There has always been a mystery surrounding the page file (or swap partition if you are on Linux)
How big should it be?
Should you have it at all?
And last but not least, what exactly is it?
Nice to see an easy to understand explanation, see below.
http://www.howtogeek.com/196238/how-big-should-your-page-file-or-swap-partition-be/
instead of mystery, I think confusion may be a better word.
even that link basically boils it down to there is no one answer for everyone.
so it's still the status quo - do whatever works for you.
interestingly he didn't recommend manual settings.
instead of mystery, I think confusion may be a better word.
even that link basically boils it down to there is no one answer for everyone.
so it's still the status quo - do whatever works for you.
interestingly he didn't recommend manual settings.
Mystery and confusion certainly reigned back in the days of Win 95, 98, and 98SE. I remember that Microsoft recommended a minimum of 32MB of memory to run 98SE. So when I bought my first desktop, I thought I would play it smart and ordered it with 64MB of memory installed. I experienced BSODs on a regular basis, basically every time I used the machine. A friend of mine claimed that increasing the size of swap was the answer, so I began experimenting with setting the size of swap myself instead of letting Windows manage it. That didn't provide much of an improvement, so I took the next step: I installed an additional 128MB of SDRAM. Things improved substantially, but I still suffered an occaisional BSOD. So I installed a second 128MB module, bringing my total system memory to 320MB. The BSODs disappeared entirely, and it became much more enjoyable to use that machine.
So this proves two things: 1.) There is no substitute for RAM. Playing around with the size of swap was not the answer, increasing the system's physical memory was. I only wish I had known that from the start. 2.) Never trust Microsoft when they recommend a minimum amount of system memory. This applied back then and still applies today.
I have set mine to default values again, just to be on the safe side.
Mystery and confusion certainly reigned back in the days of Win 95, 98, and 98SE. I remember that Microsoft recommended a minimum of 32MB of memory to run 98SE. So when I bought my first desktop, I thought I would play it smart and ordered it with 64MB of memory installed.
My Win98 Dell machine back in 1998 came with 128MB RAM by default, but even that wasn't enough. Basically I maxed out the memory of that old system to 384MB RAM and dabbled with the swapfile size on it to only return it to default values and let Windows manage it. Those old Win9x systems had a cache issue right out of the gate and needed some simple system .INI file tweaking to make them not BSOD as much and that was regardless of the amount of RAM installed.
That's why programs like Cacheman were so popular back then, but what most people didn't know was they could've edited a system .INI to the same effect.
On 64 bit Windows 7 + SP! The minimum size of Windows Pagefile on System Drive C:\ is
16.0 MB (16,777,216 bytes)
I also have 3 GB on P:\ for normal use.
I can actually remove the 16.0 MB pagefile from C:\ and my system and Windows will boot and run and NEVER EVER NEED any pagefile on C:\
UNLESS
Windows boots up stupid again like it did a year ago when it placed off-line the hard-drive which held my 3 GB pagefile,
AND THEN UNLESS
it finds at least 16 MB pagefile in C:\ it plants an 8 GB pagefile on it.
All my temporary junk files belong on my HDD P:\ - not my SSD C:\