# SSD for the pagefile?



## hat (Aug 7, 2010)

I was thinking of getting a small SSD, primarialy to put the pagefile on it. Here's my dilemma:

1. I don't want my pagefile on my system drive, because it would slow down the performance of the OS because of stuff accessing the page file all the time.

2. I don't want my pagefile on my storage drive, because I really don't want to wear it down with stuff constantly using the page file, and it's not exactly fast enough for optimal use of a page file (5400RPM).

3. If I get a SSD and use it as my system drive, dedicate the velociraptor to games and keep my storage drive the way it is, I still don't want to use my storage drive for the pagefile for reasons explained in 2, and I wouldn't want to put it on my velociraptor, because I would prefer its resources to be dedicated to catering to my games... as I understand it, an SSD can have random reading and writing going on all over the place and still not be crippled due to it not having moving parts, so would it still be just as fast to put the pagefile on the SSD system drive as it were to offload the pagefile to say, a SSD dedicated to hosting the pagefile?

If I did get a SSD, it would be small (like a 32GB model or something) for cost effectiveness. I wouldn't put anything on it other than Windows and the pagefile. The velociraptor would be used for games and programs, and the storage drive to dump the bulk of my crap on.


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## n-ster (Aug 7, 2010)

Get an SSD for the OS + main apps (32gb isn't THAT small) and keep the pagefile on the SSD, it won't slow it down.... it will, however, take some valuable space, so if you want, you could split the pagefile, rarely is more than 1gb of page file, so you could put 1,1.5gb on SSD and 2.5-3gb on another drive since it probably won't be used anyways, or just lmit it to 1.5gb or 2gb on the SSD

For cost effectiveness, you could get a old SSD used or something... like a 40gb intel Generation 1 (non-TRIM) would be dirt cheap, or gen 2 (TRIM) would be relatively cheap


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## hat (Aug 7, 2010)

My Windows folder is around 13GB, so adding 10GB for non windows-folder related crap, which is very generous, I am at 23GB... I like an 8GB pagefile, so that about fills me up.

What is TRIM, exactly?


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## RejZoR (Aug 7, 2010)

I'll never understand ppl buying SSD's for boot drive only. Nearly zero advantage (apart from faster boot).
Either you buy yourself 4x 256GB SSD or just stick with dual velociraptor setup or dual Caviar Black 2TB config. Dual Spinpoint F3 1TB should do it as well. SSD's make significant difference in netbooks and notebooks on several areas, but they hardly justify their existance in PC segment for now unless you go big and expensive on them.
Because they are too small and too expensive for what you can use them. For portable devices, there are several advantages worth considering (low power usage, no vibration, shock resistance, much cooler, increased performance vs slow 5400RPM drives etc). None of this makes any real use on always power grid connected super cooled systems. But you can't do that with a netbook or notebook. So for the time being, you're better off with a very fast "traditional" HDD really.
But when we'll be able to get 512GB SSD drive for under 200-250 EUR, then i wouldn't think much about it.


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## n-ster (Aug 7, 2010)

Everything is Faster and snappier, thats why  You SEEEE a difference


TRIM is a thing that slows down SSD degradation by ALOT... Flash memory degrades, but with TRIM there is practically no degradation

32gb is in reality 30gb IIRC Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit starts at 10.5gb and slowly grows over time quickly to 12-13gb, then after a few years I bet it will be 15-16gb

8gb pagefile is useless really... put 2gb on SSD and 6gb on your Velociraptor. Then put most if not all you non-game apps, and perhaps even 1 game if it isn't too big 


With my 50gb, I have 1-3 games on my SSD and I switch them when I don't play them much or anymore


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## mcloughj (Aug 7, 2010)

RejZoR said:


> I'll never understand ppl buying SSD's for boot drive only. Nearly zero advantage (apart from faster boot).


Couldn't disagree with you more. everything is faster whenyou have your OS on an SSD. And an raid0 array of two SSDs is even better...


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## n-ster (Aug 7, 2010)

RAID 0 does take off TRIM though, unless you have the intel drives, they have a driver that enables TRIM even in RAID


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## Dent1 (Aug 7, 2010)

mcloughj said:


> Couldn't disagree with you more. everything is faster whenyou have your OS on an SSD. And an raid0 array of two SSDs is even better...



But for the cost of two SSDs you can buy 4-6 standard hard disk drives, set it up in raid and it will perform much better whilst having 5-6 times the storage.


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## RejZoR (Aug 7, 2010)

What is faster? Loading of games? They are stored on larger classic HDD. Programs? Because of the space you probably have them on HDD as well. And even if you don't, todays systems cache data.
First launch is slightly slower, but once it gets prefetched and cached, it will load instantly. Even after system reboots. So what SSD really does is increases boot speed. But with Hibernation, i don't find that all too useful...


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## Anarchy0110 (Aug 7, 2010)

Man I can't even remember how much a 512Gb SSD cost now  In my opinion you should get about 32-40Gb SSD to suite your needs


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## AsRock (Aug 7, 2010)

I'm guessing you turned off the hibernation file huh ?.  I turn that off and the pagefile although im running 8GB without issue.



n-ster said:


> RAID 0 does take off TRIM though, unless you have the intel drives, they have a driver that enables TRIM even in RAID



good to hear again as i was not 100% sure about that but although had thought that as my performance has not dropped and i'm in Vista not win 7.

Just shows how sad MS not putting trim in Vista.


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## n-ster (Aug 7, 2010)

you have to do firmware update though, TRIM in RAID is quite new


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## Mussels (Aug 7, 2010)

Dent1 said:


> But for the cost of two SSDs you can buy 4-6 standard hard disk drives, set it up in raid and it will perform much better whilst having 5-6 times the storage.



common misconception. RAID only boost throughput, not access times. no matter how many  mechanical drives you add in RAID, you will never, ever come close to the access speed of a single SSD.


