Win 7 x64 - 8GB RAM - What to do with the pagefile?

[Southern Patriot]

OCZ recommend moving the pagefile to a traditional drive if both are installed in their tweaks section on their forum.

And, as someone posted before, Microsoft themselves recommend leaving the pagefile on an SSD. Hard to say which to trust though.

[soonerproud]

And, as someone posted before, Microsoft themselves recommend leaving the pagefile on an SSD. Hard to say which to trust though.

Agreed! There is a lot of confusion being created when you get these mixed messages from Microsoft and SSD manufacturers.

[etempest]

And, as someone posted before, Microsoft themselves recommend leaving the pagefile on an SSD. Hard to say which to trust though.

I think the finger pointing happens that SSD drives can only uses a specific memory address a specific number of time before it's unusable.

Anything that disk thrashes lessens the life of the SSD drive, which the swapfile can do.

I have no doubt OCZ wants it off the SSD, but from a performance reasons windows wants it on the fastest drive.

[Seizure1990]

Someone should call Microsoft and tell them to remove the Pagefile immediately. They obviously don't realize how useless it is.

[techguy77]

Don't keep it on SSD, move it to HDD.

[AimLXJ]

Agreed! There is a lot of confusion being created when you get these mixed messages from Microsoft and SSD manufacturers.

From the OCZ Forum by an offical staff member:

60-62.

Page/Swap File Sizing and Placement

60.

3 options available.. Let the OS manage it, Turn it Off, Manage it yourself.

Initially, let your OS manage it.. then after some monitoring, manage it yourself.

61.

In Windows, turning it off does not mean it will never create one.

If it needs to, Windows will create a temporary one of it's own choosing.

Moving it to slower storage will result in it's functions being slower.

In Win 7 put it on your SSD.

Most Win 7 operations are reads, most writes being sequential.

These are underpinning arguments to eventually manage the Page File.

Don't let it manage your install.

See Screen shot 6

In Windows, Page File can be managed by:

Computer> Advanced> Performance> Settings>

Advanced> Virtual Memory> Change (needs re-boot)

Source: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?79848-THE-BASIC-GUIDE-amp-FAQ-ABC-for-OCZ-SSD

[Southern Patriot]

From the OCZ Forum by an offical staff member:

Yeah, but then they go and repeat the "Windows will create a swap file even if you have it turned off" nonsense. NO IT ****ING WON'T!!!!!!!! Want proof? Turn the swap file off, open Task Manager and watch your RAM useage while you repeatedly open memory intensive programs until you reach the limits of your RAM. After it hits that, you will no longer be able to open any programs, and will get "out of memory" errors (or you system will crash). That is absolute proof of the falsehood of this nonsense.

[OuchOfDeath]

You are the one equating how Linux implements hibernation with how Windows does and then you come to the conclusion that the way Windows designed hibernation is a bad decision. I never even mentioned the pagefile in my post but was pointing out your fallacy in comparing apples and oranges. You then concluded that Windows version is a bad design decision even though hibernation works on Windows and is a mess in Linux. You admit to not even using the feature and then make sweeping conclusions that the way Linux codes hibernation is proper?

Pot meet kettle because you clearly are clueless when it comes to Windows.

OCZ recommend moving the pagefile to a traditional drive if both are installed in their tweaks section on their forum.

No, when I was talking about hibernation I was talking about the design between the two and which yields faster performance, because it's directly comparable to the pagefile discussion, seeing as both are "writing-to-a-file" related.

My main point was pointing out the fallacy of your useless "Windows isn't Linux" argument. Of course Windows isn't Linux, it would then be called Linux if it was Linux, however both are operating systems and both are subject to the same rules when it comes to concepts such as memory management and hard drive I/O. I concluded that writing to a static area of a drive is faster than to a file that dynamically expands. This is a fact. That was my conclusion. You're stating talking points I haven't said.

Now on the point of "even though hibernation works on Windows and is a mess on Linux", I'd like to point out that this is yet again a false argument. What are you trying to prove here? That because Windows hibernation works that it's faster? "Works" and "Faster" are not related concepts, at all. You're jumping off-topic, again. Now I'll explain why Linux hibernation is a mess. It's drivers, BIOS's, and factors like that that make hibernation a mess. However since we were talking about the designs themselves and not which operating system has better driver support, this fact is entirely useless in this discussion here. I'm guessing you had no idea prior to me telling you since you probably wouldn't be throwing out this pointless "Windows isn't Linux" argument if you understood that complex systems such as hibernation and their design is greatly influenced by a myriad of other factors, such as drivers, BIOSes and industry standards in the hibernation API's and all that jazz.

Back on topic. Of course I've used the feature, and it was not a "sweeping conclusion" but what a solid design of it would be. Seeing as you have no knowledge of the internal designs of all these concepts at all, I'd sooner say you're the clueless one. I have yet to see you state any information at all on any of these topics into any depth at all.

[Southern Patriot]

OuchOfDeath, it had appeared from your earlier reply to me that you somehow felt that the fact that Windows uses separate swap and hibernation files made it an inferior design when compared to Linux using the swap file for hibernation. I think that is what Soonerproud was talking about.

[OuchOfDeath]

Yeah, that was my fault. Definitely jumped the gun on that one.

[Salty Wagyu]

MS says yes, OCZ says no, but it doesn't have to be difficult to see whether it's OK for the pagefile to be on the SSD. Run Sysinternals Process Monitor all day monitoring only pagefile.sys and you can see for yourself how little is written to it. Make sure the log is set to be saved to disk (File > Backing Files) otherwise it will fill the pagefile with all its event history and that will affect the results.

