Windows 10 Page File management is terrible...

Discussion in 'Windows 10' started by MonarchX, Mar 11, 2016.

  1. MonarchX

    MonarchX MDL Expert

    May 5, 2007
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    With Page File Management indeed is bad. If I set it to "Let the system manage" option (the default, I think, then my Page File can get as big as 8-9GB, leaving less than 500MB of free space on my system drive. I have 16GB of RAM - why the hell would it create such huge Page File size? Of course I had to manage it on my own and selected static 4096MB Min and 4096MB Max.

    I didn't have such a problem with Windows 7 and 8.1 Any ideas how to improve this? I read several articles suggesting letting the system manage the Page File as it has performance advantages, which I'd love to have.
     
  2. Garbellano

    Garbellano MDL Addicted

    Aug 13, 2012
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    yes, dont use it :clap:
     
  3. cengizhan

    cengizhan MDL Senior Member

    Jul 29, 2009
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    "I read several articles suggesting letting the system manage the Page File as it has performance advantages, which I'd love to have. "

    this is not right. if you have such big memory you should set it manually otherwise windows will make it very big. also making it automatic doesnt make it faster.
    make it fixed size and defrag it. if the size is not enough windows will let you know that your swap file is small.
     
  4. MrMagic

    MrMagic MDL Guru

    Feb 13, 2012
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    How small is your system drive?
     
  5. Flipp3r

    Flipp3r MDL Expert

    Feb 11, 2009
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    I'm running with 16GB ram & my page file is only 2.2gb. Hibernation file is 6.5gb which I never use. Even if I do ever shutdown I have the habit of holding shift.
    Why are you running out of space? Actually, if your mounting and updating wims etc like I do then yeah, you do that all on the ssd so need the space if your running a smaller drive...
     
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  6. endbase

    endbase MDL Guru

    Aug 12, 2012
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    If you have 16GB of ram why do you need an paging file anyway ;) It is in many cases slower then the memory itself :tea:
     
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  7. MrMagic

    MrMagic MDL Guru

    Feb 13, 2012
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    It is in ALL cases slower than the memory itself

    --
    Because some programs need a pagefile, and cause problems without one

    16GB isn't a massive amount of RAM these days, if you run a couple of VMs and some photo / video editing software, and have no pagefile, and the system runs out of RAM, you're gonna crash
     
  8. Mr.X

    Mr.X MDL Guru

    Jul 14, 2013
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    Minecraft server requires paging file.
     
  9. endbase

    endbase MDL Guru

    Aug 12, 2012
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    #9 endbase, Mar 11, 2016
    Last edited: Mar 11, 2016
    Never had that problem personaly and don't know about the crash my point is that it is always slower if you computer is paging on your hard disk so we are both on the same page I think only that I prefer not using a pagefile If possible :tea:
     
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  10. endbase

    endbase MDL Guru

    Aug 12, 2012
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    Had an minecraft server running on Java platform man that realy takes up your memory :D
     
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  11. WaltC

    WaltC MDL Addicted

    Mar 8, 2014
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    I have 8 GBs ram and my page file on c:\ is set to 420mb-512mb; and the pagefile on my i:\ partition is set to system managed. Both combined are using less that 1GB at the moment (932mbs). I would have the c:\ pagefile a lot smaller still because it's an SSD, except for the fact that Windows requires that much in order to do sys dumps in the case of a crash (or so Windows tells me, that is.) Samsung recommends that c:\ be set to ~200mbs for the 850 EVO. I:\ is an HD partition.
     
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  12. pisthai

    pisthai Imperfect Human

    Jul 29, 2009
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    Maybe, if enough RAM are available, creating a Ram Disk and point the pagefile to that would solve some problems. Just a guess!
     
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  13. bpwnes

    bpwnes MDL Member

    Aug 11, 2015
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    Putting the pagefile on a ramdisk doesn't make much sense as it would reduce the amount of free memory and more things would just be paged. There is an article written by a Microsoft dev on the subject.

    Back in XP days, the pagefile was typically 1.5x the amount of physical memory you had. Supposedly Microsoft changed the way memory management works in 10, using more available memory and paging less until it needs to. I skimmed an article that came out during the tech preview, but never looked into it to get specifics.
     
  14. EFA11

    EFA11 Avatar Guru

    Oct 7, 2010
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    get moooaar ram

    32gb and the PF under most uses would never get used in 10
     
  15. cengizhan

    cengizhan MDL Senior Member

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    it is not wise to completely disable because some proprams really need it whether you have big memory or not. try to disable it and you may see that windows created it again even after this.
     
  16. embasie

    embasie MDL Novice

    Feb 14, 2013
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    I have 32GB RAM, and still using PageFile.
     
  17. atgpud2003

    atgpud2003 MDL Addicted

    Apr 30, 2015
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    Please keep in mind! Keep as Default PageFile and make sure you have enough room your hard drive.. If you hard drive is SSD like 64GB ~ 120GB and you have HDD, best way is change setting set HDD Drive for ex: H: and set pageFile.. I would suggest to set PageFile as same ram, But if you have 16GB or more, then set to safe as 4GB to 8GB is more enough everything you need.
     
  18. trungpt

    trungpt MDL Addicted

    Dec 15, 2009
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    On 8GB and 16 GB of RAM, I alway disable paging file :D
     
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  19. Super Spartan

    Super Spartan MDL Expert

    May 30, 2014
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    I have 64GB RAM on my laptop and Windows 10 set my page file to 9072 MB.

    I've read a lot that leaving the page file the heck alone is the best option. either ways, Windows will only write old/redundant data to it leaving the more important stuff live in RAM for faster access

    But if one is constrained on space, 1024MB min / 4096MB is ideal
     
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  20. aJimNez1911

    aJimNez1911 MDL Novice

    Mar 11, 2016
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    Learned something new.

    Prior to today I had absolutely no knowledge of paging file, I feel like I learned a good amount of basic information from this thread.

    I too discovered that the best option point blank is to just let Windows manage this on its own, disabling it can cause more issues than leaving it be. It seems like having at least 16GB of ram would make it pointless to alter the paging filesystem, especially if you don't have 100 + programs open and running in the background.