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


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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?

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

  • Like 2

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

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.

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?

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!?!

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)

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.

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.

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.

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

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 :) 

 

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.

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. 

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

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

  • Like 2

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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) )

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The app is evolving all the time and has made leaps and bounds since I first started reviewing TerraMaster devices almost three years ago. It is not quite there yet if you are comparing the likes of Synology, which, sadly, a lot of users online do all the time. OpenClaw setup One of the main selling points of the new F4-425 Pro is the inclusion of OpenClaw, with TerraMaster claiming that it is "powered by the world's first AI-native TOS 7 OS, supporting local-first smart workflows and independent data control." However, I immediately ran into problems trying to enable OpenClaw. After waiting 20 minutes at the "Enabling" message of the OpenClaw app following installation, I decided to do some searching online and discovered that it couldn't complete the installation process due to SPC being enabled, which is something TOS 7 immediately recommends to be enabled on first boot. SPC for NAS (TOS 7) is basically the same principle as UAC in Windows; it blocks executables from being launched by non-Super Users. After reaching out to my contact about these issues, I received the following response: Anyway, this only became clear when I closed the OpenClaw app screen and clicked on the OpenClaw icon in the taskbar; that is when I saw the message about disabling SPC. I think, due to the fact that this is a requirement, this should be a prompt during the installation process, not when closing the App Market and then trying to launch OpenClaw. There's also no 'Getting started' guide for people like me who have never used OpenClaw. I tried to add an LLM and discovered the tutorial led nowhere. That's when I started looking around the official TerraMaster forums, and I found a guide that helpfully explains that you won't get anywhere with OpenClaw unless you have a paid plan, which is disappointing because I imagined there would be an option to use a local LLM as I do in SubtitleEdit with Whisper-XXL. In addition, with the marketing imagery on the official site, it says that the OpenClaw feature is "all processed 100% locally for absolute privacy." which led me to believe that I could install a local LLM, not one that required paid tokens. In any case, TerraMaster does not provide guidance for this new feature, which was also a selling point of the F4-425 Pro! My contact also provided clarification about the above points I raised with TerraMaster Since it is not in the scope of the review to add paid services, I'll leave that to the people who are more qualified with OpenClaw. F4-425 Pro Surveillance App TOS also comes with a Surveillance app, which is not installed by default; it can be found in the App Market recommended section. In addition, after installing, it doesn't drop a shortcut on the Desktop or top taskbar, but you can "Send to Desktop" from the App Market listing for the app for a quick way to open it. Adding my Reolink POE doorbell camera was painless. TerraMaster doesn't appear to have a repository of preconfigured cameras; instead, the camera must be added using ONVIF or RTSP. No mobile Surveillance app TerraMaster still doesn't have a dedicated Surveillance app, although from searching online, Surveillance can be used and managed through the TNAS mobile app. I tried this with the updated TNAS mobile app beta in combination with TOS 7 and got a message that Surveillance was "Only accessible through web browser," so I reckon this must be limited to the stable versions of TOS 6 and the mobile app. More quirks In addition, whenever I minimized the Live View window in the browser Surveillance app, the feed appeared to switch to the Low-bandwidth stream, and there was no way to get the High-quality stream back. To get the High-quality stream back, I had to close Live View and then reopen it. Benchmarking A pretty cool feature of the TOS 7 is that it allows you to install directly to the NVMe M.2 SSD. In order to do that, you would have to leave out any HDDs during initialization, and even then, the system partitions are always written to two HDDs when they are eventually added. With three NVMe slots, this also gives an interesting scenario where you could build a TRAID storage Pool for installing all your apps and Docker on, and keep the third for SSD cache on the HDD pool. Limitless options! SATA PCIe 3.0 X1 A CrystalDiskMark test on a mapped network drive from within a Windows 11 25H2 PC (image above) connected over a 5 GbE hub was well within acceptable ranges. Although the read result on SATA was a little less than with the F4-425 Plus, for some reason, while writes were generally better. SATA PCIe 3.0 X1 I also ran the NAS Performance tester, which tests the link speed performance. As you can see, it pretty much maxes out the 5GbE connection. Of course, you can also opt to bond the two 5 GbE connections for a bit more umph, but I didn't do that. TOS 7, which, as of testing, is still in Beta, comes with an App Center that