Win7 , PageFile , Indexing & Ram Disk

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ToddW2

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I built a new Win7 system 80gb SSD Intel Gen2 primary HD.

On my old Win XP Pro for the last 2.8 years I've had PageFile disabled, I got it disabled on Win7 now too and am wondering if anyone did speed comparison vs enabled and not? On XP Pro I noticed no difference.

Windows Indexing I disabled, any reason to keep it enabled with the SSD? I can't think of any.

I am debating adding 6gb more ram and allotting 4gb for pagefile/temp files/internet cache and imaging the internet cache whenever I need to reboot. Anyone done this, performance increase or waste of time? Just leave the 6gb with the other 6gb for 12gb total ram?

I don't play games, business use only. Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Outlook, multiple internet running all day.
 
Exactly what is the benefit to force your memory to hold onto data that it wants to page to make room for applications that need the memory?
 
Your best bet is just leaving the installation alone, seriously. So many people do so many things to muck Windows up, and with older versions of Windows that might have some performance benefits depending on exactly what you could/did do, but Windows 7 is nothing like the old ones, not even like Vista. It stands alone as the finest OS Microsoft has ever produced, and it can take care of itself pretty damned well.

I use Windows 7 Professional on a laptop (C2D T5500 @ 1.66 GHz, 160GB 5400 rpm hard drive) and it's got 1GB of DDR2 533 in it and I swear, it flies, it absolutely flies with Windows 7 without breaking a sweat. I intend to get more RAM tomorrow (Friday) depending on what Fry's has for the weekly sale, but so far I've been using this machine for well over a month now with the 1GB of RAM in it and haven't had any problems.

I have a 1GB SD card dedicated to ReadyBoost which helps to some degree, and I do fairly regular Handbrake encoding and also a lot of audio file conversions with foobar2000, never had any issues to speak of.

I wonder sometimes why people never seem to have "enough" when it comes to PCs anymore. Always on the quest for more more more MORE and the machines still sit idle 90%+ of the time.
 
The ONLY debate for disabling the pagefile was when hard drives were slow. I hesitate to call it a debate, because it never actually produced any positive results. You are running an SSD, which completely removes any possible reason to disable the page file. A past forum member used to always say "leave it alone", and honestly, with Windows 7...that's the best way to tweak it. There hasn't been a reason to disable paging in several years (well, ever), and that is especially true now, and even more so due to your SSD.
 
I am not looking for a speed increase by disabling the PF. If it's the same speed, or even a hair slower I am `ok` with that.

I am simply looking at the point of not needing it with so much ram, period. And also preventing my SSD from reading/writing a ton when it's not needed.

Does anyone know about the a ramdisk and putting the pagefile and temp files on this? Seems like it would blow the SSD out of the water, and current apps let you image the Ramdisk when you want to shutdown.
 
ToddW2 said:
Instead of end of story how about you elaborate ;)
Click to expand...

If you are going to put the pagefile on a RAM disk, you might as well just disable the pagefile. No reason for an extra sotware layer to move it from RAM to RAM.
 
ToddW2 said:
Instead of end of story how about you elaborate ;)
Click to expand...
Instead of asking him to elaborate, why not just leave it alone? I'm still not sure of your reason for doing this, unless you want to increase your chance of having an unstable system. There's no reason to disable the page file anymore, and we could even say there never was at any point. If you are worried about drive space, put in a storage drive. Problem solved.
 
The stories you hear about putting the page file on a ram-drive belongs to systems where you have more installed ram than your OS will make use of. That goes for 32bit desktop editions of Windows with more than 4GB.
 
Don't bother disabling your pagefile, and DEFINITELY don't disable the Indexing service - that breaks everything from the Start Menu to Outlook.
 
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1035537451&postcount=29

linking an older post of mine, you may find it useful. i run a 5gb ramdisk on my desktop out of 12gb. leave pagefile on; i chew through ram usage like crazy without it

i have indexing disabled

google chrome caching to ramdisk is absolutely brilliant, btw

also, win7 memory warnings appear to be percent-based as i get them while still having nearly 2gb totally free :p
 
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Are you doing temp files and google chrome temp to ramdisk or what all are you putting on the ram disk?
 
i have windows temp dirs set to the ramdisk drive and chrome's temp folders symlinked as there are no config options for it, firefox can be easily changed from about:config, though

i also use the ramdisk as a pitstop for small downloads and such, love the speed stability (i get flat download speeds with it) even cooler when i can torrent directly to it
 
SinShiva said:
i have windows temp dirs set to the ramdisk drive and chrome's temp folders symlinked as there are no config options for it, firefox can be easily changed from about:config, though

i also use the ramdisk as a pitstop for small downloads and such, love the speed stability (i get flat download speeds with it) even cooler when i can torrent directly to it
Click to expand...

Cool, do you reset the ramdisk after rebooting or image it and restore upon reboot?
 
Have had mine disabled for years. Never ran out of memory once with WinXP 32Bit.
 
ToddW2 said:
Cool, do you reset the ramdisk after rebooting or image it and restore upon reboot?
Click to expand...

i let it start fresh every boot. easier to accept that ramdisk is temp space and leave it as empty as possible, imo.
 
Cool, I may play around with this I just got 6gb in for a friends pc I`m working on, may test it out with ramdisk before sending it off into his PC ;)
 
ToddW2 said:
Instead of end of story how about you elaborate ;)
Click to expand...

I need to elaborate? If you know how the pagefile works (which you should if you're tweaking it), it should be fairly obvious why having your pagefile on a RAMDisk is absolutely pointless.

The pagefile is where Windows moves unused pages (freeing RAM for use in active applications). It also acts as spillover when you run low on RAM.

Putting your pagefile in RAM would eat up RAM, making the problems the pagefile is supposed to solve worse!
 
Unknown-One said:
I need to elaborate? If you know how the pagefile works (which you should if you're tweaking it), it should be fairly obvious why having your pagefile on a RAMDisk is absolutely pointless.

The pagefile is where Windows moves unused pages (freeing RAM for use in active applications). It also acts as spillover when you run low on RAM.

Putting your pagefile in RAM would eat up RAM, making the problems the pagefile is supposed to solve worse!
Click to expand...

+1
Any basic understanding of how paging works should lead you to the same conclusion (that it makes no sense). If you don't get that you probably shouldn't be tinkering with pagefile settings without first doing some basic reading.
 
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