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## AsRock (Aug 7, 2010)

n-ster said:


> you have to do firmware update though, TRIM in RAID is quite new



I do yes . Worked like a charm since day 1.  Thats if i get another it's going be a intel one but waiting for them to release a newer one.


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## mcloughj (Aug 7, 2010)

RejZoR said:


> What is faster? Loading of games? They are stored on larger classic HDD. Programs? Because of the space you probably have them on HDD as well. And even if you don't, todays systems cache data.
> First launch is slightly slower, but once it gets prefetched and cached, it will load instantly. Even after system reboots. So what SSD really does is increases boot speed. But with Hibernation, i don't find that all too useful...



I have 2 120gb SSDs in raid 0. Win 7 and all progs and games are stored on that array. my docs, desktop and pagefile are on a 750gb samsung f1 drive. all in all a great little setup that loads nearly everything instantly (except games, which I'm reliably informed rely more on processor speed than drive throughput). beats the pants off my work computer which uses HDDs


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## Dent1 (Aug 7, 2010)

Mussels said:


> common misconception. RAID only boost throughput, not access times. no matter how many  mechanical drives you add in RAID, you will never, ever come close to the access speed of a single SSD.



Yes, the latencies will be lower with SSDs, but does lower latencies justify a more expensive product with less throughput and less storage space, I’m not sure. 

It's low latencies is all SSDs have going for it ATM, we can not even factor in noise as most disk drives are almost silent these days.

SSDs have its benefits for small niche reasons, like doing graphic design and video editing on a professional level as part of a job, but value for money it isn’t there yet. RAID will never be mainstream until they can compete with disk drives for storage at similar prices.


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## Mussels (Aug 7, 2010)

Dent1 said:


> Yes, the latencies will be lower with SSDs, but does lower latencies justify a more expensive product with less throughput and less storage space, I’m not sure.
> 
> SSDs have its benefits for small niche reasons, like doing graphic design and video editing on a professional level as part of a job, but value for money it isn’t there yet. RAID will never be mainstream until they can compete with disk drives for storage at similar prices.



for any use which deals with large amounts of small files, where access time is most important? yes.

just because its not worth it for you, based on personal opinion doesnt mean its not worth it for others.


Hell, windows XP had like 200ms delays on opening all windows and slide out tabs, which to some people meant nothing, while to others it was a night and day difference...

Have your opinion on the matter. Share it. But dont cram it down peoples throats like its the only possibility, just because its the path you chose.


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## DRDNA (Aug 7, 2010)

My path forward on this until SSD prices fall even more is My current Harddrive config of 320GBx4 Perpendicular raid 0 and then probably a small SSD drive just for the page file. That way I have my fast fast read writes and fast access times on page file which will be on the SSD drive


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## Dent1 (Aug 7, 2010)

Mussels,

I'm not saying that SSD is useless if access time alone will help get the job done faster than SSD is the right path. But apart from latencies there is more disadvantages to SSD than mechanical hard drives in RAID at the same price-point and I think its important that the OP understands the disadvantages instead of painting SSD as a superhero. knowing the disadvantages and the advantages gives the threads more balance.

Its the same argument for Velociraptor's which are mechanical drives, they cost way more than standard hard dives, yet with multiple Spin Points or equivalent in RAID you get better value for money price/throughput/storage. Like SSD Velociraptor's only shine in the latencies and are only worth buying IMO for that reason only.


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## scaminatrix (Aug 7, 2010)

This subject always causes some arguments.
IMO the answer would be:
If price is the biggest factor, stick with HDD's for the time being.
If you've got the money and want to go for the futureproof/overkill etc., get one of the Intel drives n-ster mentioned with TRIM in RAID and maybe another later...
My opinion anyway


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## Octopuss (Aug 7, 2010)

hat said:


> I don't want my pagefile on my system drive, because it would slow down the performance of the OS because of stuff accessing the page file all the time.


If that is happening, there is much simplier solution: get more RAM! You do not need SSD for that. IF by chance you do not run Windows 7, buy it.


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## scaminatrix (Aug 7, 2010)

Octopuss said:


> If that is happening, there is much simplier solution: get more RAM! You do not need SSD for that. IF by chance you do not run Windows 7, buy it.



This was covered recently, many apps crash without a pagefile as they are coded to use one, as far as I understand.


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## Octopuss (Aug 7, 2010)

scaminatrix said:


> This was covered recently, many apps crash without a pagefile as they are coded to use one, as far as I understand.


Well, I assume he does have one, and that he will too  Just commenting on the idea of lower performance if pagefile is on system drive - unless you have very little memory, pagefile is not used so much you would notice any degradation of performance... (unless you do say intense Photoshop work or something)


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## scaminatrix (Aug 7, 2010)

Octopuss said:


> Just commenting on the idea of lower performance if pagefile is on system drive - unless you have very little memory, pagefile is not used so much you would notice any degradation of performance... (unless you do say intense Photoshop work or something)



My apologies, I thought you meant getting more RAM to disable the pagefile.

hat, I also use a separate HDD just for a pagefile on my gaming PC (and on my AV rig!), there's a difference when loading games, not massive but I notice it. Also helps with defragging - don't have to do it round a pagefile. 
Saying that, maybe you could put your pf on the same drive as you install the games on, and use the other drive for the OS, whichever way round you have them.