has a bunch of handy programs you can install right off the bat, such as Emby, Plex, Docker, as well as in-house Backup and Surveillance solutions. As you can imagine, any media streaming services you would want to host off the F4-425 Pro will work great, thanks to the Intel Core N350 CPU and its 16 GB of DDR5 memory. Accessing from mobile is only possible if Security Isolation Mode is disabled, which can put your NAS at risk from external sources, so there was no way to access it from the TNAS Mobile app. It's also quiet. I had this sat next to my computer on my work desk for the past week, and I did wonder if the noise I was accustomed to with NAS devices would annoy me, but all I could hear was a soft whirring of the rear fan (which was a little annoying) when the disks were not actively copying or reading data. Conclusion So what have I learned? Unfortunately, this release raises a few important questions and concerns that I feel haven't been adequately addressed. What I didn't like Our variant shipped with TOS 7 beta, and it's advised not to use it in a production environment. I feel that's a bit limiting on an $800 device. The mobile app is also still in beta and does not support some of the first-party apps, like Surveillance, and it still has quite a few bugs. I am a bit confused about the OpenClaw marketing along with the F4-425 Pro. I feel like that if it's going to be a main selling point, then offer official guidance on how to get started with it. TerraMaster recommends enabling SPC, but then markets the NAS for use with OpenClaw, which requires disabling SPC to be able to use it, opening up genuine security concerns for the NAS; and that's before you get into the security concerns of OpenClaw itself. Of course, the above issues won't be a problem if you decide to install something else on it, or even go back to the stable TOS 6. I wish TerraMaster had just given TOS 7 as opt-in rather than shipping with it. TOS 7 has been available as a preview since December 2025 (so well before my last TerraMaster review), and according to a thread on Reddit where a user shared a screenshot from the TerraMaster Facebook page, it is scheduled to launch today, June 23, but there's nothing about that in the TerraMaster news blog. My contact confirmed over email that TOS 7 exits beta today. The rubber feet also deserve a mention as they continue to be a problem, with them coming unstuck the moment you shift the F4-425 Pro anywhere on your desk. What I liked What it comes down to, though, aside from what I already mentioned, you are still getting a quality, affordable device here, so recommending it will depend on the individual's use case. If you're just looking for a relatively small NAS device to manage virtual machines on, backup your files, and take care of your home theater streaming, then it is a great device that will certainly futureproof you for some time. It provides good performance, takes up little space, and is, on the whole, very quiet. Four bays afford proper redundancy using TRAID or RAID 5, and you can even expand on storage capacity by adding the 2-bay D5, or 4-bay D8 Hybrid DAS over a USB 3.2 (10Gbps) link. Considering the 2024 releases were more about power, with the likes of an Intel Core i5-1235U high-end laptop CPU under the hood, I asked my contact last time if we could expect more of the same in higher-end models and was told: It makes a lot of sense to use Intel's N350 chip inside a NAS; it is more than capable of doing what the F4-425 Pro is intended for, media streaming and backup. The only downside is still the clear lack of community and even staff support on the official forums. In the past, I have had topics go unanswered for days, or there would be generic-type "we've noted this and passed it onto our developer team" type responses. Along with the other things I mentioned, it all ends up costing it a couple of points. If you are comfortable with the command line, Docker, and setting up TrueNAS or Unraid, you'll be fine. You can do great things with this hardware. In TOS, the apps are a bit lacking, and things don't always work as expected.\ AI NAS?! What has become clear to me this year is that we are going to start seeing all kinds of "AI NAS" come to market, and while that might be good for us consumers, be diligent and research these claims. Although the F4-425 Pro technically comes with AI, it is really using a cloud service that is externally sourced off-device through the third party OpenClaw app. My colleague did review a newcomer to the NAS space earlier this year, and it includes a local AI assistant inside the Zettlab D4 NAS, and they do not even use AI in the product name, check out Chris' review here. Where to buy and a discount coupon However, it does not change the fact that this is truly a great entry-level home media-class NAS that you can buy right now. TerraMaster is having a 20% off launch discount, plus you can also still apply our unique 10% off coupon on checkout, which only works on the official website. So here is a breakdown of the pricing that is only valid on the official TerraMaster website. TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = $575.99 TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = $503.99 TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = £525.59 TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = £460.79 Use NEOWIN coupon code during checkout for 10% discount Over on Amazon US and UK, the F4-425 Pro also gets a 20% launch discount, but here, the above 10% coupon cannot be applied. TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) for $639.99 at Amazon US (was $799.99) TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) for $559.99 at Amazon US (was $699.99) TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) for £583.99 at Amazon UK (was £729.99) TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) for £511.99 at Amazon UK (was £639.99) As an Amazon Associate, when you purchase through links on our site, we earn from qualifying purchases.
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