32GB RAM being maxed out and page file going crazy on SSD; Get a dedicated HDD?

[riahc3]

Hello,

A PC with 32GB of RAM is getting maxed out so we are upgrading to 64GB. Besides that (and right now) the Windows page file is being killed on the SSD. Besides the RAM, I was thinking of getting a HDD dedicated for the page file. Any drive 100GB would do as long as it is decent and fast (might go with a Raptor).

Good idea?

[Tomo]

The question is what are you doing to max out 32GB RAM?

 

Putting the page file on a dedicated hard drive will help performance and save wear and tear on your SSD though

[Elliot B.]

The question is what are you doing to max out 32GB RAM?

 

Putting the page file on a dedicated hard drive will help performance and save wear and tear on your SSD though

I've always kept my page file on the SSD as that's the C: and is where Windows 8.1 is installed.

 

Should I move the page file to one of my secondary 7,200 RPM HDDs? :s

[Skiver Veteran]

Wow 32GB!

 

I have 8GB in my laptop and always use around 60% ish but that kind of use is insane for a PC? Is it running virtual machines or something?

[Tomo]

I've always kept my page file on the SSD as that's the C: and is where Windows 8.1 is installed.

 

Should I move the page file to one of my secondary 7,200 RPM HDDs? :s

It helps if you are maxing out your memory as it will be quicker to access on its on dedicated HDD, otherwise I would leave it be.

[(Account no longer active)]

Why not just upgrade the RAM further (to 64GB) if your motherboard supports it? Paging really slows down performance.

 

And once again, what exactly is eating up all your RAM?

[+Anarkii Subscriber²]

I would love to know what is maxing out your RAM as I do heavy 3D graphics and comp work in Nuke and im lucky to hit 12GB even when rendering. 
So yeah, what the hell are you running to max out 32GB exactly!?!

[spikey_richie]

My guess is SQL server or some other DB engine.

[riahc3]

Hello,

The question is what are you doing to max out 32GB RAM?

Wow 32GB!

 

I have 8GB in my laptop and always use around 60% ish but that kind of use is insane for a PC? Is it running virtual machines or something?

And once again, what exactly is eating up all your RAM?

So yeah, what the hell are you running to max out 32GB exactly!?!

http://www.solidworks.com/sw/products/simulation/packages.htm

Software eats like a fat kid that loves cake.

Do you a WD2500HHTZ is good for this? Should I go for something else? Or, if budget permits it, go something enterprise-wise? (even though the SATA connection might be the bottleneck there, right)

[T3X4S]

...

Software eats like a fat kid that loves cake.

...

LOL - Gonna have to use that.

[Brian M. Veteran]

I'd personally just buy a smallish cheap SSD and put the pagefile on there rather than a HDD. If you're paging that much, then the performance of the SSD will help - and if it's a cheap SSD which is there just for a page file, who cares if it dies relatively quickly.

[The Dark Knight]

With that much of RAM, is a paging file really necessary? I set a fixed size of 256 MB on systems with 4 GB and above, never had an issue.

[+Anarkii Subscriber²]

Just did some googling based on the software you mentioned, memory will max out no matter how much you put in, especially when doing flow simulations. My advice? put in as much Ram as your mobo allows. A 4TB HD would help too for paging and would speed things up immensely if you need the sims done fast.

[riahc3]

Hello,

LOL - Gonna have to use that.

Not mine. Heard it in a song. 

 

I'd personally just buy a smallish cheap SSD and put the pagefile on there rather than a HDD. If you're paging that much, then the performance of the SSD will help - and if it's a cheap SSD which is there just for a page file, who cares if it dies relatively quickly.

But a small cheap SSD with max out quickly and then what? Will it stop opening programs? Will it use the HDD as a SECOND page file? 

 

With that much of RAM, is a paging file really necessary? I set a fixed size of 256 MB on systems with 4 GB and above, never had an issue.

Yup. Like I said, the page file on the SSD is currently 40GB and growing... 

 

Just did some googling based on the software you mentioned, memory will max out no matter how much you put in, especially when doing flow simulations. My advice? put in as much Ram as your mobo allows. A 4TB HD would help too for paging and would speed things up immensely if you need the sims done fast.