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## n-ster (Aug 7, 2010)

I just thought about it but... how about a small RAMdrive for pagefile? xD especially for tripple channel users that rarely use more than 3-4gb 

you could always put a 128mb pagefile on a RAMdrive, since that would not affect performance for RAM or almost not and accelerate pagefile alot


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## AsRock (Aug 7, 2010)

Dent1 said:


> Yes, the latencies will be lower with SSDs, but does lower latencies justify a more expensive product with less throughput and less storage space, I’m not sure.
> 
> It's low latencies is all SSDs have going for it ATM, we can not even factor in noise as most disk drives are almost silent these days.
> 
> SSDs have its benefits for small niche reasons, like doing graphic design and video editing on a professional level as part of a job, but value for money it isn’t there yet. RAID will never be mainstream until they can compete with disk drives for storage at similar prices.



Dont forget how cool they run mine dont even get warm.

Just put the pagefile on a normal HDD and see if it shows the system down any did not really bother me but found that i only needed it on for Titan Quest so it stays disabled now.


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## slyfox2151 (Aug 7, 2010)

n-ster said:


> I just thought about it but... how about a small RAMdrive for pagefile? xD especially for tripple channel users that rarely use more than 3-4gb
> 
> you could always put a 128mb pagefile on a RAMdrive, since that would not affect performance for RAM or almost not and accelerate pagefile alot



erm????

pagefile = ram data stored temporarly in a nother location......

what you susgests he does is shoot himself in the foot? your going to lower the total amount of avalible ram to the system and create a ramdrive out of that so the system can copy ram to ram?


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## RejZoR (Aug 7, 2010)

Well, on my system, whatever i start, boom it starts the very same instance.


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## scaminatrix (Aug 8, 2010)

n-ster said:


> I just thought about it but... how about a small RAMdrive for pagefile? xD especially for tripple channel users that rarely use more than 3-4gb
> 
> you could always put a 128mb pagefile on a RAMdrive, since that would not affect performance for RAM or almost not and accelerate pagefile alot



+1 for a clever idea... sounds cheaper than buying another drive for a pf...


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## Solaris17 (Aug 8, 2010)

why are you guys supporting putting a pagefile on an SSD?! and 2GB? WTF?

ALLOW me to EDUCATE

* Introduction :

For those who don't know, here are the links on how SSDs work, why they've got only limited number of write / erase cycles, and why MLC SSDs have a very short life-span as compared to SLC SSDs. The entire article is in itself quite informative, and you should read it if you've the time to do so.

So now you know that every write / erase means the clock of doom is ticking closer to zero hour for your SSD. The clock ticks ten times faster if you've got a MLC SSD which is what is relatively common. So to protect the data and money you've invested in your SSDs, you definitely need to make them last longer.

But you've got lots of things in Windows, that are an indispensable part of the OS, that keep writing or erasing data a huge number of times without your knowledge. Most of these can be avoided or at least made to operate in such a way that they don't harm your SSDs, and now we'll look at them:

1. Defragmentation software :

Defragmentation software consolidates files by moving all the fragments of a file to one place i.e., to adjacent sectors in a HDD, or adjacent cells in a SSD. In this process, it erases data from some cells and writes them into other cells. Keep doing it daily or even weekly, you're going to end up exceeding the write / erase cycles too quickly for your liking.

And for SSDs, defragmenting is totally unnecessary. You see, in HDDs, the seek head has to move over various sectors and hence it has a read time in the order of miliseconds. So it'd help reduce this seek time noticeably by defragmentation when you place all parts of the file sequentially in order to eliminate the necessity of searching through the entire platter.

But with SSDs, there are no moving parts and the SSD already knows in which cell each part of the file is written and so seek time is thousands of times still less; it's in microseconds, and so however heavily a file is fragmented, the SSD knows exactly where every fragment is, and any amount of fragmentation is not going to affect the seek time of SSDs and hence read time for that file.

So remember to disable defragmentation of any SSD volume that you might be having.

2. Logs and disk clean up utilities :

Logs are another problem because data is being constantly written to the SSD's cells. If you're going to use some disk clean up utility, it'll simply delete the data in those cells. So those cells would have been made to undergo one write / erase cycle everytime the utility cleans up your SSD. And contnuation of the log will be written to other cells (because of wear-levelling) and they will also be made to undergo similar such unnecessary write / erase cycles.

So the best thing is to do is not maintain logs, but if you do need them, like temperature logs for CPU, GPU, etc.. then see if you can change the directory of where a log file is being written. If you can change it, then ensure that the directory does not point to a SSD volume. But most of the logs are maintained by Windows and can't be relocated and so the best thing to do will be to let them be as such and use the clean up utility a lot less frequently.

3. Internet Explorer browser cache and default downloads folder :

The content of every website visited is written to a small browser cache. Within that cache itself, data gets written and rewritten many times. Add to that the number of times you delete that internet cache (or some disk clean utility does it for you) and you end up with a very large number of write / erase cycles.

So you can change the directory of the browser cache and ensure that this directory does not point to a SSD volume. So now, the temporary internet files no longer get written into your SSD. You should also change the default directory where the files you download are saved to, when using download managers, and let the new directory not be on a SSD volume.

4. Instant messaging :

Whenever you send Instant mesages or have PC to PC voice chats, the typed messages, or spoken sound files are written as very small files to the SSD before being sent to the other person (it's in a folder which is either the installation folder of the IM software or located in Application Data or Local settings) and then they are deleted after the chat.

Again, these write / erase wears SSD cells. Try installing the program in a mechanical HDD instead of SSD if the IM files are saved to the installation folder. If it's otherwise and the files are written inside Application data or Local settings, only the program creator should alter the program to suit SSDs. Additionally, if you've read through the entire article I've linked this post to, you'll find writing of very small packets of data into most MLC SSDs by itself causes problems.

