Huge pagefile

CountMike · 10 May 2018

jimbo45 said:

Hi there
@CountMike

and where do you think that 2.6 GB is cached -- yes it's in an OS file !!!!!
the paging pool is currently the in demand processes which might be sufficient - depending on what's running or not.

The OS is designed to run with a paging file -- size required depends on all sorts of factors but it's definitely a bad idea to run with none at all.

If you are just doing basic internet surfing, e-shopping (inc banking etc) email or running a spread sheet or a word doc then it won't make any difference but once you start loading the system up say with VM's and other things you will definitely need a paging file.

With VM's though it is worth taking a small hit on their performance since you want to avoid "double paging" i.e where both the HOST and the VM's are both paging especially if the VM's are on slower HDD's. That's a separate issue though and if you are using LINUX as a VM then swap placement areas become important - best to have a native formatted HDD / SSD for that =-- have a tiny Windows virtual HDD for the main /boot partition and have the rest of the Virtual OS on the SSD / HDD with at least / (root) and swap on the native device. That way you should avoid the HOST machine doing double paging when the Linux VM is loaded up or busy or needing its swap space..

Cheers
jimbo

That's the size I allocated it.

slicendice · 10 May 2018

@jimbo45

Cached memory has nothing to do with paging. That number tells how much application data is pre-cached to RAM so that they launch faster and load their data faster.

Don't confuse the two.

TairikuOkami · 10 May 2018

slicendice said:

Cached memory has nothing to do with paging. That number tells how much application data is pre-cached to RAM so that they launch faster and load their data faster.

Indeed, I have pagefile disabled and my task manager looks virtually the same as the previous one.

CountMike · 10 May 2018

On disk:

Bree · 10 May 2018

CountMike said:

On disk:

The swapfile is new for Windows 8 and above. It does the same job as the pagefile, but for the modern windows apps.

with the introduction of the Modern App, we needed a way to manage their memory outside of the traditional Virtual Memory/Pagefile method. With that, the “%SystemDrive%\swapfile.sys” was born

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/...new-swap-file/

kitpzyxmsir · 11 May 2018

At this point, I just felt the least complicated thing to do to fix the current mess was to restore a Macrium backup from several months ago that I figured would have the normal/expected pagefile size for my system.

That's precisely what happened. Back to a typical pagefile size for my purposes.

Attachment 188311
Attachment 188312

swarfega said:

What size is the physical drive that the OS is on? Although Windows will install on 20gb, you haven't left it much room for normal operation. Do you have other drives? You could move you user files to there and disable the hibernation file.

I normally don't have a problem with having room for "normal operation" because maybe my normal operation probably differs from most?

I have a 1tb SSD. I create a 40gb OS partition (22.4 is free & the remainder of the SSD is partitioned for data storage). I like to keep it simple and efficient. Small Macrium backups (8 minutes to do a restore), and few software updates whenever a restore is necessary, because I only install something on it when I can't find a portable alternative, and I've been fortunate doing so for quite some time, even when it means creating my own portable version by way of installer extraction.

And I'm not a gamer, so that's ruled out of the pagefile bloat equation.

I'm puzzled why this pagefile bloated, but I'm more frustrated at the prospect that there isn't a simple way to get things back to "normal" without either taking management control away from the system or deleting the pagefile.

Isn't there some way to reset the system to re-evaluate the necessary pagefile size after it is deleted? I mean, something obviously has been altered in the system that sets the file back to 16 gb (that normally has a size of, i.e., 2432 mb, like mine) after it is deleted and control is given back to the system.

lx07 · 11 May 2018

kitpzyxmsir said:

Isn't there some way to reset the system to re-evaluate the necessary pagefile size after it is deleted?

Yes. I have a similar setup to you (small C volume, no gaming). Windows always picks 1.9GB for me (8GB RAM) and it stays there until something makes it grow. After it grows it never shrinks.

If it gets bigger (due to something overcommitting memory) I set it to 400MB (minimum recommended so you still get memory dumps), reboot, set it back to system managed and reboot. It then chooses 1.9GB again.

If you can identify what is causing the overcommit you can look into it but I never managed to identify what as it only happens very occasionally for me. Less than once a year certainly.

kitpzyxmsir said:

I just felt the least complicated thing to do to fix the current mess was to restore a Macrium backup from several months ago that I figured would have the normal/expected pagefile size for my system

That would be pointless. Macrium doesn't backup the pagefile.sys (nor hiberfil.sys). Both are backed up as size zero. Your backup will contain the size (as an number in the registry) but restoring a whole backup is unnecessary.

Better solution would be to set to a small fixed amount (zero or 400) and then change it back to system managed with reboots in-between.

AMDMan2016 · 11 May 2018

Mine shows Minimum 1905mb, and Currently Allocated for VIrtual Memory is 6297mb

System
Intel I7
8gb ddr 4

Might set mine different when I do my next clean install to fix some corruption issues Avast av has seemed to caused, tried to use Avast again on my last clean install--mistake

kitpzyxmsir · 18 May 2018

lx07 said:

That would be pointless. Macrium doesn't backup the pagefile.sys (nor hiberfil.sys). Both are backed up as size zero. Your backup will contain the size (as an number in the registry) but restoring a whole backup is unnecessary..

FWIW, at the time I did not yet have your solution available, and implementing the Macrium backup resulted in exactly what I needed it to do by returning things back to "normal"

lx07 said:

Better solution would be to set to a small fixed amount (zero or 400) and then change it back to system managed with reboots in-between.

Thanks. I was hoping there was a much simpler fix than the one I had to resort to.