Should i turn page filing off

Simply put, every time you open more applications than the RAM on your PC can accommodate, the programs already present in the RAM are automatically transferred to the Pagefile. This process is technically called Paging. The minimum and maximum size of the Pagefile can be up to 1.

Topics Operating Systems. See all comments Why would you adjust the size of the page file? Why would the amount of ram you have present dictate the size you should set your page file to? Post by MikeBwca » Sun Feb 23, am. Privacy Terms. Quick links. Windows Turn off Page file?

Post by MikeBwca » Sat Feb 01, pm I've always been looking for ways to improve system performance. I tried turning off the page file. It was on the C: drive. And, I have 16gig memory.

So I thought I would have thought that with 16g, the page file would not be used, but I was wrong. The result I have no idea! And, no idea why turning off paging would stop BI from crashing. I had though this sound was coming from the BI drive. On example is putting the monitors to sleep is almost instantaneous. Previously, it usually would take at least a few seconds. Re: Windows Turn off Page file?

Post by Thixotropic » Sat Feb 01, pm Hmmmm, that sounds very interesting, I would have guessed the opposite in terms of the stats you reported. Microsoft appears to recommend keeping the pagefile on a SSD for performance reasons. Most pagefile operations are small random reads or larger sequential writes, both of which are types of operations that SSDs handle well. 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.

Unless you're operating on a ridiculously small SSD, there are probably other, better candidates for relocation. Microsoft's information neglects that SSD space is normally at a premium. The pagefile is not performance critical or even important and is taking SSD space away from a potentially installed application which could be.

If you have to hit the pagefile then who cares? Performance has already tanked. Being x faster than 10,, times too slow isn't much of an improvement. The SSD is still a hundred thousand times too slow. I think this info is suspect. You can't possibly have a pagefile read that's less than 4 KB A lot, maybe a majority, of MSKB articles are written by college interns.

Same for a lot of the code samples in the various development kits. They are at least cursorily checked for accuracy and valid conclusions, but if you're looking for something at the same level of Windows Internals , that's the wrong place. If all MSKB articles were written with the same level of competency as Instead we get some real, real trash.

This is utter nonsense. Tell me which file is more performance relevant than the page file?? Certainly not your average Word document. So IF I'd had to put anything on the SSD, then it would be the page file which is being accessed all the time but not an arbitrary application or document. Certainly it's slower than RAM, a lot slower. But still a factor of makes a difference between 1 second and one and a half minutes.

Unfortunately not everybody is in your comfortable position to get gigabytes of RAM into their machine. If I want to load that Word document, then NO file on the system is more performance relevant. Quote: So IF I'd had to put anything on the SSD, then it would be the page file which is being accessed all the time but not an arbitrary application or document. Then you don't have enough RAM.

If the page file is being accessed all the time, then you plain need more RAM. No ifs. No buts. Quote: Certainly it's slower than RAM, a lot slower. That's not really how it works. Quote: Unfortunately not everybody is in your comfortable position to get gigabytes of RAM into their machine. They are in the position to get 8 or 16 GB. I take perfmon stats from a system with just 8 GB. It's coming up on three years old now. It's my main machine. The page file is irrelevant on this system. All you need is one large file copy, and Windows happily throws stuff out from RAM to page file, to make room to disk cache.

Full anti-virus scans, backups and stuff like that work too. Sure, it only matters occasionally, but it's not like you are going to be accessing those particular gigabytes on an SSD very often anyway. Or if you are, you probably want larger SSD. It doesn't really matter whether you have or GBs available in the first place. Hat Monster wrote: Quote:??? If you argue like this, then you shouldn't put any file on the SSD because actually no file is worth the cost.

Of course unless to use your computer mostly single-task, ie compiling only slightly changed source code all the time of using a huge database. I used to have a physically really small machine with a glacier-speed 1. JLarja wrote: All you need is one large file copy, and Windows happily throws stuff out from RAM to page file, to make room to disk cache. As most 16 GB machines are desktops, though, and a lot of these have large mechanical drives too, and Windows supports multiple paging files, specifying a small fixed-size paging file on C: and having a system-managed one on the mechanical drive is not unreasonable.

My only question would be does Windows post-Vista still prefer to page to the least-active drive as XP and did? If so, this strategy would result in slower than desirable paging in normal use, but that's probably a price worth paying. Quote: My only question would be does Windows post-Vista still prefer to page to the least-active drive as XP and did?

Not sure on that one, DG probably knows. So yeah, least active. AndyG wrote: If you had Hat Monster's suggested 16 GB RAM, you do probably want a larger SSD, and your suggestion of multiple paging files seems more like "basic sysadmin" than "get[ting] really fancy" I do both on my personal laptop and on my work computer.

I also have a desktop with 12 GBs. Generally, I consider even talking about page file "fancy", and anything up "really fancy", but perhaps that doesn't quite work in Ars forums. Why would you let Windows take 16 GBs for paging, if you don't expect to need it? I suggested 4 GBs above, but if you are really sure, you only need few megabytes at least, if you have other, on demand page files on other disks.

The 16 GBs required for hibernation just means that we are talking about GBs vs. And if you think 16 to 48 GB page file is required, you probably prefer to have that on SSD instead of HDD, even if it is only times faster right course of action would be, of course, to add more memory.

Heck, you'd probably want to buy an SSD just for that. This issue is going to go away, as Windows 8 introduced a much lower minimum of a few MB, in recognition of this problem. Quote: I suggested 4 GBs above, but if you are really sure, you only need few megabytes at least, if you have other, on demand page files on other disks. Thinking more about this, I'm not sure this is such a good strategy.

If you have one other, Windows-managed paging file on one other disk, your paging file on the SSD will only get used when you're keeping the other disk busy.

If, as you suggest, you had multiple paging file on other disks Windows would spread the load depending which disk is busy - but still, the 4 GB or few MB paging file on the SSD would be largely unused. Quote: And if you think 16 to 48 GB page file is required, you probably prefer to have that on SSD instead of HDD, even if it is only times faster right course of action would be, of course, to add more memory.

In an environment where you can size for your workload e. Well, we haven't talked about default behaviour at any point.