5. Page file :

Page file or virtual memory is a portion of the HDD, or a particular number of cells of a SSD that's used as if it were RAM. Now data gets written, erased and rewritten into the page file a staggering number of times every minute. And this data is the page file constantly changes with the dynamism of the data in the RAM. So your SSD will hardly last a year if it has got the page file in it.

And wear levelling algorithms will constantly change the cells that act as page file and so you'll end up with all of the cells of the SSD worn out completely in the blink of an eye. So the best option is to add 2 GB more of RAM and then disable your page file altogether. This simple step will dramatically prolong the life of your SSDs, even if you have the operating system in it.

Or if you're very particular about having a page file, you can change the drive where the paging file is, and have it on a mechanical drive instead, but beware; applications will suffer lags because the mechanical drive involved is not as fast as the SSD and hence the benefits of a SSD will not be fully realized as it is made dependent on a mechanical drive.

6. Registry :

Now coming to the second biggest, but the most incurable problem of all: the Windows registry. It grows constantly everytime you install programs or even simply use Windows, and data entries are also constantly being deleted from the registry. The rate at which registry entries are written / erased is in itself enough to wear out SSDs within a few years. Add to that the fact these are written in very small packets, and that disk caching will not be of much use here.

This is most bugging because there is nothing you can do to translocate the registry to another directory. So this can be resolved only if Microsoft decides to create upcoming versions of Windows optimized for SSDs with registry whose location is left to our choice at the time of installation of the OS. Until then there's nothing we users can do. Perhaps the statement "if SSDs suck, blame Windows and not SSDs" has a lot more veracity in it after all.

7. Intelligent disk management :

The simplest way of all; just don't move files from one partition to another or install or uninstall, or create or delete files and folders unless absolutely necessary.

SSDs are simply great with marvellous read and write speeds, lightning quick access times, great durability and with enormous endurance wherein they can last almost infinitely when you just keep reading files from it.

But when it comes to writing files and erasing them many times over as in normal usage, the real Achilles' heel of the SSDs are exposed and that's where the trouble begins with them. This happens to be the sole aspect in which HDDs beat them.

Source


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## scaminatrix (Aug 8, 2010)

Thanks Solaris, some very important and useful info there. 

So we've seen disabling the pagefile causes problems (Thrackan; post #89)
This is where n-ster's idea deserves some merit; If you've got, say, 8 GB of RAM (or hat's 5GB) and you know your pagefile's not being used, could you stick it on an 128MB RAMdisk?
The benefits would be:
Don't have to work/defrag round a pagefile
If you don't have your pf on your OS drive (like me) you free up a drive
Hopefully won't have the problems exprienced with a disabled pagefile


Maybe some could test the theory?


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## Solaris17 (Aug 8, 2010)

scaminatrix said:


> Thanks Solaris, some very important and useful info there.
> 
> So we've seen disabling the pagefile causes problems (Thrackan; post #89)
> This is where n-ster's idea deserves some merit; If you've got, say, 8 GB of RAM (or hat's 5GB) and you know your pagefile's not being used, could you stick it on an 128MB RAMdisk?
> ...



idk if that would work. because a ramdisk unless a physical standalone unit is simply like a virtual drive. granted it will use the ram. but like a virtual machine the ramdisk file will be on the SDD and will be saved too periodicly. The best thing to do imo is switch the pagefile to a seperate drive. and run it as low as possible (windows says 200mb) that will force more ram to be used when virtual memory runs low. but also not wear out the SDD.


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## erocker (Aug 8, 2010)

You don't even need a pagefile. I haven't run into an issue yet where I do need it as I never even come close to maxing out my RAM.


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## hat (Aug 8, 2010)

Stuff uses the pagefile anyway, whether it's there or not. Things still get paged..


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## CDdude55 (Aug 8, 2010)

hat said:


> Stuff uses the pagefile anyway, whether it's there or not. Things still get paged..



But whole whole point of the pagefile is to throw stuff your RAM can't fit onto your drive, why would something default itself to the pagefile and not the RAM first?(considering you have enough RAM)

That's one thing i dont get.


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## fullinfusion (Aug 8, 2010)

SSD's, a waste of money!

wait till they perfect them.


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## twilyth (Aug 8, 2010)

edit - never mind - was thinking of ramdisk not ssd


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## AsRock (Aug 8, 2010)

Further more if you want to save wear and tear you could always tell the OS to put user and account temp files browser cache files on another HDD.  And i my self don't see any performance hit due to the fact of how little this request is.

As for IM programs i just put it on a HDD why does it need to load fast anyways although you might notice a little hit i guess if it was auto starting but not seen one yet.

In the end there is a balance that can be gained for your requirements.


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## erocker (Aug 8, 2010)

hat said:


> Stuff uses the pagefile anyway, whether it's there or not. Things still get paged..



Things get paged to physical RAM, the pagefile is not needed if there is sufficient RAM. I've had zero issues. Nada.


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## Solaris17 (Aug 8, 2010)

erocker said:


> Things get paged to physical RAM, the pagefile is not needed if there is sufficient RAM. I've had zero issues. Nada.



me either. just play safe over 4 disable it. if NEVER had a problem even rendering


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## twilyth (Aug 8, 2010)

erocker said:


> Things get paged to physical RAM, the pagefile is not needed if there is sufficient RAM. I've had zero issues. Nada.



i've tried cutting back on my pagefile several times.  if you are careful not to run lots of background tasks (terminate stay resident - as they used to be called in dos) and not have multiple open windows, you can get away with it.  But without fail, I always open one too many apps and my system first slows down to a crawl and then hangs.  

