Windows Paging File (OK To Delete or Resize?)

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Badgercat

Weaksauce
Joined
Feb 24, 2005
Messages
124
Hey All,

So I just got an 80 GB Intel SSD, and for the first time in my life I am considering ways to keep Hard Drive use to a minimum. At the time of installing the SSD I went to 12 GB of RAM.

After installing Windows 7 Pro on my SSD I was baffled by now much space the drive had filled. After some research I noticed the Windows paging file is now carving out 12-18 GB of space on the drive for use (LOL).

I disabled the windows paging file, thinking who needs it with 12GB of RAM, but I have been reading mixed reviews on the internet of people saying you need it and you don't need it.

By disabling it, I went from 29 to 42 GB free on my windows drive. That is a huge difference.

So my question: Given how much RAM I have, can I disable the paging file? or can i move it to a different drive? Any other ideas?

Thanks
 
Make it small and keep it on the SSD. I think that's the best "compromise" of the two different schools of thought. In my personal opinion if keeping 500mb of space reserved will ensure compatibility, why not? Though on my own system I left it at default, I'm mostly sticking to the "Win7 works fine by default, leave it alone" idea :p
 
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The Page File works best on an SSD because of the very small reads and writes it does.

If you want to save space, with 12GB it's safe to reduce the PF but I would absolutely not completely disable it and I would not move it off the SSD. Move it down to 512MB or 1024GB set size, on the PF.
 
Keep the page file on the SSD, but reduce the size like others have suggested.

Other things to create space on the SSD.

1) Reduce the space allocated to Windows VSS (Volume Shadow Copy).

2) I just shutdown my system now instead of hibernating because the boot time is small. So turn off hibernate.

3) Delete the install files from Windows updates.
 
Do not ever follow those weird guides on the internet telling you that your PC will be faster if you disable it or to put it on a HDD to increase your SSD life span. That's just wrong.

But you can indeed reduce its size.

What I did on my rig was to make it huge temporarily and monitor the usage.
I found out that no matter what I did I couldn't get past 400mb usage (on my XP rig) so I set its size to 512 (initial size) and let the maximum size to whatever windows advised (5000 or something in my case).

I've never seen the page file grow nor fragment over the last 6 months.

Some programs won't run without it and it's generally a good thing to have it (Windows likes it).
 
So after reading page after page of people arguing on the internet, I have decided I am going to try this:

1. Turn off Page File on my SSD
2. Let the system use my 150 GB HDD for Page File, which the system took about 14GB of space I don't care about

So with the full system recommended page file on my second HDD, I am sure this is fine right? If the system needs page file for any reason it can get it there. The savings of 12GB of hard drive space on my SSD is just too critical right now. System seems stable, RAM use is never anywhere close to even half of what I have

Keep the page file on the SSD, but reduce the size like others have suggested. Other things to create space on the SSD. 1) Reduce the space allocated to Windows VSS (Volume Shadow Copy). 2) I just shutdown my system now instead of hibernating because the boot time is small. So turn off hibernate. 3) Delete the install files from Windows updates."]Keep the page file on the SSD, but reduce the size like others have suggested. Other things to create space on the SSD. 1) Reduce the space allocated to Windows VSS (Volume Shadow Copy). 2) I just shutdown my system now instead of hibernating because the boot time is small. So turn off hibernate. 3) Delete the install files from Windows updates
Click to expand...


Great suggestion on these. I changed my VSC to 2% (1.5GB) instead of 5%. Helped a bit, but I also disabled Hibernate and holy crap, clutch move. I went from 42GB free to 51GB free. Consider I never, nor have i ever, used hibernate...that was maybe the most clutch advice in a long time.

Now where would I delete update files? and is it safe?

The drive is new, I can still go back and exchange, pay 60 more bucks and get the 120GB, but I am just trying to avoid spending more if possible, not sure if I should
 
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