[Subject Delta]

No, when I was talking about hibernation I was talking about the design between the two and which yields faster performance, because it's directly comparable to the pagefile discussion, seeing as both are "writing-to-a-file" related.

My main point was pointing out the fallacy of your useless "Windows isn't Linux" argument. Of course Windows isn't Linux, it would then be called Linux if it was Linux, however both are operating systems and both are subject to the same rules when it comes to concepts such as memory management and hard drive I/O. I concluded that writing to a static area of a drive is faster than to a file that dynamically expands. This is a fact. That was my conclusion. You're stating talking points I haven't said.

Now on the point of "even though hibernation works on Windows and is a mess on Linux", I'd like to point out that this is yet again a false argument. What are you trying to prove here? That because Windows hibernation works that it's faster? "Works" and "Faster" are not related concepts, at all. You're jumping off-topic, again. Now I'll explain why Linux hibernation is a mess. It's drivers, BIOS's, and factors like that that make hibernation a mess. However since we were talking about the designs themselves and not which operating system has better driver support, this fact is entirely useless in this discussion here. I'm guessing you had no idea prior to me telling you since you probably wouldn't be throwing out this pointless "Windows isn't Linux" argument if you understood that complex systems such as hibernation and their design is greatly influenced by a myriad of other factors, such as drivers, BIOSes and industry standards in the hibernation API's and all that jazz.

Back on topic. Of course I've used the feature, and it was not a "sweeping conclusion" but what a solid design of it would be. Seeing as you have no knowledge of the internal designs of all these concepts at all, I'd sooner say you're the clueless one. I have yet to see you state any information at all on any of these topics into any depth at all.

The paging file does not dynamically expand, that's an absolute falsehood. Windows will set it at a certain default size, then increase it's size if necessary, it doesn't constantly alter it's size, in fact on the majority of systems the size of the paging file is unlikely to change even if it is set to system managed.

[soldier1st]

the default setting is the optimal setting. even if you turn the pagefile off, windows still uses it.

[OuchOfDeath]

The paging file does not dynamically expand, that's an absolute falsehood. Windows will set it at a certain default size, then increase it's size if necessary, it doesn't constantly alter it's size, in fact on the majority of systems the size of the paging file is unlikely to change even if it is set to system managed.

The benchmarks posted earlier as a pdf seem to tell another story. System-managed is definitely doing something to a certain degree that actually ends up costing performance, whether it's resizing, or fragmentation, or both, or possibly something else.

Edit: Link is here: http://pcformat.techradar.com/files/images/PCF230_Optimise_your_Swapfile.pdf

the default setting is the optimal setting. even if you turn the pagefile off, windows still uses it.

It's been mentioned earlier in the thread that it's not true. It's not true. Try it yourself. Disable it and run a ton of programs and you will get a warning that you're runing out of memory, and push it a bit further and programs will start crashing, and possible the operating systme too.

[tsupersonic]

I have 8GB and Win. 7 x64, and have turned off the page file. Don't need it, and haven't come across any applications/games that have complained about it being off. I'm a happy camper, save myself space on my SSD

[LaP]

Leave Windows to manage it.

Fiddling with the page file will only cause problems, and with 2TB hard drives in this day and age, is it REALLY a problem?

2TB SSD or Raptor.

Wow you are really lucky. Can you send me some cash ?

I have a Raptor (will change to a SSD when it dies) and I reduce mine to 2GB (arbitrary number). No reason to have it bigger if you have 8GB of ram.

It's really weird to see all those "tech savvy" people saying a PC will perform better with a pagefile of 8GB whent the computer already have 8GB of memory.

[Seizure1990]

It's really weird to see all those "tech savvy" people saying a PC will perform better with a pagefile of 8GB whent the computer already have 8GB of memory.

I think some of those people explained why this is the case, if you read.

[x-byte]

Wow, a lot of confusion here.

Leave the pagefile as it is. There is no reason to change it unless you need to adjust/move it because of space limitations. Turning it off will cause more harm than good in the long run.

[Kpssst]

MS says yes, OCZ says no, but it doesn't have to be difficult to see whether it's OK for the pagefile to be on the SSD. Run Sysinternals Process Monitor all day monitoring only pagefile.sys and you can see for yourself how little is written to it. Make sure the log is set to be saved to disk (File > Backing Files) otherwise it will fill the pagefile with all its event history and that will affect the results.

I believe OCZ is saying that if you have two hard drives (a SSD and a traditional one), then it would be beneficial to move the pagefile off the SSD and to the other hard drive, but not turn it completely; Microsoft is saying that it's perfectly fine for the page file to be on the SSD when there are no other alternative drives to put it on.

[soonerproud]

From the OCZ Forum by an offical staff member:

Source: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?79848-THE-BASIC-GUIDE-amp-FAQ-ABC-for-OCZ-SSD

Cool, that clears things up a little. Admittedly it was months ago when I bought my drive I read that suggestion on the OCZ forum. I never actually moved it because I have learned through trial and error to just let Windows do it's own thing for best performance.

OuchOfDeath, it had appeared from your earlier reply to me that you somehow felt that the fact that Windows uses separate swap and hibernation files made it an inferior design when compared to Linux using the swap file for hibernation. I think that is what Soonerproud was talking about.

That was precisely my point but you put it much better.