So finally I just resigned myself to having an 8gig page file (equal to amount of RAM) on my SSD.  I still manage to bump up against the limit from time to time, but it requires some effort now.


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## Solaris17 (Aug 8, 2010)

twilyth said:


> i've tried cutting back on my pagefile several times.  if you are careful not to run lots of background tasks (terminate stay resident - as they used to be called in dos) and not have multiple open windows, you can get away with it.  But without fail, I always open one too many apps and my system first slows down to a crawl and then hangs.
> 
> So finally I just resigned myself to having an 8gig page file (equal to amount of RAM) on my SSD.  I still manage to bump up against the limit from time to time, but it requires some effort now.




thats going to destroy your SSD


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## twilyth (Aug 8, 2010)

Solaris17 said:


> thats going to destroy your SSD



Thanks Solaris.  I read your post and bookmarked the link.  I figured that the SSD was perishable commodity anyway but I've been having problems with both systems that have an ssd slowing down.  Maybe it was the load leveling and all of the other stuff that goes on under the sheets.  IDK.  But I've moved the page file to the 2 internal hdd's and I'll see how that goes.

Personally, I would sacrifice the SSD for better response times but it seems to be getting me just the opposite so we'll see how the new configuration works out.  I put 5gig of pagefile space on each drive hoping that it will use both of them.  I think it fills one first and then the other but I'm pretty sure that I go over 5gig in normal use.


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## Solaris17 (Aug 8, 2010)

twilyth said:


> Thanks Solaris.  I read your post and bookmarked the link.  I figured that the SSD was perishable commodity anyway but I've been having problems with both systems that have an ssd slowing down.  Maybe it was the load leveling and all of the other stuff that goes on under the sheets.  IDK.  But I've moved the page file to the 2 internal hdd's and I'll see how that goes.
> 
> Personally, I would sacrifice the SSD for better response times but it seems to be getting me just the opposite so we'll see how the new configuration works out.  I put 5gig of pagefile space on each drive hoping that it will use both of them.  I think it fills one first and then the other but I'm pretty sure that I go over 5gig in normal use.



seems legit remember to clear /remove the page file fro the SSD and reboot to get your space back


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## btarunr (Aug 8, 2010)

It won't be useful. Put the entire OS on it, and then alter key directory paths (such as Documents, Music) to other drives, install programs on other drives.


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## hat (Aug 8, 2010)

I already use a small RAMdisk for windows/IE temp files.

I guess I'll just keep a pagefile on my velociraptor then..


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## Octopuss (Aug 8, 2010)

Solaris17 said:


> 5. Page file :
> 
> Page file or virtual memory is a portion of the HDD, or a particular number of cells of a SSD that's used as if it were RAM. Now data gets written, erased and rewritten into the page file a staggering number of times every minute. And this data is the page file constantly changes with the dynamism of the data in the RAM. So your SSD will hardly last a year if it has got the page file in it.
> 
> ...


Jesus christ. Not again. (double facepalm)
If you have enough RAM, pagefile is barely being used - but that said, you still DO need it. People should really learn what it does and how it works. Yeah it *usually* works, but you CAN run into problems. I tried myself, and even with small (256MB) pagefile I did get various error messages about being low on memory and stuff. That's simply how it works. See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_memory
http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2008/11/17/3155406.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2008/07/21/3092070.aspx
Saying that pagefile will ruin the SSD in a blink of an eye is simply ridiculous.
and suggesting stuff like disabling it and even creating a RAMdisk for it is too. There are numerous articles about this.

Simply think of the above: if it was true, there would already be an army of people yelling that their SSDs wore out in a month or something from regular use. It is not so!

I agree with redirecting browser cache and possibly temp as well, but the rest of the stuff doesn't make any sense at all.


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## Solaris17 (Aug 8, 2010)

Octopuss said:


> Jesus christ. Not again. (double facepalm)
> If you have enough RAM, pagefile is barely being used - but that said, you still DO need a pagefile. People should really learn what it does and how it works.
> Saying that pagefile will ruin the SSD in a blink of an eye is simply ridiculous.
> and suggesting stuff like disabling it and even creating a RAMdisk for it is too. There are numerous articles about this.
> ...




BS it has been proven before that the system will use the page file for ANYTHING cache related with ANY program before it uses the ram. The system does this on purpose to make sure their is sufficent ram to run the applications processes. that is why when disabling/shrinking the pagefile more ram is used (depending on what is cached*) and also why it is reccomended to have 4+GB.


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## Octopuss (Aug 8, 2010)

Link with proof please.
Are you talking about XP? That would make some sense, because it doesn't manage memory all that well. On Windows 7 - don't touch it! (much)


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## Octopuss (Aug 8, 2010)

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/05/05/support-and-q-a-for-solid-state-drives-and.aspx

Should the pagefile be placed on SSDs?

Yes. Most pagefile operations are small random reads or larger sequential writes, both of which are types of operations that SSDs handle well.

In looking at telemetry data from thousands of traces and focusing on pagefile reads and writes, we find that

* Pagefile.sys reads outnumber pagefile.sys writes by about 40 to 1,
* Pagefile.sys read sizes are typically quite small, with 67% less than or equal to 4 KB, and 88% less than 16 KB.
* Pagefile.sys writes are relatively large, with 62% greater than or equal to 128 KB and 45% being exactly 1 MB in size.

In fact, given typical pagefile reference patterns and the favorable performance characteristics SSDs have on those patterns, there are few files better than the pagefile to place on an SSD.


----

Performance Degradation Over Time, Wear, and Trim

As mentioned above, flash blocks and cells need to be erased before new bytes can be written to them. As a result, newly purchased devices (with all flash blocks pre-erased) can perform notably better at purchase time than after considerable use. While we’ve observed this performance degradation ourselves, we do not consider this to be a show stopper. In fact, except via benchmarking measurements, we don’t expect users to notice the drop during normal use.

