12GBs of ram means the pagefile size should be........

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Emulex

Diamond Member
Jan 28, 2001
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i have a 2TB partition of files/objects to serve. Proxy-cache/internet accelerator app. The items are transient. Sql server is too expensive to license and its buffers can slow down streaming (except the newest filestream mode in sql)

Since we're talking not only files but objects and ntfs scales poorly with tons of files - why not use 2TB of page file to hold your cache?

I may not have 2TB of ram now. I may someday but the point was said the OS is good at VM; so why re-invent the wheel?
 

Voo

Golden Member
Feb 27, 2009
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0
76
No one will ever need more than 2 TB of RAM. You can quote me on that. :)
Uhm, there are already servers with far more than 2TB RAM - nothing that special really ;) (though nobody would ever use windows for those anyhow)
 

tcsenter

Lifer
Sep 7, 2001
18,816
484
126
Uhm, there are already servers with far more than 2TB RAM - nothing that special really ;) (though nobody would ever use windows for those anyhow)
A server with 2TB is still considered quite special in that probably 1% of servers in use have this much RAM.
 

Emulex

Diamond Member
Jan 28, 2001
9,759
1
71
all the xeon multi-node (ibm 3950x2,nec,etc) can transform and merge into a single unit with capability of 2TB. for SQL server you have to scale-up - there is no real way to scale out.

Cisco did their own nehalem memory controller for 384gb in a node.

Nehalem-ex 8 core 8-way is going to up the ante even further. 16gb/32gb dimm's are going to push as density demands (blades esp). This should give us a break on those pesky 8gb sticks hopefully soon.

An ERP for a large university using sql server could most definitely use 2TB of ram - easily. Talk about nasty numa tuning ;P
 

jimhsu

Senior member
Mar 22, 2009
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76
I think the above comment referred to a monolithic server - i.e. 2 TB of RAM on a single motherboard. I believe we won't be seeing that for a while - and it might use completely different technology by the time we need that much RAM on a single client.
 

aigomorla

CPU, Cases&Cooling Mod PC Gaming Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 28, 2005
21,020
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how did we go from 12GB to 2TB??

that no longer applies to his question.
 

shortylickens

No Lifer
Jul 15, 2003
80,287
17,080
136
I have a SSD and I set the pagefile pretty small. I dont like constant thrashing on my hard drives, and based on what I read from the uber nerds in the SSD thread, I should not be constantly moving data on an SSD. Thats why they recommend using TRIM and not using defrags, to avoid unneeded work.
And seriously, with 8GB of RAM Windows should be just freakin fine. I dont like the idea of my OS deliberately wasting space just cuz it can.
The above arguments of "what if you wanna run 20 programs all of which need 4GB each" is also irrelevant. My CPU couldnt handle doing all that at the exact same time anyways. And I seriously doubt my hard drive or SSD works as fast as RAM, so writing a 12GB pagefile would be slow, noisy, and possibly destructive if I did it all day long. I recently stopped file sharing for that very reason.
 

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
30,672
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I dont like constant thrashing on my hard drives, and based on what I read from the uber nerds in the SSD thread, I should not be constantly moving data on an SSD. Thats why they recommend using TRIM and not using defrags, to avoid unneeded work.

A pagefile doesn't automatically mean "constant thrashing", if you're not pushing memory usage the pagefile won't get used either.

And you bought an SSD to actually use it, right?

And seriously, with 8GB of RAM Windows should be just freakin fine. I dont like the idea of my OS deliberately wasting space just cuz it can.

And it doesn't, Windows doesn't put data in the pagefile for no reason.

And I seriously doubt my hard drive or SSD works as fast as RAM, so writing a 12GB pagefile would be slow, noisy, and possibly destructive if I did it all day long. I recently stopped file sharing for that very reason.

Obviously it's not as fast as main memory, if it were we wouldn't need memory and everything would work directly from your hard disk. And if you've disabled your pagefile and stopped sharing files in order to lower the load on your disks, you're either doing something wrong or are confused as to the life expectancy of your hardware.