Ram vs Pagefile/Swap Memory

[Q91]

Either I am googling the wrong combination of words, or there's no real information about these topics on the internet, so I will ask here.

On alot of Operation Systems, especially on computers with low specs, there is a need of a virtual memory to offload the physical memory (RAM). This might be in the form of a pagefile (Windows) or a swap partiton (unix based). But what are the requirements on computers that have sufficient RAM, or even too much RAM?

My current build, which is a Windows 7 64-bits with a Intel i5 process and 16 Gigabit of RAM, do I need an pagefile at all? Currently I got a pagefile that has a standard size of 1GB, but can increase to 4GB if required by the system, but looking at my computer, I got about 13Gb of physical memory free.

Question
So, what's best? To have a pagefile, even though you got plenty of RAM, or is the pagefile needed for backwards combatibility with software programmed for use or virtual ram? I had 1 or 2 softwares a couple of years ago complaining about virtual memory being to low (even tho I had enough RAM back then aswell).

Conclusion
From what I have gathered on Google and from people's reply on here, is that if you have plenty of RAM, you wont need to have a large swap memory/pagefile unless you're into Production that requires alot of memory, where the swap memory/pagefile could be good as backup solution if your RAM is at it's limit.

If you have it the other way, you only have a limited amount of RAM, the best usage is to have a swap memory/pagefile that is, at most, 2.5 times as large as the RAM. If you need more cache, buying larger RAM is still a better solution than a bigger swap memory/pagefile.

[akun]

The pagefile will be useful if you use your computer for video editing, very large photoshop processing, etc. If the amount of ram you have is really enough for your tasks, you can set the pagefile to the minimal setting and benefit from the full speed of your ram. However if it happens to you to exceed the physical ram usage, the application you are using will force-close with the famous "windows has run out of memory blabla" so having some spare swap is really precious to avoid this while doing some serious and heavy work.

[SectorVector]

Hi Q91. Please see if you find the info and advice in the following article of help. There are aspects to the Windows internals am not aware of (such as SuperFetch mentioned in the article). Bottom Line: Looks like disabling page file is not recommended.
http://lifehacker.com/5426041/understand...disable-it

Thank you for your question. Makes me want to brush up on OS concepts :-)

[Q91]

Disabling the Pagefile Can Lead to System Problems

The big problem with disabling your pagefile is that once you've exhausted the available RAM, your apps are going to start crashing, since there's no virtual memory for Windows to allocate—and worst case, your actual system will crash or become very unstable. When that application crashes, it's going down hard—there's no time to save your work or do anything else.

In addition to applications crashing anytime you run up against the memory limit, you'll also come across a lot of applications that simply won't run properly if the pagefile is disabled. For instance, you really won't want to run a virtual machine on a box with no pagefile, and some defrag utilities will also fail. You'll also notice some other strange, indefinable behavior when your pagefile is disabled—in my experience, a lot of things just don't always work right.

If you're refering to this paragraph, can you really say I will ever get close those problems with 16Gb? Going towards what akun said, if I where to run software like Image and Movie production tools (I dont think Music production take anything close to what these 2 can get up to), I might considering having a pagefile for safety, but like it's now, not really.

For example, if your system has 4GB of RAM and your peak memory usage was 5GB (including virtual memory), you should set your pagefile to at least 1GB and the maximum as 2GB to give you a buffer to keep you safe in case a RAM-hungry application needs it. If you have 8GB of RAM and a max 3GB of memory usage, you should still have a pagefile, but you would probably be fine with a 1 GB size. Note: If your system is configured for crash dumps you'll need to have a larger pagefile or Windows won't be able to write out the process memory in the event of a crash—though it's not very useful for most end-users.

Mark Russinovich can never be wrong

I didn't really create this thread because I had problems (other than having a small SSD as system disc so I have to move around the pagefile), but I've always been interested in knowing why the fuck it existed in the beginning.

[SectorVector]

I suppose 16 GB is a lot of Main Memory. Perhaps you would not need the pagefile, which I can only assume is a carry over from UNIX swap space idea, to address thrashing. Its my best guess. I think too akun's answer is spot on.

Ref: http://anonexp.blogspot.in/2012/05/swap-space.html
I only know of one Charles Petzold. My background is (was?) in UNIX, which now you are making me brush up. :-)
Edit: Mark Russinovich is the author of Windows Internals book ! Sacrilege to have said I didn't know of him !

[NIK]

I didn't really create this thread because I had problems (other than having a small SSD as system disc so I have to move around the pagefile), but I've always been interested in knowing why the fuck it existed in the beginning.

You answered that yourself, in your opening post--pagefiles/swap partitions were invented because, back in the day, memories were limited.

It really is no mystery, and it really is no more complicated than that.

[Q91]

I didn't really create this thread because I had problems (other than having a small SSD as system disc so I have to move around the pagefile), but I've always been interested in knowing why the fuck it existed in the beginning.

You answered that yourself, in your opening post--pagefiles/swap partitions were invented because, back in the day, memories were limited.

It really is no mystery, and it really is no more complicated than that.

Maybe I did. But have I really gotten my answe?. Most of the information I have found is about older articles, or information about people who have low RAM.

[-nelly-]

Take pagefile off of C (onto its own little partition). Point everything to it for default if you know what i mean. RAM will cover everything. If not. It'll look for pagefile.

Hope i have that correct mate. Works for me

[NIK]

Maybe I did. But have I really gotten my answe?. Most of the information I have found is about older articles, or information about people who have low RAM.

I don't get what it is that you're claiming to not understand? There is nothing unanswered here, and nothing even remotely confusing about the answers.

[krosis]

The only thing I can think of that may have even remote issue, is if there is an application specific reason for the pagefile (old programs that default to page file after using x amount of memory) or hibernation/sleep modes which offload into the swap (I believe Windows has a specific Hibernation file for this) With the cost of storage space i see no reason to worry about having one or not, out of site out of mind, as it should be.