Of course, device manufactures and Microsoft want to maintain superior performance characteristics as best we can. One can easily imagine the better SSD manufacturers attempting to overcome the aging issues by pre-erasing blocks so the performance penalty is largely unrealized during normal use, or by maintaining a large enough spare area to store short bursts of writes. SSD drives designed for the enterprise may have as high as 50% of their space reserved in order to provide lengthy periods of high sustained write performance.

In addition to the above, Microsoft and SSD manufacturers are adopting the Trim operation. In Windows 7, if an SSD reports it supports the Trim attribute of the ATA protocol’s Data Set Management command, the NTFS file system will request the ATA driver to issue the new operation to the device when files are deleted and it is safe to erase the SSD pages backing the files. With this information, an SSD can plan to erase the relevant blocks opportunistically (and lazily) in the hope that subsequent writes will not require a blocking erase operation since erased pages are available for reuse.

As an added benefit, the Trim operation can help SSDs reduce wear by eliminating the need for many merge operations to occur. As an example, consider a single 128 KB SSD block that contained a 128 KB file. If the file is deleted and a Trim operation is requested, then the SSD can avoid having to mix bytes from the SSD block with any other bytes that are subsequently written to that block. This reduces wear.

Windows 7 requests the Trim operation for more than just file delete operations. The Trim operation is fully integrated with partition- and volume-level commands like Format and Delete, with file system commands relating to truncate and compression, and with the System Restore (aka Volume Snapshot) feature.

Windows 7 Optimizations and Default Behavior Summary


As noted above, all of today’s SSDs have considerable work to do when presented with disk writes and disk flushes. Windows 7 tends to perform well on today’s SSDs, in part, because we made many engineering changes to reduce the frequency of writes and flushes. This benefits traditional HDDs as well, but is particularly helpful on today’s SSDs.

Windows 7 will disable disk defragmentation on SSD system drives. Because SSDs perform extremely well on random read operations, defragmenting files isn’t helpful enough to warrant the added disk writing defragmentation produces. The FAQ section below has some additional details.

Be default, Windows 7 will disable Superfetch, ReadyBoost, as well as boot and application launch prefetching on SSDs with good random read, random write and flush performance. These technologies were all designed to improve performance on traditional HDDs, where random read performance could easily be a major bottleneck. See the FAQ section for more details.

Since SSDs tend to perform at their best when the operating system’s partitions are created with the SSD’s alignment needs in mind, all of the partition-creating tools in Windows 7 place newly created partitions with the appropriate alignment.


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## Octopuss (Aug 8, 2010)

This one applies to XP, but makes sense even today, because the logic obviously stays the same:

Myth - "Disabling the Paging File improves performance." 

Reality - "You gain no performance improvement by turning off the Paging File. When certain applications start, they allocate a huge amount of memory (hundreds of megabytes typically set aside in virtual memory) even though they might not use it. If no paging file (pagefile.sys) is present, a memory-hogging application can quickly use a large chunk of RAM. Even worse, just a few such programs can bring a machine loaded with memory to a halt. Some applications (e.g., Adobe Photoshop) will display warnings on startup if no paging file is present." 

"In modern operating systems, including Windows, application programs and many system processes always reference memory using virtual memory addresses which are automatically translated to real (RAM) addresses by the hardware. Only core parts of the operating system kernel bypass this address translation and use real memory addresses directly. All processes (e.g. application executables) running under 32 bit Windows gets virtual memory addresses (a Virtual Address Space) going from 0 to 4,294,967,295 (2*32-1 = 4 GB), no matter how much RAM is actually installed on the computer. In the default Windows OS configuration, 2 GB of this virtual address space are designated for each process' private use and the other 2 GB are shared between all processes and the operating system. RAM is a limited resource, whereas virtual memory is, for most practical purposes, unlimited. There can be a large number of processes each with its own 2 GB of private virtual address space. When the memory in use by all the existing processes exceeds the amount of RAM available, the operating system will move pages (4 KB pieces) of one or more virtual address spaces to the computer's hard disk, thus freeing that RAM frame for other uses. In Windows systems, these "paged out" pages are stored in one or more files called pagefile.sys in the root of a partition. Virtual Memory is always in use, even when the memory required by all running processes does not exceed the amount of RAM installed on the system."

Myth - "Putting the Paging File on a RAMdisk improves performance." 

Reality - "Putting a Paging File in a RAM drive is a ridiculous idea in theory, and almost always a performance hit when tested under real-world workloads. You can't do this unless you have plenty of RAM and if you have plenty of RAM, you aren't hitting your paging file very often in the first place! Conversely, if you don't have plenty of RAM, dedicating some of it to a RAM drive will only increase your page fault rate. Now you might say "yeah, but those additional page faults will go faster than they otherwise would because they're satisfied in RAM." True, but it is still better to not incur them in the first place. And, you will also be increasing the page faults that have to be resolved to exe's and dll's, and the paging file in RAM won't do diddly to speed those up. But thanks to the paging file in RAM, you'll have more of them. Also: the system is ALREADY caching pages in memory. Pages lost from working sets are not written out to disk immediately (or at all if they weren't modified), and even after being written out to disk, are not assigned to another process immediately. They're kept on the modified and standby page lists, respectively. The memory access behavior of most apps being what it is, you tend to access the same sets of pages over time... so if you access a page you lost from your working set recently, odds are its contents are still in memory, on one of those lists. So you don't have to go to disk for it. Committing RAM to a RAMdisk and putting a paging file on it makes fewer pages available for those lists, making that mechanism much less effective. And even for those page faults resolved to the RAMdisk paging file, you are still having to go through the disk drivers. You don't have to for page faults resolved on the standby or modified lists. Putting a paging file on a RAMdisk is a self-evidently absurd idea in theory, and actual measurement proves it to be a terrible idea in practice. Forget about it."


