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Page file and SSD
- Thread starter Godzilla
- Start date
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2006
The impact on the life of an SandForce SSD, which does data compression, from the page file is negligible. Most of the stuff in RAM is uncompressed so it should compress well. And with 12GB of RAM you are almost never using the page file anyways. There is also a performance benefit from having the page file on the SSD. I wouldn't bother moving it.
What you might want to do is shrink the page file. Right-click Computer and select Properties. The on the right select Advanced System Settings. Under the Performance heading select Settings. Then go to the Advanced tab and under the Virtual Memory heading select Change. Uncheck Automatically manage paging file size for all drives. Then on the C: drive change the page file setting from System managed size to Custom size. Set Initial size to 512 and Maximum size to 12289.
What you might want to do is shrink the page file. Right-click Computer and select Properties. The on the right select Advanced System Settings. Under the Performance heading select Settings. Then go to the Advanced tab and under the Virtual Memory heading select Change. Uncheck Automatically manage paging file size for all drives. Then on the C: drive change the page file setting from System managed size to Custom size. Set Initial size to 512 and Maximum size to 12289.
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2009
Edit: Mr Alpha typed faster than me 
I wouldn't set max size to 12289MB since it will actually reserve that much space on the disk and being a 120GB drive, you probably don't want to give 10% of the total space to the pagefile.
OCZ suggests keeping a pagefile at a set size (they use 2048MB to 2048MB as example) and leaving it on the SSD. I've run with it disabled completely with no issues but in my most recent install I set it at 2048MB fixed like OCZ suggests in their "ABCs of SSD" article.
With 12GB of RAM you won't be paging much at all so no reason to move it to a slow access time mechanical drive
Either way, to move or play with various settings:
Go into Control Panel (Window key + Pause/Break is shortcut) and on the left pane there will be "Advanced System Settings"
Click on the Advanced tab, click Performance then Settings. Then in Advanced tab again click Change...
There you can manage where the pagefile is, how large it is and all that fun stuff.
I wouldn't set max size to 12289MB since it will actually reserve that much space on the disk and being a 120GB drive, you probably don't want to give 10% of the total space to the pagefile.OCZ suggests keeping a pagefile at a set size (they use 2048MB to 2048MB as example) and leaving it on the SSD. I've run with it disabled completely with no issues but in my most recent install I set it at 2048MB fixed like OCZ suggests in their "ABCs of SSD" article.
With 12GB of RAM you won't be paging much at all so no reason to move it to a slow access time mechanical drive
Either way, to move or play with various settings:
Go into Control Panel (Window key + Pause/Break is shortcut) and on the left pane there will be "Advanced System Settings"
Click on the Advanced tab, click Performance then Settings. Then in Advanced tab again click Change...
There you can manage where the pagefile is, how large it is and all that fun stuff.
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2005
- Location
- Camarillo, CA!
that would be my guess as well.
as far as pagefile on a ssd.... i just set mine to 2gb, and am done with it.
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2006
Usually it is a buggy driver. Did the error give any references to any file?
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2006
Hmm... Doesn't seem to be a specific driver and passes memtest. Next I would suspect the drive. Try running chkdsk and system file checker.
No, that is not how it works. It will only reserve the Initial size of 512MB. Windows will then grow the page file if it needs more space. Maximum size only means that Windows isn't allowed to grow beyond it. The reason I recommended 12289 MB is that it should be, if I got the math right, just slightly bigger than his RAM. That, in turn, means he can do a full memory dump, which can be useful to troubleshoot BSODs.Edit: Mr Alpha typed faster than me
- Thread Starter
- #12
how do i run system file checker? chkdsk returned no errors.
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2006
Start a command prompt with administrative priviledges. Then run this command:
Code:
sfc -scannow- Joined
- Oct 23, 2009
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2006
You did restart, right?I just set mine from 2048 - 4096MB and pagefile.sys is 4GB
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2009
Yup. Previously I had it set as 2048-2048MB but I was just curious so I doubled the max size and pagefile.sys doubled in size as well.
Not a big deal, just figured I'd test it. Back to 2048-2048 though since I don't have any reason to use more.
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2006
You know, that means Windows was actually growing your page file. What is your peak commit?
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2009
Not at home but I don't see how or why it would be doing that. 8GB usually shows 12% used with no pagefile at normal desktop idle. My Windows 7 is pretty cut down with RT 7 Lite which might have something to do with it, might've disabled or removed some service or feature.
I'll probably just disable it again as I ran for a year disabled with no issues.
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2006
Yes, but the question is one of Virtual Memory. Windows needs pagefile in order to promise processes that there is memory available because Windows won't give promises to more memory than it has. This doesn't mean it actually gets used.
So the question is how high the commit is (how much memory Windows has promised to make available if there is demand). You commit limit is RAM+pagefile. Typically you want you page file to be big enough that RAM + pagefile is a bit bigger than you commit limit (the most Windows needs to commit to).
So what you want is a measurement based on your max multitasking scenario. Put in a big pagefile for testing purposes, start everything you might have running when you really get multitasking, open whatever documents you would have open, and the look at how high you commit peaked at. Easiest way to find the peak commit is with Process Explorer, under View/System Information. In the memory tab there is a heading called Commit Charge (K). Under it is a number for Peak.
Based on this you can judge the needed pagefile size.
So the question is how high the commit is (how much memory Windows has promised to make available if there is demand). You commit limit is RAM+pagefile. Typically you want you page file to be big enough that RAM + pagefile is a bit bigger than you commit limit (the most Windows needs to commit to).
So what you want is a measurement based on your max multitasking scenario. Put in a big pagefile for testing purposes, start everything you might have running when you really get multitasking, open whatever documents you would have open, and the look at how high you commit peaked at. Easiest way to find the peak commit is with Process Explorer, under View/System Information. In the memory tab there is a heading called Commit Charge (K). Under it is a number for Peak.
Based on this you can judge the needed pagefile size.