So biggest cheapest no name HDD or or a 10000RPM? Im not leaning towards getting another SSD

[+Anarkii Subscriber²]

Id go the no name, yes the SSD will be faster for I/O, but at the end of the day it wont matter, because your storing information to it, it will only get read when its completed the render of your sim. I only suggest a 4TB for HDD as that should be more than enough for even your most complex simulations, and using it as ure page file drive you can set that number to the size of the drive itself. So in essense, you would have a 4TB RAM drive. 

I have a similar setup for my 3D/Nuke stuff. 
32GB RAM
120GB SSD windows/programs
120GB SSD pagefile
2TB HDD data/movies/tvshows/porn 

Basically I got 152GB ram :) 

 

[riahc3]

Hello,

Id go the no name, yes the SSD will be faster for I/O, but at the end of the day it wont matter, because your storing information to it, it will only get read when its completed the render of your sim. I only suggest a 4TB for HDD as that should be more than enough for even your most complex simulations, and using it as ure page file drive you can set that number to the size of the drive itself. So in essense, you would have a 4TB RAM drive. 

I have a similar setup for my 3D/Nuke stuff. 

32GB RAM

120GB SSD windows/programs

120GB SSD pagefile

2TB HDD data/movies/tvshows/porn 

Basically I got 152GB ram :)

But you use a SSD? First you recommend a normal 7200 HDD and you yourself use a SSD; Just in case you got confused.

I was thinking between the lowest sized 10000RPM HDD raptor drive and a regular 300GBish 7200 HDD drives. I wasnt thinking of anything huge.

Not sure what to do.

[xrobwx71]

Hello,

But you use a SSD? First you recommend a normal 7200 HDD and you yourself use a SSD; Just in case you got confused.

I was thinking between the lowest sized 10000RPM HDD raptor drive and a regular 300GBish 7200 HDD drives. I wasnt thinking of anything huge.

Not sure what to do.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168221485

 

We have 4 of these in our server at work and they work admirably. We are running retail software with 3 terminal thin clients. It runs a huge customer and inventory sql database. 

[Brian M. Veteran]

But a small cheap SSD with max out quickly and then what? Will it stop opening programs? Will it use the HDD as a SECOND page file?

By small I mean a 128 or so GB one. And unless you're doing crazy stuff, i doubt you'll use 64GB ram and a 128GB page file!

Something like the M500. You can get the 120GB for about ?50, and the 240 for about ?80

[ToneKnee]

Id go the no name, yes the SSD will be faster for I/O, but at the end of the day it wont matter, because your storing information to it, it will only get read when its completed the render of your sim. I only suggest a 4TB for HDD as that should be more than enough for even your most complex simulations, and using it as ure page file drive you can set that number to the size of the drive itself. So in essense, you would have a 4TB RAM drive. 

I have a similar setup for my 3D/Nuke stuff. 

32GB RAM

120GB SSD windows/programs

120GB SSD pagefile

2TB HDD data/movies/tvshows/porn 

Basically I got 152GB ram :)

 

 

 

SSD's run far slower than RAM, so unfortunately no, you don't have 152GB RAM. :P

[riahc3]

Hello,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168221485

 

We have 4 of these in our server at work and they work admirably. We are running retail software with 3 terminal thin clients. It runs a huge customer and inventory sql database.

SAS and SATA are compatible right? Just need a adapter for the connector

Ill problably look for a no name 15K HDD.

 

 

By small I mean a 128 or so GB one. And unless you're doing crazy stuff, i doubt you'll use 64GB ram and a 128GB page file!

Something like the M500. You can get the 120GB for about ?50, and the 240 for about ?80

We are currently maxing out 32GB and have a 40GB+ page file....thats 72GB already.

I wouldnt get a brand one (more being a SSD); Id also get a no name brand for the same thing; a SSD as a page file will die. Im scared for this SSD we currently have installed!!!

 

SSD's run far slower than RAM, so unfortunately no, you don't have 152GB RAM. :p

Page file is RAM but slower. :rolleyes: We all understood what he ment.

