical drives?

I know the pagefile being moved/disabled has a lot of different views from ppl?
 
Last edited:
pagefiler.png


Set No paging file on the SSD, Set System Managed size on the hard drive

Reboot, run disk cleanup on the SSD
 
scooby555t said:
yes its ok to move it or what to do is disable it on your ssd and then set it to 1 of your other drives
Click to expand...

Dors this not slow down your system though. I have a pagefile of 200mb on my SSD and diabled on the other drives....I have 24GB of Ram though....

Is it better to enable a pagefile on my 1TB data HDD and diable the SSD pagefile totally?
 
200MB? What's the point?

The paging file is a cache for Windows so having on the SSD makes sense in that read/writes are more rapid than from a platter hard disk. However, it will add quite a number of writes to the disk, shortening the lifespan of the drive as well as hogging up a significant amount of space, which is a problem on small SSDs. Whether the extra writes really makes a difference practically is debatable. Will you still be using your 64/128GB SSD in more than five years time? I doubt it personally and if space is an issue then move it to another drive IMO
 
d_brennen said:
200MB? What's the point?

The paging file is a cache for Windows so having on the SSD makes sense in that read/writes are more rapid than from a platter hard disk. However, it will add quite a number of writes to the disk, shortening the lifespan of the drive as well as hogging up a significant amount of space, which is a problem on small SSDs. Whether the extra writes really makes a difference practically is debatable. Will you still be using your 64/128GB SSD in more than five years time? I doubt it personally and if space is an issue then move it to another drive IMO
Click to expand...

I was going by advice given in the Storage Forum....I know what a pagefile is....you didn't really answer the question as to whether one is necessary at all, or if having it on the HDD will negate the speed benefits from a SSD?

If I set the pagefile to windows managed on my SDD (remember 24GB ram) then half my SDD space will disappear as pagefile....one I may not actually be using that much, So do I have one at all, and If I do where is the best place to put it, given the space constrictions on the SSD (128GB)
 
The amount of writes to the PF purely depends on how much RAM you have installed.

200MB may not be enough in most cases. On my own machine after 2 days of Lightroom/Photoshop, gaming and media watching as well as constant browser usage my PF is using a max of 220MB of space (now at 165MB), it is manually set to be 2GB min/max.

Monitor your usage using Windows gadgets or the Resource monitor and then manually set a small enough pagefile based on your usage.

Do not put it on a slower HDD, that's a bit pointless tbh and will decrease performance as the PF gets utilised over heavy sessions.

For reference, I have 16GB RAM and as you can see, the PF is still required and used by Windows, even if the actual usage is tiny (220MB), it's still a needed thing. So yeah, manually set its size if you have a small SSD but set it compensating for any additional need for those times that the usage may increase.

I can't ever see anyone on this forum that I've seen posting so far, using so much pagefile that they need to leave it system managed.
 
Last edited:
d_brennen said:
However, it will add quite a number of writes to the disk, shortening the lifespan of the drive as well as hogging up a significant amount of space, which is a problem on small SSDs.
Click to expand...

I have to question why people would spend a sizable amount on an SSD and then protect it from absolutely all writes possible, as if protecting it from any stressful activity is the sole purpose of owning it in the first place. I reckon that the added speed of having a pagefile read from the ssd is a major bonus of having one, so I have left mine enabled.

I understand that the OP is more concerened with capacity that performance, though. In that case the advice stands that moving the pagefile to another hdd is fine for all intents and purposes.
 
mrk said:
The amount of writes to the PF purely depends on how much RAM you have installed.

200MB may not be enough in most cases. On my own machine after 2 days of Lightroom/Photoshop, gaming and media watching as well as constant browser usage my PF is using a max of 220MB of space (now at 165MB), it is manually set to be 2GB min/max.

Monitor your usage using Windows gadgets or the Resource monitor and then manually set a small enough pagefile based on your usage.

Do not put it on a slower HDD, that's a bit pointless tbh and will decrease performance as the PF gets utilised over heavy sessions.

