I Turned off Page Filing

[Virgorising]

Hi.

Been thinking about doing it since getting my new SSD to extend the life of the wee drive and just did it: I turned off page filing.

I thought after all, I do have 8GBs of DDR3 so why not write less to my wee drive?

Did I do a good thing or a not good thing?

What could make me run outta RAM with 8GBs, after all?

Thank you.

 

[Ketchup]

I know back in the XP days I had issues with this and promptly had to turn it back on for apps to work correctly. More recently I have read people say they turn it off without issue, so I'd say it's up to you.

 

[bbhaag]

I set mine to 1gig when I moved to my 60gig Plextor a couple years ago. When I recently migrated everything over to my 240gig Crucial I left it at 1gig as well.
I followed Sean's guide to setting up an ssd in Win7 and even after I moved on to Win8.1 I left the page file the same. To many programs rely on it to completely disable it but limiting to 1gig seemed like a good idea.

 

[VirtualLarry]

don't bother. pagefile is a performance optimization in the most common case. leave it enabled.

 

[Virgorising]

I know back in the XP days I had issues with this and promptly had to turn it back on for apps to work correctly. More recently I have read people say they turn it off without issue, so I'd say it's up to you.

Well, I never did it before just 15 mins ago, only to extend the life of my new SSD, tho I also never had 8GBs of DDR3 before.

So far, nothing has become unstable....I mean beyond myself

I read online that even with decent RAM, sometimes lowering it to say 512MBs can cause instability....as opposed to turning it off.

I will see in the fullness of time if this was stupid and Windows gets angry at me.... or not, I guess.

This is my version of...living On THE EDGE.

 

[Virgorising]

don't bother. pagefile is a performance optimization in the most common case. leave it enabled.

BUT I read on the net it extends the life of an SSD cause a lot less is written to it.

Not looking for performance enhancement, again, I am just trying to extend the life of the new SSD, which logic says this will do.

 

[Virgorising]

I set mine to 1gig when I moved to my 60gig Plextor a couple years ago. When I recently migrated everything over to my 240gig Crucial I left it at 1gig as well.
I followed Sean's guide to setting up an ssd in Win7 and even after I moved on to Win8.1 I left the page file the same. To many programs rely on it to completely disable it but limiting to 1gig seemed like a good idea.

Sooo....U lowered it and nothing went unstable?

Now I am getting scared that I disabled it. Maybe I should go back and enable it and just lower it.

Do we have the same SSD? The Crucial M500 240? Cept bet yr board has SATA3 controllers, unlike mine which has SATA2.

Tell me, how much RAM do you currently have installed?

 

[bbhaag]

No need to be scared. Try running without it for a few days and see how your system performs. If your system becomes unstable using certain programs re-enable it. If everything runs good leave it how it is.

I'm a creature of habit Jules so I just left it how it was. I use the KISS rule when it comes to the computers in my house. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

EDIT:Sorry I didn't answer your question. I have 8gig of ram installed.

 

[Virgorising]

No need to be scared. Try running without it for a few days and see how your system performs. If your system becomes unstable using certain programs re-enable it. If everything runs good leave it how it is.

I'm a creature of habit Jules so I just left it how it was. I use the KISS rule when it comes to the computers in my house. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

Excellent idea! Stop being afraid of wut I did, chill and see if something becomes dysfunctional or unstable!:biggrin:

 

[_Rick_]

The computer will be faster with pagefile enabled. It allows to page out unused RAM, and instead re-use it as I/O-buffers.

Also, I'm at 22GB RAM usage, idling at the desktop with a few browser and IM windows open. So, using up 8 GB is a point I usually reach quite early into a user session. Instead of having the kernel kill the display manager or whatever else is the unhappy application to request memory when going OOM, I'd just leave swap enabled. With load balancing it shouldn't be an issue, unless you're using a lot of swap on a disk that is essentially full. Even then the use will be spread over 24 GB of flash, if you use 8GB swap, and assume the simplest wear leveling.
In my opinion the downsides outweight potential upsides.

 

[Virgorising]

The computer will be faster with pagefile enabled. It allows to page out unused RAM, and instead re-use it as I/O-buffers.

Also, I'm at 22GB RAM usage, idling at the desktop with a few browser and IM windows open. So, using up 8 GB is a point I usually reach quite early into a user session. Instead of having the kernel kill the display manager or whatever else is the unhappy application to request memory when going OOM, I'd just leave swap enabled. With load balancing it shouldn't be an issue, unless you're using a lot of swap on a disk that is essentially full. Even then the use will be spread over 24 GB of flash, if you use 8GB swap, and assume the simplest wear leveling.
In my opinion the downsides outweight potential upsides.

This.....feels genius to me. It DOES! The SSD I am writing from is 240GBs with 131 FREE.

I do not wanna starve things asking for memory.....I just wanted to extend the life of this drive.