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## somebody (Aug 8, 2010)

Octopuss said:


> If you have enough RAM, pagefile is barely being used - but that said, you still DO need it.



If you need to use a paging file or not will vary on a case by case basis but please don't tell me what I need when you don't even have a clue as to what i am doing. It seems disabling the paging file didn't work for you so your assuming it's not going to work for anyone else.

BTW a quote from MS.



> When lots of memory is added to a computer, a paging file may not be required.


or perhaps more fairly





> However, as more RAM is added to a computer, the need for a page file decreases. If you have enough RAM installed in your computer, you may not require a page file at all, unless one is required by a specific application.


Even better the article will hopefully give an idea of how much paging file is needed. [http://support.microsoft.com/kb/889654]




Octopuss said:


> You gain no performance improvement by turning off the Paging File.


IMHO disabling or enabling the paging file (either way ) is about preventing performance degradation and not about performance gains.



Octopuss said:


> Putting a Paging File in a RAM drive is a ridiculous idea in theory


I would agree with this except perhaps in the case of client versions of Windows 32-bit OS's that ignore remapped memory above 4GB. With some RamDisk software drivers that can take advantage of that ignored memory that would otherwise be wasted, it could possibly prove useful.


I don't have a SSD so can not really comment on them but don't they come with a 5 year wear warranty in which case wouldn't the manufacturers be fairly confident of it lasting with a default windows OS environment and paging file?


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## Octopuss (Aug 8, 2010)

somebody said:


> I don't have a SSD so can not really comment on them but don't they come with a 5 year wear warranty in which case wouldn't the manufacturers be fairly confident of it lasting with a default windows OS environment and paging file?


Exactly. This should convince even those who do not believe any technical argument, I'd say.


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## AsRock (Aug 8, 2010)

Well i do and ever since i stopped using XP i've only once needed a paging file for Titan Quest other wise never needed one.

The data on a Intel SSD after time gets scattered so much it looks pretty crazy due to there even wear.

Best way to find out is to disable the paging file and find out for sure after all it wont do any harm.  Although with a bit of common sence you might want to turn it on with 3D apps.  I only use my system for gaming and i play a hell load of games without issue.

Disabling pagefile is best done to keep the wear level down.


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## Mussels (Aug 8, 2010)

AsRock said:


> Well i do and ever since i stopped using XP i've only once needed a paging file for Titan Quest other wise never needed one.
> 
> The data on a Intel SSD after time gets scattered so much it looks pretty crazy due to there even wear.
> 
> Best way to find out is to disable the paging file and find out for sure after all it wont do any harm.  Although with a bit of common sence you might want to turn it on with 3D apps.  I only use my system for gaming and i play a hell load of games without issue.



in vista/7, you cant really disable it. it turns itself back on and off automatically. (at least, thats what i've read - never checked)


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## Octopuss (Aug 8, 2010)

The thing is, according to what I read in various articles, that unless you have extremely little memory and system has to page data to the disk, you do not gain any noticeable performance by disabling the pagefile (if it can be turned off - I do not know either). You can possibly even experience performance decrease if you disable it, if some application wants to allocate some amount of VM - in that case it has to use the RAM, which would otherwise be free.

Me myself, I don't give a shit. With 1.5TB of disk space, 4GB pagefile is nothing. I also checked in Task manager and other monitoring tools and I am 90% sure the pagefile usage, or rather amount of IO operations with it, is minimal, so why bother?


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## BababooeyHTJ (Aug 8, 2010)

fullinfusion said:


> SSD's, a waste of money!
> 
> wait till they perfect them.



I agree. Enable this, move this, disable that, what a PITA. Here is a firmware to fix our screw ups. Oh, it didn't work. Oh, it even made things worse.


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## Octopuss (Aug 8, 2010)

I don't think so. The technology is still somewhat young (relatively...), but far from useless.


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## TIGR (Aug 8, 2010)

*Intel does not support TRIM in RAID*

There have been some reports and claims in various places online that Intel, since Rapid Storage Technology version 9.6, supports TRIM on SSDs configured in RAID arrays. In Intel's own words:



			
				Intel said:
			
		

> The latest: Intel® RST 9.6 will be released this week which includes TRIM support for SSDs. It will support TRIM with SSDs in an AHCI configuration, or with the RAID controller enabled and the SSD is used as a pass through device. An example of this use case is for users that want to use the SSD as a boot drive but still be able to RAID multiple HDDs together to allow for large protect data storage – a great use for the home theater PC. TRIM support for SSDs in a RAID configuration is under investigation and is not included in Intel® RST 9.6.



Source

If Intel has since released an update that _does_ allow the use of TRIM in RAID, please let me know and I will correct this post.


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## Deleted member 74752 (Aug 8, 2010)

I won't pretend to be any type of ssd guru, but you might want to browse this thread... http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=127722.

No single ssd or raid combo has come close to the performance of my HDDBoost with an older 32GB SuperTalent ssd installed. My Vertex 2 came close, but no cigar.


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## AsRock (Aug 8, 2010)

TIGR said:


> There have been some reports and claims in various places online that Intel, since Rapid Storage Technology version 9.6, supports TRIM on SSDs configured in RAID arrays. In Intel's own words:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Totally true i would have to say mine are still hitting above 500BMs just like new.  So as i said in another post trim with intel drivers work in Vista too.


