Do you need a pagefile with a SSD?
 

I have a Sony Vaio G1 that I purchased two years ago with a Solid State Drive. As such, the SSD capacity is only 32GB. I don't do much intensive stuff on the notebook, so it's a great fit for me. However, free disk drive space has started dwindling down to 6.2GB. I blame most of it on Vista updates.

I noticed that I have a 2.5GB pagefile. Can I reduce (or eliminate) the size of it since I'm using a SSD? I have 2GB of RAM in my system. Thanks!

yeah, you can reduce it or try to run without one. In any event, if you keep it use the custom size thing and set it to something like 1024kb, so you will have a fixed size, relatively small swap file. Actually, the fixed size thing probably doesn't matter on an SSD, so you can use dynamic and cap the max size at 1G (1024k) if you decide to keep it.

The need for a pagefile isn't really related to having an SSD. In fact, with many SSDs, you'll have better pagefile performance than you would on a regular HD due to the lower random seek times. I'd try and find something to cleanup your windows install rather than pare back pagefile size if you're trying to free up disk space.

Count me also as being confused by the discussion above.

A lot depends on what you are running, some programs (and some games) require a page file to function. Your pagefile is already pretty small given the memory in your system (the usual is three times the RAM), if I were you I would look for other places to clean up first.

3x the ram? Where do you get that from? I've never made one that large. 1x the ram is plenty for most people with modern systems, and if you are using it at all, you should consider getting more memory at the current price of memory.

The page file is additive, so 1x gives you twice as much virtual memory.

With only a 32G "drive", I think it's important to at least limit the max size of the page file.

-David

3x is the default max size in most windows installations.

The pagefile size is one of those ongoing arguments for which I've never found any agreement among the experts. That said, the way I size it is to first put the heaviest simultaneous workload on the computer as I would normally do in a session -- open up a browser or three, word, excel, rip a cd, encode a video whatever.

After that, open up Windows Task Manager by pressing CTL-SHIFT-ESC simultaneously and select the "Performance" tab.

Under "Commit Charge" you will have three values -- Total (the amount of physical memory & virtual memory you're currently using), Limit (the maximum physical & virtual), and Peak (the highwater mark of physical & virtual you've used this session).

I'll resize my pagefile so the Limit becomes Peak + say 20% or so as a buffer.

This is very unscientific and I may be talkin through my hat, but it seems to work for me.

Oops, just for the record, I somehow got Pagefile confused with RAM Drive. I'm an idiot (please don't kick me off the Technology forum!) :D And yes, I realize that a RAM Drive has nothing to do with my original question.

I will, however, see if I can lower the size of my pagefile and find a program to clean up Vista. Thanks!

you may want to consider using a 4GB high speed SD card or USB drive as a readyboost drive for vista, they operate much like a pagefile.

That's a good idea. I can buy a 8GB SD Card for about $20. I can easily move over a few GB of music and other files. That should do it for now.

When I first got my laptop and finished installing Office and a few other applications, I had 10GB of free space. So there wasn't a lot to work with in the first place.

Once you get to 2GB RAM in a Vista install the ReadyBoost provides virtually zero value performance wise. Over 1GB of physical RAM the value starts to drop pretty quickly.

As for the default size of a page file it is 1.5x to 3x the physical RAM amount. Having a variable sized page file is a huge mistake and it should be set to a static size. Microsoft's recommended size for that is 1.5x the physical RAM in the system.

In the case of the OP I'd get the 8GB SD card and put my music or movies or whatever on that and keep the swap file in place.

For a very technical discussion of how the page file works, read this.

To cut to the chase, load everything you're going to use at once and look at "Peak commit charge" on the Performance tab in Task Manager. Subtract the amount of physical memory you have from that, and that's the minimum size of a pagefile you must have to be able to run everything.

I would disable paging with a SSD. SSD FLASH memory cells have a limited number of write cycles compared to a HD. Paging can significantly increase the write cycles to the SSD. Just my two cents.