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

[Jlobb2]

What kind of processor is in this desktop?  Does it support more than 32GB of ram?

[riahc3]

Hello,

What kind of processor is in this desktop?  Does it support more than 32GB of ram?

Both the chipset and processor accept a max of 64GB.

[bledd]

SSD is the perfect place for a pagefile.

 

If anything, get more ram and get another SSD, dedicated for the pagefile.

 

 

 

I've never used the program in question, but check if it's got options for working drives or scratch disks.  In Photoshop, you can specify the drive/folder for it to use as a 'paging' area

[riahc3]

Hello,

SSD is the perfect place for a pagefile.

 

If anything, get more ram and get another SSD, dedicated for the pagefile.

 

 

 

I've never used the program in question, but check if it's got options for working drives or scratch disks.  In Photoshop, you can specify the drive/folder for it to use as a 'paging' area

The opinions back and forth are amazing.

I should have made a poll.

[Torolol]

Get a dedicated HDD? for page file?

got a dedicated RAM-disk, a ram disk that pretend to be a HDD at hardware level,

not a software based one that consuming your main RAM.

 

no more spinning-noise of traditional HDD or any possible hardware failure due to physical shock like an earthquake,

no more worry about NAND cells life cycles or financial burden replacing your SSD at regular intervals,

no other hassle configuring the OS, as OS would just assumes that just another ready-to-use storage devices.

but its a niche product i only found the small capacity one (only 64GB, and thats using ancient DDR2),

haven't seen a big capacity (min 512 GB), commercial RAM-drive anywhere, yet.

 

[+LogicalApex MVC]

Hello,

Now this is a way better post! :)

I personally just do IT; I dont work with Solidworks and didnt even see it till about 6 months ago. When building this machine which was geared towards it, I read about softtweaks but since I didnt understand what my collegues need or want (and of course, I dont know or care what the program does), I went a hardware route. Maybe this would be a good time for software tweaks like you mentioned.

Well, since most of you are bent on limiting the program's RAM, I guess when we do this (upgrade the RAM) Ill go ahead and limit it. I gotta read on how to optimize it for Simulation AND also if it affects my collegues' needs.

This is the core of your problem... If you have no care to know how the program you're building the hardware for utilizes the hardware then you're going to end up wasting resources and not getting the results expected...

 

You need to understand the program your optimizing the hardware for to get them to perform optimally together... There is a reason large SQL DBs are run from 15K RPM SAS drives and not consumer grade 7.2K RPM SATA drives, for instance. Knowing the limits of the hardware along side the software demands for your usage case is important. You don't need SAS drives to push SQL server on your local machine with just you, but the same isn't true for a 10K concurrent user system powering a corporate DB holding TBs of data.

[riahc3]

Hello,

This is the core of your problem... If you have no care to know how the program you're building the hardware for utilizes the hardware then you're going to end up wasting resources and not getting the results expected...

 

You need to understand the program your optimizing the hardware for to get them to perform optimally together... There is a reason large SQL DBs are run from 15K RPM SAS drives and not consumer grade 7.2K RPM SATA drives, for instance. Knowing the limits of the hardware along side the software demands for your usage case is important. You don't need SAS drives to push SQL server on your local machine with just you, but the same isn't true for a 10K concurrent user system powering a corporate DB holding TBs of data.

The program I built the hardware for only asked initially for CPU...because I looked for best optimization.

As a matter of fact, the RAM inside that PC is just some OEM POS. We used it because it was already here and because RAM was not a issue at the time.

That being said, I have to look up some tweaks for the program before hand of buying a storage device of some kind and since this thread is shifting left and right.

[snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member]

I've never used SolidWorks myself, but the Mechis here use it. I looked it up briefly and it appears to me that the excessive ram usage is the result of the number of nodes in the mesh in conjunction with the simulations done on that mesh (flow or otherwise). Seems to me you aren't going to be able to limit the memory without reducing the the mesh nodes or changing how the simulation is done. I don't personally know if the latter is even possible as I'm not a domain expert, but the former should be. I'm not really sure if this is a solution though because perhaps the complexity of the mesh is needed. In that case you are probably out of luck without an additional disk or ssd for scratch.

 

Though many people here are saying it is a software issue, they aren't taking into account that this is simulation software and the memory footprints of such things can be absolutely huge. We run hardware simulators here that eat 128+GB of physical memory, can run for days or weeks, and can fill up an entire disk with logs in just one run. It seems to me that depending on what exactly you are simulating, SolidWorks could be thrown on a server with 256GB of physical memory, TB of swap, and then set to run for weeks or a month.

[riahc3]

Hello,

I've never used SolidWorks myself, but the Mechis here use it. I looked it up briefly and it appears to me that the excessive ram usage is the result of the number of nodes in the mesh in conjunction with the simulations done on that mesh (flow or otherwise). Seems to me you aren't going to be able to limit the memory without reducing the the mesh nodes or changing how the simulation is done. I don't personally know if the latter is even possible as I'm not a domain expert, but the former should be. I'm not really sure if this is a solution though because perhaps the complexity of the mesh is needed. In that case you are probably out of luck without an additional disk or ssd for scratch.

 

Though many people here are saying it is a software issue, they aren't taking into account that this is simulation software and the memory footprints of such things can be absolutely huge. We run hardware simulators here that eat 128+GB of physical memory, can run for days or weeks, and can fill up an entire disk with logs in just one run. It seems to me that depending on what exactly you are simulating, SolidWorks could be thrown on a server with 256GB of physical memory, TB of swap, and then set to run for weeks or a month.

Thank you for looking into it and now understanding snaphat :)

When I told my boss about limiting the RAM for Solidworks because "the OS needed it" he looked at me as in ":huh: what the ###### are you talking about; keep looking into it" :laugh: I know the models are built are pretty complex but I also know that AFAIK no software configuration optimizations have been made. So maybe that's something that has be looked into.