And the drives are for sure spreading the usage over the cells as you can tell when you look at them with a disk defrager.


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## somebody (Aug 9, 2010)

Mussels said:


> in vista/7, you cant really disable it. it turns itself back on and off automatically. (at least, thats what i've read - never checked)



Sounds like an old wives tale that one 

AFAIK Pagefile.sys is used for modifiable data/code i.e. anything that is flagged writeable. If you set "no paging file" then any modifiable sections can not be swapped out to disk. However with data/code that isn't writeable then the file on the disk can be used as virtual memory as it will always be the same (unchanged) and can be read into and out of RAM as required without having to write to the disk. Hope that helps in explaining it.


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## n-ster (Aug 9, 2010)

TIGR said:


> There have been some reports and claims in various places online that Intel, since Rapid Storage Technology version 9.6, supports TRIM on SSDs configured in RAID arrays. In Intel's own words:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



yes intel supports TRIM in RAID, but only intel does


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## TIGR (Aug 9, 2010)

n-ster said:


> yes intel supports TRIM in RAID, but only intel does



Do you mean that Intel supports TRIM on SSDs that are part of a RAID array, or on SSDs that are not themselves part of a RAID array (running as individual drives/"pass through devices"), but which are connected to a storage controller that is running other devices in RAID mode?

As far as I know, you cannot run TRIM and RAID with SSDs simultaneously. RST 9.6 simply allows you to run TRIM with SSDs that are connected to the same controller that is running _other_ drives in RAID (with the SSDs themselves not in RAID).


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## n-ster (Aug 9, 2010)

oh really? I thought it was including those in the RAID array.... Maybe I was in fantasy world 

but google it, perhaps its all misinformation but it seems people say that it includes the RAIDed drives


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## Kreij (Aug 9, 2010)

Intel drivers support TRIM on RAID SSDs, but I do belive it has to be on an Intel board, or at least an Intel based mobo.
I'm not sure, I gave away my only SSD in the 3D contest.


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## BababooeyHTJ (Aug 9, 2010)

TIGR said:


> Do you mean that Intel supports TRIM on SSDs that are part of a RAID array, or on SSDs that are not themselves part of a RAID array (running as individual drives/"pass through devices"), but which are connected to a storage controller that is running other devices in RAID mode?
> 
> As far as I know, you cannot run TRIM and RAID with SSDs simultaneously. RST 9.6 simply allows you to run TRIM with SSDs that are connected to the same controller that is running _other_ drives in RAID (with the SSDs themselves not in RAID).



Thats what I thought. I'm pretty sure that it works in a non-member raid config but not as a member of the raid array.

Tech Report


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## Octopuss (Aug 9, 2010)

Kreij said:


> Intel drivers support TRIM on RAID SSDs, but I do belive it has to be on an Intel board, or at least an Intel based mobo.


That doesn't make sense. I don't think many people use Intel boards 
Anyway, I believe it simply is supported on such device that works with the drivers.


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## ZenZimZaliben (Aug 9, 2010)

I do not use a pagefile. Never had an issue. 

The only issue I have ever seen with not using a pagefile happens with AutoCAD.

If you have enough system RAM you should never have to use a pagefile however there are some exceptions, very rare ones, like autocad.


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## twilyth (Aug 9, 2010)

ZenZimZaliben said:


> I do not use a pagefile. Never had an issue.
> 
> The only issue I have ever seen with not using a pagefile happens with AutoCAD.
> 
> If you have enough system RAM you should never have to use a pagefile however there are some exceptions, very rare ones, like autocad.


Since there seems to be an even split of opinion on this issue, I will just say that if you decide to go with no pagefile, be aware of the symptoms if you do end up running out of memory.  What I have always seen is that first the system slows to a complete glacial crawl and soon after that freezes completely.  And that was with smaller than recommended pagefiles, not no pagefile.  So if you see that happening, you it probably means you either need more ram or should switch the pagefile back on.


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## Kreij (Aug 9, 2010)

I've read and kept up with this thread and read all the posts (yeah, I know not like me lol) and I think that you would really not see any tangible increase in performance by putting the pagefile on an SSD. Especially if you have sufficient RAM.

Just my 2 cents.


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## n-ster (Aug 9, 2010)

but the OS on a SSD he would


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## Octopuss (Aug 9, 2010)

Or just don't think about pointless crap and have both OS and pagefile on the SSD


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## n-ster (Aug 9, 2010)

My system is 1gb on SSD and 8gb on HDD, just FYI, thats ehat seems to work best for me... However, the SSD might die in a few years xD


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## BababooeyHTJ (Aug 9, 2010)

Octopuss said:


> Or just don't think about pointless crap and have both OS and pagefile on the SSD



Why take up valuable space on the SSD with the page file?


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## Perseid (Aug 9, 2010)

scaminatrix said:


> This was covered recently, many apps crash without a pagefile as they are coded to use one, as far as I understand.



This is Windows XP, not 7, but I ran without a pagefile for years. Programs themselves don't crash. If you run out of physical RAM, though, you have a 50% chance of getting the expected "Out of Memory" error, and you have a 50% chance of getting a BSOD. So you do have to be careful.


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## Octopuss (Aug 9, 2010)

If you have enough important data to put on the SSD, then sure... I meant the wear argument though


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## TIGR (Aug 9, 2010)

If you _are_ going to use a pagefile, an SSD is ideal for it. But most of us here would say upgrade your system RAM so you don't hit the slowdowns that come with pagefile operations.

Finally, about disabling the pagefile entirely: here and there, issues may arise from doing so. Maybe you've gotten away with it and experienced no or few problems by disabling it. But what do you really gain by disabling something your system apparently doesn't need to use anyway?


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