For reference, I have 16GB RAM and as you can see, the PF is still required and used by Windows, even if the actual usage is tiny (220MB), it's still a needed thing. So yeah, manually set its size if you have a small SSD but set it compensating for any additional need for those times that the usage may increase.

I can't ever see anyone on this forum that I've seen posting so far, using so much pagefile that they need to leave it system managed.
Click to expand...

Thanks...I'll do that.:)
 
mrk said:
The amount of writes to the PF purely depends on how much RAM you have installed.
Click to expand...

Wrong, wrong, wrong. The amount of PF you need is dependent on how much memory is required by the applications you run. The amount of installed RAM is not the only variable.
 
When I had 8GB of RAM the PF usage was higher (500-600MB) than now with 16, exact same usage from day to day,
 
Burnsy2023 said:
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The amount of PF you need is dependent on how much memory is required by the applications you run. The amount of installed RAM is not the only variable.
Click to expand...

I've been running a bunch of stuff....Firefox, some applications such as resource monitors, playing 2 HD movies in different media players, running a Norton full scan, using iTunes, as well as playing skyrim all simultaneously and I am maxing out at around 5-10GB RAM usage....

I have 24GB.......is it necessary to have a page-file on my 128GB SSD?
 
The pagefile will still be used, even if it's a small amount (as above) so yes, it's still needed on the whole. Some people turn it off and have no problems but then again some people only browse the web and play some games so won't see any problems.

Just set it to a small size that's in line with your usage and the only way to do that is by monitoring it using Windows resource centre or other utilities/sidebar gadgets.

This has already been covered in many threads countless times.
 
mrk said:
The pagefile will still be used, even if it's a small amount (as above) so yes, it's still needed on the whole.

Just set it to a small size that's in line with your usage and the only way to do that is by monitoring it using Windows resource centre or other utilities/sidebar gadgets.

This has already been covered in many threads countless times.
Click to expand...

So how is it used if W7 is using my RAM as standby and I still have free RAM on top of the standby.....how can you tell that the PF is actually being accessed?

It may have been mentioned in countless threads, but none that I have participated in, I am failing to see how a PF is of any use if it is never used, or if W7 ignores free Ram to access PF instead how that is beenficial...surely that is pointless.
 
Last edited:
Castiel said:
So how is it used if W7 is using my RAM as standby and I still have free RAM on top of the standby.....how can you tell that the PF is actually being accessed?

It may have been mentioned in countless threads, but none that I have participated in, I am failing to see how a PF is of any use if it is never used, or if W7 ignores free Ram to access PF instead how that is beenficial...surely that is pointless.
Click to expand...

there are apps/addons that can tell you, they just pull the info from within Windows.

pagefile.jpg


The most important thing is if you don't use a PF then you will not get a memory dump or crash report being saved to disk if your system does crash, which is quite important if one day you want to know why your system crashed.
 
mrk said:
there are apps/addons that can tell you, they just pull the info from within Windows.

pagefile.jpg
Click to expand...

What is that and where can I find it.....

Surely though if you disabled the PF then W7 would use the Ram it is ignoring instead.....is it not counterproductive to allow W7 to ignore unused Ram in favour of a PF?

Capture3.png


mrk said:
The most important thing is if you don't use a PF then you will not get a memory dump or crash report being saved to disk if your system does crash, which is quite important if one day you want to know why your system crashed.
Click to expand...

that is why I had a 200mb PF, just in case of that, but people are saying I need far more than that and that 200mb is pointless......I don't particularly want to use up a lot of SSD space for a PF that I don't actually need.....some are saying that it needs to be at elast equal to and up to twice my total Ram....so basically using half my SSD space as a PF....seems entirely daft and counterproductive to me....
 
Last edited:
RAM is not being ignored (or unused). There's a difference between unused and unutilised. Windows will utilise available RAM and write to the PF if/when needed. The same goes for apps. With more RAM available, the PF might be written to less but it depends on what apps you run. For the software I use this seems to be the case especially since I upgraded from 8 to 16GB and noticed the difference on the reports being given.

Essentially there isn't anything being wasted or untapped in Win7.

The gadgets are from http://www.myfavoritegadgets.info/
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom