Bozo
Storage? I am Storage!
I would think that having the Pagefile on an SSD would wear it out faster. Thoughts?
Pagefile and SSDs
- Thread starter Bozo
- Start date
ddrueding
Fixture
Probably. But ram is so cheap these days that it mitigates the issue, and the useful life is longer than you need anyway.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
On my new machine (16 GB RAM and 240 GB SSD), I disabled the pagefile for that reason. I figured there will likely never be a scenario where I'll be using enough RAM that not having a pagefile will be an issue. And if that time ever came, RAM is cheap enough that I might consider upgrading to 32 GB.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Architecturally, Windows likes to have a pagefile, whether it's needed or not. My SOP for solid state drives is to provision one on a secondary magnetic disk and disable the one on the SSD. I avoid wear on the SSD that way but still have the pagefile if I need it.
Exactly. I always set the pajamas to the SSD and the size to 4GB. Wear is not an issue.
Bozo
Storage? I am Storage!
pajamas???
It is an Androgen version of the pagefile, I suppose. :erm:
time
Storage? I am Storage!
That was true up to XP, but for Windows 7 I disable it completely. So far, I haven't been able to detect any downside, but I guess your mileage may vary.
Bozo
Storage? I am Storage!
I have a WD Raptor that I set up for my page file. I let Windows 7 create it's own pagefile there. It created a 16GB pagefile, exactly how much memory I have.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
I've been running XP for the last 6 years without a pagefile. I never had any issues that I'm aware of. Just for kicks I turned it on yesterday but haven't noticed any difference one way or another. The pagefile hasn't even been accessed since I turned it on. It seems it's not doing any harm beyond taking up 4 GB on a 2 TB drive, but it's not doing any good, either.
Good to hear that not having a pagefile should be even less of an issue with Windows 7.
It seems there are pros, cons, and maybes on this issue, depending upon whom you ask. I think the real answer here is to test with and without one. If you have enough RAM and don't encounter issues with the pagefile disabled, then leave it off. If you ever encounter problems, it's simple enough to turn it back on.
In any era where 8 GB of RAM is common on entry level machines, and it doesn't cost all that much to have 32 GB, I personally see the pagefile as a relic of another era when it was unrealistic to have more RAM than you could ever possibly need.
ddrueding
Fixture
The other point with regards to SSDs and writes is whether the pagefile sees any action if you have enough RAM. It might never be accessed even if you leave it at default settings.
In either case, SSDs have a high enough write limit for that to be a non-issue.
In either case, SSDs have a high enough write limit for that to be a non-issue.
sechs
Storage? I am Storage!
Unless there's been an architectural change, if you don't set a permanent page file, Windows will just create a temporary one. And, if it's not big enough, you can take a performance hit.
Frankly, if you have to worry about allocating space to a page file that you may not use, either you've picked the wrong operating system, or you need a bigger drive.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
I found a good solution to this problem. Since I'm now occasionally running XP on my new machine with 16 GB of RAM, I just created a ramdisk from the RAM XP can't access and placed the pagefile there, solving two problems at once. Any possible issues with not having a pagefile are solved (although I never had such issues as far as I know). I also make use of some of the RAM which would otherwise go to waste (at least when I'm running XP). I'll continue to run 7 without a pagefile until and unless I encounter any issues.
Stereodude
Not really a
Didn't Intel early on claim the pagefile was the perfect sort of thing to put on a SSD?
I have a few computers where the pagefile resides on the SSD (where the SSD is the only drive) and I've made no attempts to disable or restrict it.
I have a few computers where the pagefile resides on the SSD (where the SSD is the only drive) and I've made no attempts to disable or restrict it.
Makes sense to me. I'm not worried about wearing a SSD out.
timwhit
Hairy Aussie
I wouldn't worry about it either.
sechs
Storage? I am Storage!
Or you can just get a 64-bit operating system. If I understand how that software works, it won't access any of the memory that you can't get to without PAE; you're still wasting RAM.
sechs
Storage? I am Storage!
Thirded.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
I already have Windows 7 64 which I can use most of the time. I figured since I sometimes need to boot into XP to use my microcontroller programmer, I might as well make use of as much of my 16 GB as possible.
The ramdisk driver uses PAE to access RAM above 4 GB which XP otherwise wouldn't touch. XP is actually capable of using more than 4GB of RAM with PAE but M$ disabled access to addresses over 4GB with SP2. You can read about it here. The fact that XP itself can't directly use RAM over 4 GB doesn't preclude other software from loading drivers to access that RAM via PAE. That's my understanding of how the ramdisk driver works. XP sees 3.42 GB of RAM whether or not I activate the ramdisk, so I'm not wasting anything here. I'm just using RAM XP otherwise wouldn't make use of by putting the pagefile in RAM above 4 GB. And incidentally, read comment #47 here. You can edit XP's kernel with a hex editor in order to allow it to access RAM above 4GB. I tried it in a VM and it works but only if I have the ramdisk driver loaded (I created a very small 360K ramdisk just for that purpose):
Bozo
Storage? I am Storage!
It was my understanding the 32bit OSs can not count high enough to access the memory above 3.2GB.
From Here
2[SUP]32[/SUP] = 4,294,967,296 bytes 4,294,967,296 / (1,024 x 1,024) = 4,096 MB = 4GB
It's different for 64-bit:
2[SUP]64[/SUP] = 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 / (1,024 x 1,024) = 16EB (exabytes)
From Here
2[SUP]32[/SUP] = 4,294,967,296 bytes 4,294,967,296 / (1,024 x 1,024) = 4,096 MB = 4GB
It's different for 64-bit:
2[SUP]64[/SUP] = 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 / (1,024 x 1,024) = 16EB (exabytes)
timwhit
Hairy Aussie
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
Just a word of warning here about putting pagefiles on SSDs. About maybe two weeks ago I decided to enable the pagefile just in case some app needed it. I put it on my SSD boot drive, with the minimum/maximum size set to 1 GB. Since then I've gotten 6 BSODs, including 3 on April 1. Prior to that I had zero. I did have system restarts when experimenting with overclocking but never a BSOD. I managed to look at the last one happened and it said PAGE FAULT IN NON-PAGED AREA. I figured it probably had to do with the pagefile, so I disabled it again. So far so good. Moral of the story-pagefiles on an SSD probably isn't a great idea. Either it'll work with your particular setup or it won't.
I've been using an SSD for the pagefiles in multiple computers for almost 5 years now with no problems. The company I work for has been using 100% SSDs in laptops for thousands of users since 2009 with very low failure rates. I think it is pretty common for large companies that buy Dells, Lenodvos, etc.
Last edited:
ddrueding
Fixture
I've never disabled the page file on any of my systems, or done anything else fancy (alignment, etc). I can't remember the last BSOD I've had. <shrug>
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
Like I said, either it'll work or it won't. For whatever reason my particular setup doesn't like the pagefile on an SSD. BTW, the SSD is working fine otherwise. I don't know why a pagefile on it caused issues. In any case, the system worked fine without a pagefile for a few months, so I'll just keep it disabled.
mubs
Storage? I am Storage!
Do you get BSODs if the pagefile is on a magnetic HDD?
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
I haven't tried that yet.