Solved Unmoveable System Files other than pagefile and hiberfil?

[bbearren]

The pagefile performance discussion for systems with 4, 6, 8 or 16GBs of RAM is really useless. Look into Process Monitor > Memory tab. The graph on the bottom right will show you how many hard page faults you will get - practically zero. There is only the odd process that generates a page fault here and there - even if there is plenty of available RAM.

So whether the pagefile is large or small, on this partition or disk or another partition or disk is completely irrelevant. If there are no page faults to start with, there is nothing you can "optimize".

Viewing the Resource Monitor > Memory tab I get a consistent zero hard page faults. However, the discussion doesn't really concern page faults, if you'll go back and re-read the posts.

I setup my machines my way to have zero fragmentation of the pagefile, and zero file fragmentation caused by fragmentation of the pagefile. Simple as that. According to Microsoft, placing a fixed pagefile on a dedicated partition (meaning no other file system use for that partition) eliminates fragmentation of the pagefile.

The only optimization I'm attempting is eliminating any unnecessary disk activity of Windows resizing the pagefile, eliminating any fragmentation of the pagefile itself, and reducing fragmentation of the HDD by eliminating any possibility of HDD fragmentation caused by fragmentation of the pagefile.

Again, nothing at all to do with page faults.

 

[whs]

The pagefile performance discussion for systems with 4, 6, 8 or 16GBs of RAM is really useless. Look into Process Monitor > Memory tab. The graph on the bottom right will show you how many hard page faults you will get - practically zero. There is only the odd process that generates a page fault here and there - even if there is plenty of available RAM.

So whether the pagefile is large or small, on this partition or disk or another partition or disk is completely irrelevant. If there are no page faults to start with, there is nothing you can "optimize".

Viewing the Resource Monitor > Memory tab I get a consistent zero hard page faults. However, the discussion doesn't really concern page faults, if you'll go back and re-read the posts.

I setup my machines my way to have zero fragmentation of the pagefile, and zero file fragmentation caused by fragmentation of the pagefile. Simple as that. According to Microsoft, placing a fixed pagefile on a dedicated partition (meaning no other file system use for that partition) eliminates fragmentation of the pagefile.

The only optimization I'm attempting is eliminating any unnecessary disk activity of Windows resizing the pagefile, eliminating any fragmentation of the pagefile itself, and reducing fragmentation of the HDD by eliminating any possibility of HDD fragmentation caused by fragmentation of the pagefile.

Again, nothing at all to do with page faults.

Yeah, I see what you are trying to do. But if you left the pagefile on the SSD and reduced it to e.g. 1GB or 2GB, then you would mot have to worry about fragmentation in the first place.

 

[bbearren]

Yeah, I see what you are trying to do. But if you left the pagefile on the SSD and reduced it to e.g. 1GB or 2GB, then you would mot have to worry about fragmentation in the first place.

I don't own an SSD, and until the $/GB is equal to or less than traditional spinners, I won't; my PC is already faster than I am. It stays on, so boot time (which is less than one minute, anyway) is not a factor of interest to me. I hibernate my laptop so I can keep working programs open and ready.

The way I have it setup, it stays faster than I am. I have no falloff in performance; it's faster now than it was when I bought it, since I've stripped Windows down and rebuilt it to my own preferences.

 

[whs]

Yeah, I see what you are trying to do. But if you left the pagefile on the SSD and reduced it to e.g. 1GB or 2GB, then you would mot have to worry about fragmentation in the first place.

I don't own an SSD, and until the $/GB is equal to or less than traditional spinners, I won't; my PC is already faster than I am. It stays on, so boot time (which is less than one minute, anyway) is not a factor of interest to me. I hibernate my laptop so I can keep working programs open and ready.

The way I have it setup, it stays faster than I am. I have no falloff in performance; it's faster now than it was when I bought it, since I've stripped Windows down and rebuilt it to my own preferences.

That sounds like you are a happy camper. I could not live without the SSDs. Already a 1 minute boot would annoy me. And taking an image of the whole OS in 4 minutes is also something I like because I image 3 times per week.

But to everyone his own.

 

[Oubadah]

He, I'm another SSD skeptic . Bought Intel 320s, the SSDs didn't live up to all the hype, so I sold them and now back on my short stroked F3s.

It all depends on your usage patterns I guess.

 

[whs]

He, I'm another SSD skeptic . Bought Intel 320s, the SSDs didn't live up to all the hype, so I sold them and now back on my short stroked F3s.

It all depends on your usage patterns I guess.

What was your specific problem(s).

 

[Oubadah]

What was your specific problem(s).

My primary use was gaming, and the SSD's didn't really do squat. That makes a certain amount of sense because most of the time everything gets loaded into the RAM when a level loads so the drive is irrelevant once you're actually playing. I thought the SSD might have improved the initial load times themselves, but there was only a noticeable difference in the loading times of just two games, and I wouldn't have called it significant.

Then there are games that do not load in levels as such - the type that stream in data on the fly. I'd seen people crowing about SSD for this kind of application, claiming that they eliminated streaming pauses/stutter, but I was never affected with the F3s, and noticed no difference on the SSDs.

For general use (browsing, light apps etc.), there was a more noticeable difference, but not as much as I'd expected. Switching from the SSD system to my HDD systems on a daily basis didn't leave me longing for the SSDs.

There's no doubting that the SSDs were faster, but they didn't improve my experience as much as I'd been led to believe they would, and they certainly didn't improve my experience enough to justify the price of the upgrade.

I think the sweet spot for most users would probably be a cheap (smallish) SSD dedicated to the OS and a handful of commonly used apps and HDDs for everything else.

My theory as to why there is so much hype about SSDs, is that the average user switches from an old, sub-optimally configured, poorly maintained HDD to the SSD and is (unsurprisingly) overwhelmed by the improvement. It's a little bit like when someone "upgrades" from an old CRT (that's lost it's focus, developed bad phosphor trailing, convergence issues etc.) to a brand new LCD, and they immediately exclaim that LCD is superior to CRT! Not a valid comparison.

That's just my opinion, many will disagree. And know that if my funds were unlimited, I would only be using SSD.

 

[whs]

Hmm, I would not disagree. For your specific needs the SSDs may not be justified.

I never play any game - not even hearts. In fact the OEM game folders are always the first thing I delete. So I am in a completely different setup.

I like the very fast load times for both the system and relatively big programs like PowerPoint. Anything I click is instantly on the screen - and that was not the case when I used spinners.

 

[bbearren]

I like the very fast load times for both the system and relatively big programs like PowerPoint. Anything I click is instantly on the screen - and that was not the case when I used spinners.

Anything I click on is instantly on the screen, and I use spinners. There's optimized, and then there's optimized.