[+Anarkii Subscriber²]

I use the SSD for my page file as I dont hit more than about 18GB of RAM when doing my 3D stuff. I rarely, if ever, access that SSD. If for whatever reason I do however, it will be a faster read/write than using a standard HDD, and I know id never go over about 64GBs of ram even if doing 3D particle simulations. I just have it there as a 'Just in case'. 

But from what you told us you are constantly maxing out your RAM with your simulations, therefore you would require more space than a cheap SSD provides. See where Im going now? :)

With your 32GB RAM + say a 3TB HDD, your looking at about 3.25TB of RAM, although slowish RAM, but netherless, that would be more than enough for sims I would think.

[Tomo]

The page file is not RAM, its simply a place to put pages of memory aside so that it can quickly retrieve it when it needs it. So when memory is full it dumps a chunk it doesn't require instantly to the page file and then when it needs that bit again it dumps another chunk and reads the original one back in.

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

How much money can you throw at the solution?

 

If you're needing a massive page file, my initial thought is that a HDD isn't the way to go if you also need performance. The read/write times on a hard drive will nuke your processing performance if you start thrashing. If you're looking to mitigate that, I'd recommend picking up a couple of 64GB SSDs and putting them in RAID 0. You'll certainly still suffer I/O blocking, but it'll be much faster than a single HDD, or even a single SSD. SSD wear shouldn't be a big issue. Many SSD's run for longer than most equivalent hard disks would before the write limit is reached.

[neufuse Veteran]

Never used that packadge, but does it have a memory limit setting anywhere? Most high end software you can say yeah I have 128GB of RAM but you only get to use 64GB of it ever.. we have to do this a lot with SQL Servers because they like to cache anything and everything in RAM... if you set max ram you'd never hit a page file since it would keep it from getting to the point it needed it

 

software like that you should never let eat up more then system memory - 4GB (keep 4GB open for the system that apps cant access) there's an equation to estimate this number... I just picked 4GB because most OS's generally want that amount... SQL server we have something similar to 4GB base for up to 16GB of RAM, each 4GB of system ram over that give .5GB to system reserved... etc..etc.. that's not the real equation we use but it's just an example

[riahc3]

Hello,

How much money can you throw at the solution?

Cheapest possible

 

If you're needing a massive page file, my initial thought is that a HDD isn't the way to go if you also need performance. The read/write times on a hard drive will nuke your processing performance if you start thrashing. If you're looking to mitigate that, I'd recommend picking up a couple of 64GB SSDs and putting them in RAID 0. You'll certainly still suffer I/O blocking, but it'll be much faster than a single HDD, or even a single SSD. SSD wear shouldn't be a big issue. Many SSD's run for longer than most equivalent hard disks would before the write limit is reached.

Cost, speed and space. You gotta stop somewhere. If I didnt I would obviously go with the largest SSD in RAID0. But...

A single SanDisk SSD 64 GB I can pick up for about 50? Should I go with that instead of a 300GB+ 7200 or 15000 HDD?

 

 

Never used that packadge, but does it have a memory limit setting anywhere? Most high end software you can say yeah I have 128GB of RAM but you only get to use 64GB of it ever.. we have to do this a lot with SQL Servers because they like to cache anything and everything in RAM... if you set max ram you'd never hit a page file since it would keep it from getting to the point it needed it

 

software like that you should never let eat up more then system memory - 4GB (keep 4GB open for the system that apps cant access) there's an equation to estimate this number... I just picked 4GB because most OS's generally want that amount... SQL server we have something similar to 4GB base for up to 16GB of RAM, each 4GB of system ram over that give .5GB to system reserved... etc..etc.. that's not the real equation we use but it's just an example

Why would I limit the memory? This PC is only and exclusivally used as a terminal server for this program. It does absolutely nothing else. Limiting its RAM would be waste of components/money.

I want to point out that even with 32GB and paging like crazy, performance is still awesome.

BTW, it seems my company has had second thoughts about price to RAM ratio :laugh: We are gonna upgrade it to 40GB (4*8GB (32GB, quad) + 2*4GB (8GB, dual) )