Almost 100GBs installing windows 7?

[mlah384]

I have two 256GBs SSDs in RAID 0 but after installing windows it is only 411GBs? Is that right?

 

[BFG10K]

Are you talking about free space or volume size?

Volume size will actually be 238GB x 2 = 476GB.

If you have 411GB free, then you’re using 65GB disk space, which is quite a lot for just Windows. You might have big hibernate and page files which you can reduce/eliminate.

 

[mlah384]

How do I delete those?

 

[xj0hnx]

How do I delete those?

You probably do not want to delete the Page file.

Reduce size of Hibernate file ...

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/220051-hibernate-change-size-hiberfil-sys-file.html

Enable/Disable Hibernate ...

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/819-hibernate-enable-disable.html

 

[mlah384]

Thanks! I disabled hibernate and set paging file to 2000-4000MBs... I have 32Gigs of ram so the paging file was like 47gigs! So it now says I have 462GB free of 476GBs! I guess 2000-4000 is ok for paging file?

 

[MontyAC]

You can put the page file on a ram disk since you have so much ram. That's where I put my page file.

 

[Smoblikat]

Ummmmmm......you guys do realize the page file only exists because people dont have enough RAM. Anything over 8gb and a page file is useless. Just remove teh page file.

 

[xj0hnx]

Ummmmmm......you guys do realize the page file only exists because people dont have enough RAM. Anything over 8gb and a page file is useless. Just remove teh page file.

From what I have read some programs will not function, or not function correctly if the Page file is not found. I don't know which programs, but from what it seems it's best just to set it to a pretty small size.

 

[ShintaiDK]

From what I have read some programs will not function, or not function correctly if the Page file is not found. I don't know which programs, but from what it seems it's best just to set it to a pretty small size.

I havent used page file since 2006. Never experienced a problem.

The pagefile basicly serves 2 purposes.
1. Use mass storage as memory.
2. Debugging.

 

[xj0hnx]

I havent used page file since 2006. Never experienced a problem.

What kind of programs do you use? Anything that stores lots of information? Video editing, 3D modeling?

 

[HeXen]

From what I have read some programs will not function, or not function correctly if the Page file is not found. I don't know which programs, but from what it seems it's best just to set it to a pretty small size.

judging from the countless pagefile threads out there. No one else does either.
i seriously doubt there are any modern or updated programs that will not function if there is no pagefile.

 

[ShintaiDK]

What kind of programs do you use? Anything that stores lots of information? Video editing, 3D modeling?

Games, office applications, virtualization, server applications etc.

Its easy to read about the pagefile at MSDN/Technet if in doubt. Any program that require pagefile only uses it for debug purpose. And if you need the pagefile for system memory you are already doing it wrong.

 

[KingFatty]

I set my pagefile to half a GB, but put the setting that would let it grow if necessary.

It never grew. I know there is a remote possibility I may install a really old program that will do a dumb check for the existence of a pagefile, but I can't recall installing really old programs so this is probably never going to happen and I bet I could delete the pagefile entirely and not miss it. I have 8 GB of ram.

 

[fuzzymath10]

There's no problem setting the page file to some nominal number like 1-2GB just in case. That's hardly any space. I'm astounded by the continued attempt to recover free space; I wasted countless hours trying to recover a MB here or there when Windows 98 took up 1/3 of my 1GB hard drive, but on any hard drive over 80GB, the only things worth worrying about are system restore, the hibernation file, and reducing (not removing) the page file which is set to a ridiculous number based on your installed RAM.

 

[taltamir]

Ummmmmm......you guys do realize the page file only exists because people dont have enough RAM. Anything over 8gb and a page file is useless. Just remove teh page file.

Many programs explicitly access the page file rather then ram and will crash or have issues if one does not exist.

If you don't want any HDD caching you should place the pagefile and have excess RAM like he does (32GB is a lot) then place it in a RAMdisk not disable it outright.

 

[GotNoRice]

Ummmmmm......you guys do realize the page file only exists because people dont have enough RAM. Anything over 8gb and a page file is useless. Just remove teh page file.

Spoken like someone who doesn't have the slightest idea of how the memory subsystem in windows works.

Disabling your page file is simply a bad idea.

 

[HeXen]

tell us about the memory subsystem? why have i no see crash in W7 without page since release?

