[SOLVED] Optimal min & max page filing size for 250 GB SSD, 1TB HDD with 16GB of RAM

[ShangWang]

Sadly I don't have those things, but theoretically if I did use the SSD for OS systems and the HDD for installing games, what would be the optimal page filing sizes for both?

I know that the HDD should have a higher page filing, but by how much exactly if you customized it?

 

[lvt]

Do you mean the paging file?

 

[Ralston18]

Just let Windows handle paging (virtual memory).

Leave the page file on the SSD hosting the OS - should be the default location anyway.

If the system performs well then continue to let Windows do the work.

Note: You can use Resource Monitor to observe memory usage.

However do not react to changes or something that may appear as a "problem".

In that case you can investigate further.

 

[velocityg4]

I leave page filing on the SSD. No reason to enable it in the HDD. Unless you bought too little RAM. You aren’t going to have war issues on the SSD.

My former gaming computer. Now a file server. Has seen a lot of use. The 500GB boot SSD, also used to store games. Has five years of use and hasn’t reached 25% wear. Because I have plenty of RAM.

So just leave the settings alone. The real key is to have plenty of RAM. Then you don’t have to worry about the page file.

 

[USAFRet]

Unless you are actually running out of space on the SSD, leave it as System Managed.

Back when 120GB SSD's were new, and you had 16GB RAM...the default page file size would have been 16GB.
Sucking up too much of that little 120GB.

With a 250GB or larger SSD, just leave it and let the OS manage.

 

[SkyNetRising]

theoretically if I did use the SSD for OS systems and the HDD for installing games, what would be the optimal page filing sizes for both?

Set pagefile to be 1GB initial, 8GB max - on HDD.
Set it to be 16MB initial, 16MB max on SSD.

With 16GB or ram - pagefile should be used minimally (if at all), unless you like to leave several web browsers open with 30 tabs on each while gaming simultaneously. Then you should probably just get more ram.

This will save write cycles on your SSD.
I know, someone will probably tell you, that your SSD will last longer, than you'd be willing to use it.
But when your SSD fails, you'll wish you had been a bit more careful with it and avoided spending unnecessary write cycles.

 

[ShangWang]

Set pagefile to be 1GB initial, 8GB max - on HDD.
Set it to be 16MB initial, 16MB max on SSD.

With 16GB or ram - pagefile should be used minimally (if at all), unless you like to leave several web browsers open with 30 tabs on each while gaming simultaneously. Then you should probably just get more ram.

This will save write cycles on your SSD.
I know, someone will probably tell you, that your SSD will last longer, than you'd be willing to use it.
But when your SSD fails, you'll wish you had been a bit more careful with it and avoided spending unnecessary write cycles.

So just set SSD to be minimal nothing, got it.
For HDD would 6GB min and max be good?

 

[USAFRet]

So just set SSD to be minimal nothing, got it.
For HDD would 6GB min and max be good?

With 16GB physical RAM, use of the page file will be minimal. No matter what it is set to.

 

[ShangWang]

Set pagefile to be 1GB initial, 8GB max - on HDD.
Set it to be 16MB initial, 16MB max on SSD.

With 16GB or ram - pagefile should be used minimally (if at all), unless you like to leave several web browsers open with 30 tabs on each while gaming simultaneously. Then you should probably just get more ram.

This will save write cycles on your SSD.
I know, someone will probably tell you, that your SSD will last longer, than you'd be willing to use it.
But when your SSD fails, you'll wish you had been a bit more careful with it and avoided spending unnecessary write cycles.

Is there a reason for the min and max to be so far apart?
What if you just set the min and max to be the same at lets say 4GB?

 

[SkyNetRising]

Is there a reason for the min and max to be so far apart?
What if you just set the min and max to be the same at lets say 4GB?

You want pagefile to be as small as possible and for it not to grow.
Large pagefile impacts system performance negatively.
But you also want it to be able to grow, if necessary.

1GB min, 8GB max would be optimal for your system.
You can fine tune those values. Set it to some small value, then watch pagefile during normal operation of pc use. If it grows to 1GB (for example), then 1GB should be minimal size.
Max value should be max, you'll ever will need on your system. But again remember, that large pagefile will tank performance of your pc.

 

[ShangWang]

You want pagefile to be as small as possible and for it not to grow.
Large pagefile impacts system performance negatively.
But you also want it to be able to grow, if necessary.

1GB min, 8GB max would be optimal for your system.
You can fine tune those values. Set it to some small value, then watch pagefile during normal operation of pc use. If it grows to 1GB (for example), then 1GB should be minimal size.
Max value should be max, you'll ever will need on your system. But again remember, that large pagefile will tank performance of your pc.

When you mean large pagfile, do you mean for the min and max in general or does the max not make a difference if you don't exceed the minimum?

 

[SkyNetRising]

When you mean large pagfile, do you mean for the min and max in general or does the max not make a difference if you don't exceed the minimum?

Well obviously - if pagefile doesn't ever exceed minimum, then max value is not in any way significant.

 

[ShangWang]

Well obviously - if pagefile doesn't ever exceed minimum, then max value is not in any way significant.

I see, thank you.
How would you see if page filing goes to minimum? I read to open performance monitor and add page filing usage % it shows average 1.391%
https://prnt.sc/13cwnrf

In my task manager it shows 6.9 GB committed, where only 4.9GB is used so I'm assuming that the page usage is 2GB and doesn't add up to the percentage use. Am I understanding something wrong?
https://prnt.sc/13cwpk4

 

[SkyNetRising]

How would you see if page filing goes to minimum? I read to open performance monitor and add page filing usage % it shows average 1.391%

Pagefile usage is 1.4%. That's good. Find out current size of pagefile. Then you can calculate pagefile usage in MB.

