My Dell Mini Forum

satyr · 01:01 AM

OK, I already asked this question in No pagefile by default on my new netbook, is this OK?! on Ars OpenForum, but I thought it might be a good idea to ask it also here ...

You see, recently I got a Dell Inspiron 910 netbook (model PP39S, processor Intel Atom N270 with 8 GB SSD MLC) from my mobile-phone provider with a relatively fast internet connection (and fixed price, which is the main point)

But anyway, let's go on to my question: when I checked the OS's (it's Windows XP Home SP3) configuration I noticed that it's set to "No paging file". Therefore I changed this setting (since I remember reading, also here on Ars, that some apps require it to exist even if the respective machine has plenty of RAM) to initial size of 512 and maximal to 1024 MB.

So my question is basically: have I done the right thing or should I leave it at default setting (namely, is this the default setting for such computers with SSD drives) with no pagefile??!

Thanks, satyr

holmes4 · 06-02-2009, 01:21 AM

The pagefile is ok to have on the SSD - some people think it isn't. But if you have 2GB RAM, you can do without the pagefile. I'm surprised yours came with it off, though.

If you do enable it, I recommend setting the maximum and minimum size to be the same so that it doesn't get split up across the disk.

gospeed.racer · 06-02-2009, 01:27 AM

I always disable it when I have 2gb of ram as well. Keep in mind that the pagefile sets itself to about the same as the size of the Ram, so a 2gb stick will want a 2gb pagefile. On a 4 or 8gb machine, thats a lot of room!

holmes4 · 06-02-2009, 12:07 PM

I have not seen the pagefile set itself to the amount of RAM. Hibernate file, yes.

Dunhamzzz · 06-02-2009, 02:08 PM

I'm now setting up my partners new 8gb Dell Mini, I'll be turning down the pagefile low, hope it doesn't have too many freezes.

I found that on my 2gb RAM mini I lost all stalls by getting rid of the pagefile.

satyr · 06-02-2009, 04:29 PM

Thanks all four your replies ...

Hendrik · 06-02-2009, 05:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by holmes4

If you do enable it, I recommend setting the maximum and minimum size to be the same so that it doesn't get split up across the disk.

Which disk? It's an SSD

It doesn't matter "where" the files are stored on an SSD. It's always equally fast.

holmes4 · 06-02-2009, 08:05 PM

I know it's equally fast to access, but if it's broken up, that may turn into multiple I/O requests. If you let Windows manage the size, the pagefile will grow and shrink, and this will cause unnecessary wear on the SSD.

Hendrik · 06-02-2009, 08:17 PM

Thinking about that a second time ... you might be right with the I/O request. Though I don't think that you will see any noticable difference.

About the wear of the SD card: I found this article: SDHC Cards vs Hard Drive vs SSD

Quote:

If your SDHC is 4GB with a formatted capacity of 3900MB, and you do nothing but write to it as fast as you can - at, say, 30MB/s - you'll still only be able to replace its entire contents every 130 seconds. At that rate, it'll take you 1,500 days (4.1 years) to hit 1,000,000 cycles.

Sounds plausible so I don't think that you have to worry about that

davemao · 06-02-2009, 08:50 PM

From the articles and posts I've read on optimization of Windows on SSD's, my recommendation would be to turn off the pagefile. The problem with SSD's is that they are very fast at reading data, but very slow at writing data. The nature of the pagefile is that there are frequent writes of small amounts of data, which is kind of a worst-case-scenario for SSD's.

Here's a link to a thread on the OCZ forum where this several SSD optimizations are discussed in detail:

Making XP pro SSD friendly - OCZ Forum

I tried these back when I ran XP on my mini 9, and they made a big difference. You won't see any change in your benchmarks, but the computer is definitely "snappier" if these tips are followed.