Windows Swap / Page file on SDD

RedGooner · 4 Apr 2011 at 10:26

My System is :-
C Drive : SSD
D Drive : HDD 10000k
RAM 12GB
OS: Win 7 64 Bit

Would moving the Win swap / page to the HDD be better, and make my SSD last longer.

Thanks

Red

andy_mk3 · 4 Apr 2011 at 11:03

Yes, I think it's common practice to disable page file on SSDs, most people run a mechanical drive as well for storage so put it on that instead.

DragonQ · 4 Apr 2011 at 11:03

You didn't say what SSD you have but unless it's an older one, leave the page file on the SSD. That's kind of what it's for - to greatly speed up random read/writes. Modern SSDs don't wear nearly as fast as the "first generation" ones (in fact they'll probably outlast most HDDs) and Microsoft recommend leaving page files on SSDs.

The various tweaks regarding "disable this, disable that" were written for older SSDs and really don't apply any more (except for defrag but that's disabled automatically when you run WEI).

Atom · 4 Apr 2011 at 11:05

Leave it on the ssd..

RedGooner · 4 Apr 2011 at 11:40

thanks for the quick feedback...

Undesirable · 4 Apr 2011 at 14:26

Buy more RAM and disable it altogether.

SenTineL · 4 Apr 2011 at 14:41

MS did a blog on this a while ago...

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.

Source

joxang · 4 Apr 2011 at 15:05

SenTineL said:
MS did a blog on this a while ago...

Source

Which is true in terms of performance, but OCZ and Corsair specifically state that leaving page file at default will likely degrade SSD performance over time and recommend it be greatly reduced in size, or put on a spinny drive. No one really knows however if it actually will affect performance much at all.

Buy more RAM and disable it altogether.

Lots of apps and games behave funny when you don't have a pagefile, or don't run at all (DOW2 off the top of my head). Some crazy people make virtual drives and put their pagefile on a 2GB RAM stick

.

Undesirable · 4 Apr 2011 at 15:56

The question is: if you have >12GB of RAM - do you really need a pagefile at all? Not only does it use up valuable space on your SSD, but it also compromises security if you're using encrypted containers for instance. Also, RAM is still far quicker than any SSD, so why not force as many transactions to take there as possible? I haven't seen many games or apps that require the pagefile, except in some strange (pointless) cases. The only reason I would turn it on is to receive blue-screen error dumps.

stoofa · 4 Apr 2011 at 16:19

Windows will only use the Pagefile if it cannot do what it needs to do in RAM.
Windows doesn't just shift stuff out to the Pagefile when it feels like it.

Many applications throw a wobble if they can't find a pagefile.

I'm running with 12GB of RAM but still allow Windows to manage a pagefile on my second SSD.

joxang · 4 Apr 2011 at 18:31

Undesirable said:
The question is: if you have >12GB of RAM - do you really need a pagefile at all? Not only does it use up valuable space on your SSD, but it also compromises security if you're using encrypted containers for instance.

Lots of apps and games behave funny when you don't have a pagefile, or don't run at all (DOW2 off the top of my head).

Many applications throw a wobble if they can't find a pagefile.

Might seem strange and pointless but loads do require one.

izit · 4 Apr 2011 at 19:05

If you set it to a secondary drive does that mean it won't sleep for power saving? or will it just wake up every time it gets used for page file? :S

Snykch · 5 Apr 2011 at 10:54

joxang said:
Lots of apps and games behave funny when you don't have a pagefile, or don't run at all (DOW2 off the top of my head). Some crazy people make virtual drives and put their pagefile on a 2GB RAM stick .

I've read this before. Some apps want to use the page file regardless of how much system memory is available, so I can understand why forcing the page file back onto a ram drive might seem appealing.

Is there much of a benefit to doing that if you have that amount of RAM to spare anyway? I doubt it.

joxang · 5 Apr 2011 at 10:56

Snykch said:
Is there much of a benefit to doing that if you have that amount of RAM to spare anyway? I doubt it.

I don't think people put the page file on a RAM disk to make things faster...I think the point is that there's no benefit but it (1) all apps will work, apps reliant on a pagefile will run smoothly with no crashes (2) no chance of additional potential ssd wear and tear (3) it's no slower than RAM.