What is yr opinion about re enabling it and lowering it?
________________________________________________________
Edit: I think u may be right; I just enabled it again, looked in Task Mgr and I don't have tons of things open, and am using more than I thought, and then thought, well, what if I had RAM intensive apps open too????

 

[ctk1981]

The last two systems I've built/used had 16GB of memory and SSD's. I disabled the pagefile on both systems and never had any issues. While I was studying for some certifications it was quite common for me to run 3 virtual machines using 2-4GB of memory per instance.

 

[Virgorising]

The last two systems I've built/used had 16GB of memory and SSD's. I disabled the pagefile on both systems and never had any issues. While I was studying for some certifications it was quite common for me to run 3 virtual machines using 2-4GB of memory per instance.

Sigh. I am now the most confused human in NYC.:$

Cept 16 is twice what I have. I have only 8.

 

[CakeMonster]

You keep saying you want to extend the life of your drive. This is NOT an issue. Don't worry. There's no special "trick" that has to be performed to use an SSD with a modern OS. Leave the settings alone, your drive will be fine.

 

[Ketchup]

Sigh. I am now the most confused human in NYC.:$

Cept 16 is twice what I have. I have only 8.

Don't be. You are getting opinions, not hard facts. Leave it off, see how it goes. If you need to, turns it back on.

 

[HOSED]

I would leave it off until I see any messages similar to "your system is low on virtual memory" If I noticed that message on my system I would enable it but no more than 1 GB. At this point I have 16 GB RAM - page file disabled - and have never seen RAM usage more than 4 GB.
Note I have read some old programs require a page file (AKA virtual memory) but I have not run into any.

 

[CakeMonster]

I still don't understand why people bother when there's no proven advantage and its generally advised against. Compulsion to tinker?

 

[Ketchup]

I still don't understand why people bother when there's no proven advantage and its generally advised against. Compulsion to tinker?

If you had a traditional HD, and lots of RAM, there would be a speed advantage here. With an SSD, there could be a life span advantage, if you think it would last a shorter time than one planned on using it.

 

[Virgorising]

You keep saying you want to extend the life of your drive. This is NOT an issue. Don't worry. There's no special "trick" that has to be performed to use an SSD with a modern OS. Leave the settings alone, your drive will be fine.

So true! I am a worrier and a fiddler!! I delve, I read stuff, varying opinions all offered with authority on the net. It's confusing!

By the by....are U related to The Cookie Monster? :sneaky: I once name a HDD CookieMonster.

Anyhow....I also, only cause of a thread in which I am trying to help, in which I suggested it to the OP, I used intel interactive update tool (My board is intel) and my intel rapid storage driver needed updating! So now, I have this whole new thingy with interface and options I never saw before. I need to work at not worrying and not fiddling. :whiste:

 

[Virgorising]

Don't be. You are getting opinions, not hard facts. Leave it off, see how it goes. If you need to, turns it back on.

K...as of last nite, I got scared and turned it back on. When I calm down, I will turn if off again and just observe.

Is true, I keep chasing hard facts....and sometimes there are no absolute hard facts!!!!

Hate it when that happens.()

 

[Virgorising]

I still don't understand why people bother when there's no proven advantage and its generally advised against. Compulsion to tinker?

Seriously? Question mark? I won a Pulitzer and a Grammy for that!!! Was the lead story on Huffington.:biggrin:

 

[Virgorising]

I would leave it off until I see any messages similar to "your system is low on virtual memory" If I noticed that message on my system I would enable it but no more than 1 GB. At this point I have 16 GB RAM - page file disabled - and have never seen RAM usage more than 4 GB.
Note I have read some old programs require a page file (AKA virtual memory) but I have not run into any.

U have 16 too???? My board does max out at 16, but truth is I only upgraded to 8 from 4 when I got this system cause it made me happy, and I got that two stick package of Crucials on ebay for fab price.

Bet most of the world has like a quarter of wut U have! Maybe, not even.

I read only, say, a third of PC owners even have quad core!!!! (WHAAAAA?)

But, u never saw ram usage about 4? That's amazing. But see, in my case, that would be half of what I have INSTALLED.

 

[OlafSicky]

I still don't understand why people bother when there's no proven advantage and its generally advised against. Compulsion to tinker?

Yeah because the engineers who wrote windows and spend billions developing it have no idea what they are doing but the random guy on the internets does :biggrin:

 

[Virgorising]

Yeah because the engineers who wrote windows and spend billions developing it have no idea what they are doing but the random guy on the internets does :biggrin:

Blind loyalty, and in any arena.....is a truly dangerous/static posture! Including re MS windows.

 

[MongGrel]

Yeah because the engineers who wrote windows and spend billions developing it have no idea what they are doing but the random guy on the internets does :biggrin:

What he said.

I do have mine set way down at these days and not on auto.

Where does blind loyalty factor in to what he stated whatsoever ?