 

[taltamir]

tell us about the memory subsystem? why have i no see crash in W7 without page since release?

Because you are running simple programs that never try to directly address the pagefile?
Or maybe you misunderstood "program crash" as "windows crash". Windows will (probably) not crash when a program crashes doing that.

 

[ShintaiDK]

http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2007/12/14/what-is-the-page-file-for-anyway.aspx
http://www.tweakhound.com/2011/10/10/the-windows-7-pagefile-and-running-without-one/

As said, pagefile is for when you dont have enough memory, or when you run debugging of the OS.

So unless an application specificly ask for the pagefile, then just disable it. Running without a pagefile also gives you a tiny peformance increase.

6 years without pagefile, 0 errors.

 

[taltamir]

As said, pagefile is for when you dont have enough memory, or when you run debugging of the OS.

No, its for always.

So unless an application specificly ask for the pagefile

Only way to determine an app explicitly accesses the pagefile is if:
1. It is implemented badly and the app crashes when it tries. You notice repeated crashes of this manner and they are resolved by reenabling pagefile.
2. Parse the source code.

Realistically you are very unlikely to catch it

6 years without pagefile, 0 errors.

0 errors that you have attributed to not having a pagefile that is.

1. I am sure you had a program crash/error on you during that time (not the OS blue screen, just a program)
2. I am sure you didn't find the exact cause of every individual crash/error that occurred. (which is impossible to do anyways, it could very well be cosmic rays flipping bits in ram)

 

[ShintaiDK]

Just read the links instead

 

[taltamir]

Just read the links instead

I read the links before replying.
The technet one does not support your argument, its merely a guide for sizing the pagefile.
The tweakhound one is wrong. And all it does is explicitly use anecdotal evidence (titled "my anecdotal evidence") to counteract what it claims is also anecdotal evidence (but it never actually clarify beyond "those who say you shouldn't disable it are using anecdotal evidence").

Also, here is a link for you http://theflatearthsociety.org/cms/
Just because someone put it a blog doesn't make something true.

 

[KingFatty]

1. I am sure you had a program crash/error on you during that time (not the OS blue screen, just a program)
2. I am sure you didn't find the exact cause of every individual crash/error that occurred. (which is impossible to do anyways, it could very well be cosmic rays flipping bits in ram)

Is it also a possibility that the crashes, if ultimately due to not having a pagefile, would occur sort of randomly? Or would they be easy to correlate with the program, seeing the computer crash consistently only when you run that program? Aren't there clean-up things that can be triggered by a program and run after the program exits?

 

[Red Squirrel]

You absolutely do not want a page file on a ssd. Make sure that is disabled. Even in Linux, it's best to not have a swap partition, or put it on a hdd.

 

[taltamir]

You absolutely do not want a page file on a ssd. Make sure that is disabled. Even in Linux, it's best to not have a swap partition, or put it on a hdd.

Why not?
The page file should go on the FASTEST drive you have. With an eye towards random performance.

On gen1 jmicron SSDs a HDD was 100x faster then the SSD in terms of random performance.
On current gen SSDs a HDD is 100x slower in random performance.

Is it also a possibility that the crashes, if ultimately due to not having a pagefile, would occur sort of randomly? Or would they be easy to correlate with the program, seeing the computer crash consistently only when you run that program? Aren't there clean-up things that can be triggered by a program and run after the program exits?

It can be either consistent and random. (I have seen both)
I have also seen it cause both computer and program crash... it really shouldn't cause the OS to crash unless something is wrong with the OS itself
Because https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_protection

IIRC the last OS I have had that would blue screen due to horribad upper level programs was WinXP. Off the top of my head there is Spellforce the order of dawn and titan quest... some games would manage to bluescreen it due to doing horrible things to RAM. And in the case of spellforce: the order of dawn it was solvable by increasing pagefile size. In the case of titan case the solved it in a patch.
Oh, and the first program I wrote in C++ did something very wrong with pointers and caused instant bluescreen . Wish I had saved it or remembered how.

If windows 7 fixed ALL the faults in its memory protection mechanisms a program would only crash itself, but low level stuff like drivers could still get the OS itself.
Regardless of protections though a program can always crash itself in such a manner unless a virtual pagefile is created.

BTW, interestingly enough photoshop avoids issues from forcing pagefile access by by creating its own custom scratch file which it directly uses for things it doesn't want to "waste" ram on.