Should I use a page file with 6gb memory and an SSD?

BoroRob_UK

BoroRob_UK

BoroRob_UK

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Hi All,

Just curious as to what to set my page file to; using i7 920, 6gb dominator gt 1600mhz and an intel 160gb SSD.. ?


Thanks.
 
I'm inclined to say no, purely because a pagefile will be written to a lot, and I'm going to assume that the SSD is your boot drive (and probably gaming drive too)? If that's the case you'll see an improvement by placing the pagefile on a separate drive.
 
Some SSD's get slower with writing, if you have one of these don't use your SSD.

If you have a HDD (or one of the newer SSD'd that auto-trims), create a partition and make 64kb cluster size, then create a fixed page file on here, I'm not up to Win7 but on xp it was 1.5 times the size of your memory.

Don't disable your page file, 6gb may sound a lot but it's not, and some apps such as Photoshop require the page file to work correctly.

I have 8GB in my machine, and have a 12GB page file on HDD in dedicated 64kb cluster partition. I can have open multiple developer environments, photoshop, and premier pro, then for a break i'll launch into company of heros, i normally see 2-3GB of page file getting used at this point.

I could let windows manage it, but HDD space is so cheap, and making a fixed 12GB there is no delay while windows resizes anything. Also being fixed it's one continuous file (not fragmented). 12GB is maybe overkill, but i'm covered for the life of the windows installation.
 
Leave it on the SSD tbh, If you're stapped for space drop the size down a bit (need at least a couple of GB to be safe), otherwise leave it on automatic.
There seems to be no getting around windows using the damn thing, even when you've loads of RAM, so it may as well go on your fast SSD.
SSD's cope fine with multitasking, you won't notice any slowdowns from the extra activity like you might on an HDD, and your drive lifespan is more than long enough that you won't care about extra wear.
 
You don't want it on your SSD, I personally have no page file, I've got 8GB of RAM, I also don't have any SSDs.

I'm sure the constant writing to the drive via pagefiling is detrimental to its lifespan/performance.
 
kylew said:
You don't want it on your SSD, I personally have no page file, I've got 8GB of RAM, I also don't have any SSDs.

I'm sure the constant writing to the drive via pagefiling is detrimental to its lifespan/performance.
Click to expand...

It does affect lifespan, but when you're talking about a drive lasting 15 years instead of 20, it doesn't really matter.

Performance wise as I mentioned, you won't notice it. SSD's multask really well and windows is intelligent about I/O request priorities.
 
Microsoft said:
Should the pagefile be placed on SSDs?

Yes. Most pagefile operations are small random reads or larger sequential writes, both of which are types of operations that SSDs handle well.

In looking at telemetry data from thousands of traces and focusing on pagefile reads and writes, we find that

Pagefile.sys reads outnumber pagefile.sys writes by about 40 to 1,
Pagefile.sys read sizes are typically quite small, with 67% less than or equal to 4 KB, and 88% less than 16 KB.
Pagefile.sys writes are relatively large, with 62% greater than or equal to 128 KB and 45% being exactly 1 MB in size.
In fact, given typical pagefile reference patterns and the favorable performance characteristics SSDs have on those patterns, there are few files better than the pagefile to place on an SSD.
Click to expand...

From here
 
I found that programs opened faster when I left pagefile on C:\ (i.e., the SSD), rather than having it on a different (mechanical) HDD...

I didn't try it with pagefile disabled...
 
Leave it system managed if you have the space. Microsoft have done far more analysis than us mere mortals as to how it works.

If you're short of GBs on the SSD, then you should monitor typical useage to determine how big you need one. But for a quick and dirty method and general use, then 2GB should be safe.
 
Whilst leaving the paging file to system managed isn't going to cause any problems, it's not the optimal way to set the paging file since it will be based on the amount of RAM you have installed when the page file should be set in accordance to your system usage.

If you are going to manually set the initial and maximum size of the paging file to any old number that you personally think is adequate, your best bet would be to leave it to system managed. If you would like to optimally set the paging file though, then the following article will help you out:

Pushing the Limits of Windows: Virtual Memory
 
Well after reading this thread I did some testing on page files, my testing method was to load lots of apps, then the killer was loading PhotoShop and loading 10GB of jpegs into it. Then I would watch the page file rise to over 6GB and test the general response of the machine.

Then I read into pages files, and it appears they should be set on multiple drives as windows will stripe write to them (RAID 0). I can't find the Microsoft article but MS say you should experiment with multiple page files on different speed drives.

1) When I first posted - I was on a single 8GB page file on HDD, computer performed ok.

2) Created a single 8GB page file on the SSD, computer became slow with jumpy mouse pointer, apps hanging - this gave worse performance then No1. I have a Kingston with JMicro controller.

3) Set a 2GB page file on SSD, and 8GB page file on HDD - This ran better then 1) and 2).

4) Set a 3GB on SSD, 3GB on HDD1, 3GB on HDD2 - this appeared a little quicker then Option 3, and system was nice and responsive even when PhotoShop was loading up. The computer is quite noisy as I have 2 HDD's being accessed.

I may try another test with stripping over just 2 HDD's but option 4 appears pretty good.

Also I have 8GB Ram on XP64, and seeing 6GB of RAM in use, and page file around 6.25 GB. So even with lots of ram 2GB for a page file is not enough.
 
JasonM said:
Well after reading this thread I did some testing on page files, my testing method was to load lots of apps, then the killer was loading PhotoShop and loading 10GB of jpegs into it. Then I would watch the page file rise to over 6GB and test the general response of the machine.

