SSD, Pagefile,Hybersys and You

justin4pack

Senior member
Jan 21, 2012
521
6
81
Since I have been using SSD I have always followed a guide to help beter the performance of the SSD, " http://www.overclock.net/t/1240779/seans-windows-8-install-optimization-guide-for-ssds-hdds"

But now I wonder a few things. With 8G of Ram and a 120G SSD Should Pagefile still be removed and or moved to data drive? Or does it perform better without? Also Hybersys file. Can it be moved or should it still just be disabled? Right now I have pagefile set to 0 and I have my hybersys on my ssd which uses around 7Gigs. The computer boots from OFF to ON in about 10 sec.
 

aviator79

Member
Aug 4, 2012
70
1
66
I personally do not remove pagefile because there are applications that need it. In the end it is your choice. In fact, moving it is contra productive. Because the swaping will be slow if the file is moved to a slower drive. Without the Pagefile you will not be able to check error dumps from BSODs if ever needed. Just set it to a smaller size.
If you do not use or need hybernation, disable it. The the hyber...sys will be gone.
 

Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
17,484
33
86
With Windows 7 and newer, there is no need to follow any optimization guides for SSDs. Since, on rare occasions, Windows screws up and doesn't recognize an SSD for defragging purposes, it's definitely worth inspecting that (it is rare, but I've seen reports of it, backed up by screenshots, in both 7 and 8, so I believe it). The rest is well summed up near the top:
"SSDs do NOT require the confusing and intense setup that a lot of people seem to suggest. The current day SSDs are much more reliable and literally all that is necessary is to change the SATA mode to AHCI in the BIOS/UEFI, install, and you are good to go. I highly recommend reinstalling your OS instead of migrating/mirroring it from a HDD when you get a SSD."

Everything else is about saving space, and apparently from that link, dealing with Windows 8's UI, and can be done or not done with a HDD or SSD, just the same. Also, if you use hibernate at all, you will probably want to leave Superfetch on in Windows 8, as i preemptively writes into the hibernate file.

If you don't use hibernate, disabling it is harmless. If you don't use hubernate, and have an SSD, disabling Superfetch on Windows 8 is fine. Disabling the page file is fine as long as your RAM can cover your needed commit, and you don't use broken software, which can vary by user from a couple GBs up to more RAM than you can install--you are responsible for determining that, and dealing with the consequences if your RAM isn't sufficient. If the problem is broken software, including recurring BSODs, re-enabling the page file can help, at a small fixed size, for dumps.
 

jkauff

Senior member
Oct 4, 2012
583
13
81
I have 8GB of RAM, and none of my programs ever use even 5GB of it. However, HWiNFO64 shows activity in virtual memory quite often, so I've got at least one app that uses it despite there being plenty of RAM. I stay on the safe side and keep paging enabled.
 

ShintaiDK

Lifer
Apr 22, 2012
20,378
145
106
I disable hibernation and pagefile. Been doing so since 2006 without an issue.
 

KingFatty

Diamond Member
Dec 29, 2010
3,034
1
81
Another option would be to manually set the pagefile to an extremely small value, and select the option to allow windows to enlarge the pagefile if necessary.

That way you can see if any programs every try to use it. With 8 GB of ram, your pagefile will likely never be enlarged.
 

HOSED

Senior member
Dec 30, 2013
658
1
0
I have recently researched this and the hibernation file has to be on the drive that has the OS on it (in Win 7 ). I assume this is the same for Win 8. As stated above I keep a fixed size 1 GB Page file on my ssd (8 GB RAM). I also disable all indexing because on the very rare time I use search it never takes very long.
 

Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
17,484
33
86
With or without indexing, Windows' own search is still inferior to any number of free utilities for searching, IME (if you change settings after removing indexed locations, you can get the same results as indexed, but it will still show files not matching, and miss files with exactly the string being searched for).
 

Koslov_

Member
Sep 1, 2013
28
0
0
I use after effects, photoshop and illustrator daily and I get virtual memory errors all the time without a pagefile. I guess it depends what you do.