System Hibernate file... why 6gb?

peanutbudder · Jan 15, 2013

Today I downloaded Windirstat to view all of my files and see what I could remove to clear up some space on my SSD. I noticed a rather large file that what using 6gb of space on my SSD called hiberfil.sys

My question is why do I need 6gb dedicated to system hibernate? Can I remove this file somehow or make it smaller?

petteyg359 · Jan 16, 2013

Hibernate stores the contents of RAM to disk before powering down. In Linux, the swap partition is used to store this. If you have a swap file of about 2GB, I'd make a wild guess that Windows uses the swap file before it allocates hiberfile.sys. Otherwise, I have no idea why it would be smaller than RAM size. I'd expect it to be slightly larger.

Knufire · Jan 16, 2013

Only way to remove it is to disable hibernation. Elevated CMD, "powercfg -h off".

\dev\goat · Jan 16, 2013

Disable hibernation permanently if you don't use it.

To make hibernation unavailable, follow these steps:
Click Start, and then type cmd in the Start Search box.
In the search results list, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as Administrator.
When you are prompted by User Account Control, click Continue.
At the command prompt, type powercfg.exe /hibernate off, and then press ENTER.
Type exit and then press ENTER to close the Command Prompt window.

To make hibernation available, follow these steps:
Click Start, and then type cmd in the Start Search box.
In the search results list, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as Administrator.
When you are prompted by User Account Control, click Continue.
At the command prompt, type powercfg.exe /hibernate on, and then press ENTER.
Type exit and then press ENTER to close the Command Prompt window.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/920730

peanutbudder · Jan 16, 2013

Thank you guys I will turn it off because my rig never sleeps. Oil! I need that space badly since I'm to cheap to buy a new ssd.

Know Nuttin · Jan 16, 2013

Weird that it's 6GB and not 8 given you have 8GB RAM. In any case, disable it as mentioned above. I always disable it. Win7 hybrid sleep is good enough

TheHutchTTU · Jan 16, 2013

I was under the impression that hibernation is bad for SSDs anyway... :shrug:

peanutbudder · Jan 16, 2013

Yeah, I had no idea that file was even on my ssd until i downloaded Windirstat... I knew to turn off page file but was clueless that hibrenate file took up so much space. I learned something new

Mr Alpha · Jan 17, 2013

Know Nuttin said:
Weird that it's 6GB and not 8 given you have 8GB RAM. In any case, disable it as mentioned above. I always disable it. Win7 hybrid sleep is good enough

That is to be expected. Windows 7 defaults to a hibernation file size that is 75% or RAM. Most people never use all the RAM in their machine and Windows does compress it before writing the content of the RAM to the disk. If Windows can't get the size of the RAM content to fit hibernation will fail.

TheHutchTTU said:
I was under the impression that hibernation is bad for SSDs anyway...

It is just the size of the hibernation file that is the problem. SSD space is expensive. The writes aren't that significant, and since they are sequential the write amplification is minimal.

System Hibernate file... why 6gb?

peanutbudder

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Knufire

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\dev\goat

man /dev/goat

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Know Nuttin

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