Then I read into pages files, and it appears they should be set on multiple drives as windows will stripe write to them (RAID 0). I can't find the Microsoft article but MS say you should experiment with multiple page files on different speed drives.

1) When I first posted - I was on a single 8GB page file on HDD, computer performed ok.

2) Created a single 8GB page file on the SSD, computer became slow with jumpy mouse pointer, apps hanging - this gave worse performance then No1. I have a Kingston with JMicro controller.

3) Set a 2GB page file on SSD, and 8GB page file on HDD - This ran better then 1) and 2).

4) Set a 3GB on SSD, 3GB on HDD1, 3GB on HDD2 - this appeared a little quicker then Option 3, and system was nice and responsive even when PhotoShop was loading up. The computer is quite noisy as I have 2 HDD's being accessed.

I may try another test with stripping over just 2 HDD's but option 4 appears pretty good.

Also I have 8GB Ram on XP64, and seeing 6GB of RAM in use, and page file around 6.25 GB. So even with lots of ram 2GB for a page file is not enough.
Click to expand...

That's interesting Jason, but how useful is it, you're having problems with the drive in normal use...so moving some of the work off to platter drives may just be making up for the deficiencies in your SSDs controller - especially if it's in a heavily degraded state?

This is what you said in another thread - are you treating the symptom or the cause?

JasonM said:
I am feeling a little similar.

6 months ago I got a 64GB Kingston Value SSD. It's made a massage difference in load times, however at the time I noticed when writing large files my computer would stutter. To counter this I moved everything thats written (Firebox cache, Outlook) to HDD.

Recently i'm getting slow down problems - it's horrible there can be a 20 seconds wait where I can't even move a mouse pointer, I can only figure there is still some files being witten to the SSD and as drive is filling up it's getting worse.

I have 8GB ram in the machine so once applications are loaded there is no swap useage. I'm starting to wonder if HDD is not better, as lock up's are doing my head in. One of my HDD's is a Samsung 1.5 TB (cost < £80), it's used for data only, but to be honest i'd be happy booting of this, at least performance would be consistant.

I think SSD is great, but they need to sort the write delay issue before it can become mainstream.

The other issue I have is i'm on Xp64 - at some point i'm going to install Win7 64. Because my SSD drive is now 'used' will putting a new OS on degrade read performance also. I don't see any trim utilities on Kingston website.
Click to expand...

BoroRob_UK said:
Ok, so the page file should be on my SSD. What size would you recommend? I am not going to be using any Apps like Photoshop.. Just modern games.
Click to expand...

The OP is using a 160GB Intel G2, and isn't running apps like photoshop, I've not see any games hit 2GB pagefile on a 6GB+ RAM machine yet...though there may be some. Short of analysing it correctly as per Fire Wizards post, and the absence of any heavy productivity apps, the 2GB should be a relatively "safe" figure in those circumstances, probably overkill.
 
JasonM said:
Then I would watch the page file rise to over 6GB and test the general response of the machine.
Click to expand...

May I ask how you are measuring page file usage? If you are looking at the "Page File Usage" graph in Task Manager if you are using Windows XP or the "Page File" value under the "System" heading in Task Manager in Windows Vista, it doesn't show actual page file usage and is incorrectly labelled. What you are actually looking at is your commit charge value. The commit charge current, which is what the page file usage graph in Task Manager in Windows XP is represents the amount of committed virtual memory the active processes have allocated.

I would highly recommend reading the Pushing the Limits of Windows: Virtual Memory which will explain things like the above in much more detail.

Regarding the different experiences you have had by testing the paging file when it's placed on your solid state drive and when it's on a mechanical hard drive. I would again agree with what ChileanLlama has said. It seems the problem is due to the solid state drive you have and not simply because there is actually a difference to the extent you are experiencing from having the paging file on a solid state drive compared to having it on a mechanical hard drive.
 
I have always disabled the pagefile, you will only ever have problems if you use up the phisical RAM. So if you know your not going to run out of RAM there is no need for the pagefile, I've had no problems doing this for years.

That said, if I did use a pagefile I'd keep it on the SSD.
 
John24 said:
I have always disabled the pagefile, you will only ever have problems if you use up the phisical RAM. So if you know your not going to run out of RAM there is no need for the pagefile, I've had no problems doing this for years.

That said, if I did use a pagefile I'd keep it on the SSD.
Click to expand...

...or if a program relies upon the existence of virtual memory. Some programs do, including some older games. Plus, you're removing the ability to analyse the cause of faults if there's no pagefile for memory dumps.
 
John24 said:
I have always disabled the pagefile, you will only ever have problems if you use up the phisical RAM. So if you know your not going to run out of RAM there is no need for the pagefile, I've had no problems doing this for years.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but that isn't quite correct. There seems to be a common perception in which a page file is simply used as an overflow of physical memory whereby once physical memory has been used up, the page file is then used, which isn't correct. Having a paging file means modifed pages can be written to the paging file and thus making that memory available for much more useful purposes such as caching. Storing everything into physical memory, including things which aren't being accessed, isn't going to improve system performance, it just means memory is wasted.

If you disable the paging file without any regard to the amount of committed virtual memory for your workload which happens to sum up to be more than the amount of physical memory you have installed in your system, you will run into problems which I demonstrated in my post here. It's worth taking into account that whilst you will usually receive "Your system is low on memory" message when your applications are unable to allocate the virtual memory they want, on a couple of occasions while I was testing this, my system came to a complete halt which forced me to restart. Also, if you don't have a page file, Windows will be unable to generate crash dumps.
 
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