In my task manager it shows 6.9 GB committed, where only 4.9GB is used so I'm assuming that the page usage is 2GB and doesn't add up to the percentage use. Am I understanding something wrong?

Nope. Can't calculate that way.

 

[Karadjgne]

Pagefile only has 2 real uses. As an extension of your ram and as storage for the ram during hibernation.

Pcs do not need, nor should use hibernation/hybrid sleep at any time, that's a laptop application included in Windows because Windows is a cross-platform OS. So you can ignore that aspect, really.

Which leaves ram. You have 16Gb, which generally is way more than you'd actually have any use for unless you use the pc with ram extensive production apps. You should honestly never need to have any use for pagefile, so leaving it to Windows managed is fine. You can set manual min/max if you want to, but as long as hibernation/hybrid sleep is disabled in the power plan you shouldn't have any conflicts.

 

[ShangWang]

Pagefile usage is 1.4%. That's good. Find out current size of pagefile. Then you can calculate pagefile usage in MB.


Nope. Can't calculate that way.

The laptop I'm using has 8GB of RAM and I currently set it to 8GB min, so I have only 112mb used. I'm assuming I can lower the page filing way down to maybe min 2-4GB?

Also what is the extra commited memory that doesn't come from physical RAM? Isn't that the page filing?

 

[ShangWang]

Pagefile only has 2 real uses. As an extension of your ram and as storage for the ram during hibernation.

Pcs do not need, nor should use hibernation/hybrid sleep at any time, that's a laptop application included in Windows because Windows is a cross-platform OS. So you can ignore that aspect, really.

Which leaves ram. You have 16Gb, which generally is way more than you'd actually have any use for unless you use the pc with ram extensive production apps. You should honestly never need to have any use for pagefile, so leaving it to Windows managed is fine. You can set manual min/max if you want to, but as long as hibernation/hybrid sleep is disabled in the power plan you shouldn't have any conflicts.

I have a laptop at the moment so I always use sleep mode whenever I'm away from it for a few minutes. I'm assuming using JUST sleep is perfectly fine on PC as well?

 

[Karadjgne]

Sleep and hibernation are different although look similar. With sleep mode, everything you have going on is stored in the ram, so when you open the laptop, windows just restores as is. If you shutdown from sleep, you lose all that data as ram only works when powered. With hibernation, it's all stuck into storage instead, the pc is basically in an 'off' state, extreme low power use, but opening the laptop reinstates everything like booting up, without going through the boot process, just the OS load process.

Sleep is recommended for pc's, not hibernation, since there's no battery to worry about.

 

[ShangWang]

Sleep and hibernation are different although look similar. With sleep mode, everything you have going on is stored in the ram, so when you open the laptop, windows just restores as is. If you shutdown from sleep, you lose all that data as ram only works when powered. With hibernation, it's all stuck into storage instead, the pc is basically in an 'off' state, extreme low power use, but opening the laptop reinstates everything like booting up, without going through the boot process, just the OS load process.

Sleep is recommended for pc's, not hibernation, since there's no battery to worry about.

Thanks, also lets say for example you set your min page filing to be really high, would it reduce performance even though page filing usage doesn't even come close to the minimum?

 

[Karadjgne]

In the past ppl were using 2 or 4 or 8Gb of ram, because those were what was affordable and fit on the boards. Paired with upto 1Tb of hdd space. So pagefile was set to be @ 2x whatever your ram size was at a minimum and saw quite a bit of use.

Now that ppl are using 16 or 32Gb of ram, and games are running 4-8Gb on average, the chances of you ever using pagefile are slim to none. That said, ppl are also using 1Tb and 2Tb SSDs as C with 2Tb-8Tb worth of storage.

It's nothing to set 2x ram up as pagefile. Not going to affect anything performance rated. It'd only affect performance if you have too little ram, no space on C, had pagefile allocated to hdd.

 

[ShangWang]

In the past ppl were using 2 or 4 or 8Gb of ram, because those were what was affordable and fit on the boards. Paired with upto 1Tb of hdd space. So pagefile was set to be @ 2x whatever your ram size was at a minimum and saw quite a bit of use.

Now that ppl are using 16 or 32Gb of ram, and games are running 4-8Gb on average, the chances of you ever using pagefile are slim to none. That said, ppl are also using 1Tb and 2Tb SSDs as C with 2Tb-8Tb worth of storage.

It's nothing to set 2x ram up as pagefile. Not going to affect anything performance rated. It'd only affect performance if you have too little ram, no space on C, had pagefile allocated to hdd.

Thanks, so I'm guessing people set a good minimum so they don't take up too much drive space and so that page filing isn't changing past the minimum all the time.

 

[Karadjgne]

Most don't bother themselves with it at all. If they even knew about it. Default settings are set for Windows to manage it. And they leave it at that.

 

[ShangWang]

Most don't bother themselves with it at all. If they even knew about it. Default settings are set for Windows to manage it. And they leave it at that.

As much as I'd like to leave it to windows and not be bothered by it I have an odd obsession with optimizing things and knowing how they work.

If I had very little page filing on an SSD but a lot on an HDD on one computer the HDD would be prioritized, but would the SSD be used for page filing along with it or only for crash dumps?

 

[ShangWang]

Most don't bother themselves with it at all. If they even knew about it. Default settings are set for Windows to manage it. And they leave it at that.

Essentially what I'm wondering is if multiple partitions have page filing, are they all utilized equally dependent/independent on size or are only the larger page filing partitions used?

 

[alceryes]

I keep it on my NVMe SSD but I still like to set it to a static size.
Even if it doesn't matter in terms of drive life I'm still saving some miliseconds here and there from automatic pagefile resizing.