Win 7 and SSD

[MK-2]

I've got a 64GB SSD which I've whacked win7 on to. I know displayed sizes of drives are going to be under 64GB, but in my computer it shows as something like 57GB total with 35gb used on c:

However if i select every single file on c: and do properties it comes to 11gb. where is this erroneus 20gb gone? If the files on the drive are taking up 11gb and it displays a total of 57gb, why when i go to disk properties does it say 35gb used.

 

i know win7 makes a partition for sys files, but surely this wouldn't show up under the c: section? also i thought that was only about 1gb!

 

The only thing I'd done differently is usually in Win setup I will select the partition and format it myself in the setup. This time I just clicked next and it was on unallocated space, so i assume it then formats and partitions the drive itself. That is the only difference to other installs i've done that don't take up 35gb

[jamesreedersmith]

Hidden files and folders - theres lots on a win 7 install drive!

[deceptivex]

I've got a 64GB SSD which I've whacked win7 on to. I know displayed sizes of drives are going to be under 64GB, but in my computer it shows as something like 57GB total with 35gb used on c:

However if i select every single file on c: and do properties it comes to 11gb. where is this erroneus 20gb gone? If the files on the drive are taking up 11gb and it displays a total of 57gb, why when i go to disk properties does it say 35gb used.

 

i know win7 makes a partition for sys files, but surely this wouldn't show up under the c: section? also i thought that was only about 1gb!

 

The only thing I'd done differently is usually in Win setup I will select the partition and format it myself in the setup. This time I just clicked next and it was on unallocated space, so i assume it then formats and partitions the drive itself. That is the only difference to other installs i've done that don't take up 35gb

 

That's about right mate. Mine shows up as 59Gb, I have 13Gb free with Office etc installed.

[MK-2]

That's about right mate. Mine shows up as 59Gb, I have 13Gb free with Office etc installed.

 

I'm sure I've done installs before and it's taken up about 15/20GB at most, 35GB just seems overkill.

Looks like I'll be needing another drive for program files then, because no way is steam plus all the steam downloads fitting into 19gb spare. Bah and balls

[jamesfed]

Windows 7 should turn it off (for SSDs) but see if the page file is still enabled - also check if system hybernation is still enabled.

 

One other thing to use is good old WinDir - it'll map out in a nice graphical way where all your storage is going.

[sted]

some oif the diff will be due to files that are say 2k but because of the way the disk works take up a say 16k blobk so there is in my example 14k of space that you cant use but isnt used (so for example you have 3l of water and you only have 2l bottles ones going to be half full and you cant use that other half to store say orange juice)

 

Windows 7 should turn it off (for SSDs) but see if the page file is still enabled - also check if system hybernation is still enabled.

 

One other thing to use is good old WinDir - it'll map out in a nice graphical way where all your storage is going.

 

will it do that "on the fly" if i clone my existing hdd to my new ssd or will it only do it on a fresh install? (mindu i can always move it manually to drive d anyway)

Edited November 2, 2011 by sted

[glennda]

Double check the page file. I have my whole school with 64gb partitions (as over 300 have 64gb ssd's) and i've not had a problem. We have the full school image on them which has the likes of cs3/studio 8 and don't have problems

[Arthur]

From an elevated command prompt, run powercfg -h off to disable hibernation (assuming you don't use it).

 

If you have 8-16GB RAM, look at reducing the size of the pagefile, but DO NOT disable it completely.

 

Delete any files you may have in your Temp folders. CCleaner is good at doing this.

[Arthur]

will it do that "on the fly" if I clone my existing hdd to my new ssd or will it only do it on a fresh install?

Yes. I've cloned a HDD to an SSD and Windows did automatically disable defrag and enable TRIM. I re-ran the WEI just to make sure though.

[SYNACK]

This is probably just Volume Shadow Copy. Go into the drive properties and look at the previous versions tab. Delete the snapshots, turn it off or you can even use disk cleanup tool (under admin privilages) > Cleanup system files button > more options tab > system restore and shadow copies > clean up..

 

This should clean up a whole bunch. By default Win 7 also has the whole compressed install image installed in the background but that would not cause such usage.

[MK-2]

just as an addition, this was immediately after the win7 install had finished, it rebooted into win7 and that was the drive usage.

i do have 16gb so what should the recommended page file be? i'll have a look at the rest when i get home, cheers guys

[SYNACK]

Page file; I think the recommended ammount was 1.5/2 times the RAM for system dumps etc. On a side note paging to the SSD will kill its life span a lot quicker so more RAM and no page file will make your system even faster and last longer.

[MK-2]

Page file; I think the recommended ammount was 1.5/2 times the RAM for system dumps etc. On a side note paging to the SSD will kill its life span a lot quicker so more RAM and no page file will make your system even faster and last longer.

 

well i mean i have 16gb so if you're saying 2x the ram i'm looking at 32gb of a 64gb drive gone! can't really be doing with that tbh!

is there any reason the pagefile should not be turned off?

[BHMS]

Pagefile needs to be enabled for memory dumps. On my home system I run with it disabled, never get close to filling 12gb of ram. Programs certainly run snapier with it off. BF3 loads new maps very quickly even without an SSD.

[SYNACK]

Mostly just memory dumps if you have lots of RAM, I'd probably run without it.

[Guest Guest]

I run without it or I put it on a HDD. Never ever ever ever ever put it on a SSD, unless you enjoy buying new ones every couple of years.

[Arthur]

On a side note paging to the SSD will kill its life span a lot quicker so more RAM and no page file will make your system even faster and last longer.

The SSD is absolutely the best location for the page file. There really is no need to worry about writes either.

 

Should the pagefile be placed on SSDs?

Yes. Most pagefile operations are small random reads or larger sequential writes, both of which are types of operations that SSDs handle well.

 

In looking at telemetry data from thousands of traces and focusing on pagefile reads and writes, we find that:

 

• Pagefile.sys reads outnumber pagefile.sys writes by about 40 to 1,
  
• Pagefile.sys read sizes are typically quite small, with 67% less than or equal to 4 KB, and 88% less than 16 KB.
  
• Pagefile.sys writes are relatively large, with 62% greater than or equal to 128 KB and 45% being exactly 1 MB in size.
  

In fact, given typical pagefile reference patterns and the favourable performance characteristics SSDs have on those patterns, there are few files better than the pagefile to place on an SSD. (Source)

 

Regarding its size, please read the following article by Mark Russinovich. The text below is just a small excerpt (it goes into a lot more detail)...

 

How Big Should I Make the Paging File?

Perhaps one of the most commonly asked questions related to virtual memory is, how big should I make the paging file? There’s no end of ridiculous advice out on the web and in the newsstand magazines that cover Windows, and even Microsoft has published misleading recommendations. Almost all the suggestions are based on multiplying RAM size by some factor, with common values being 1.2, 1.5 and 2. Now that you understand the role that the paging file plays in defining a system’s commit limit and how processes contribute to the commit charge, you’re well positioned to see how useless such formulas truly are.

 

Since the commit limit sets an upper bound on how much private and pagefile-backed virtual memory can be allocated concurrently by running processes, the only way to reasonably size the paging file is to know the maximum total commit charge for the programs you like to have running at the same time. If the commit limit is smaller than that number, your programs won’t be able to allocate the virtual memory they want and will fail to run properly.

 

So how do you know how much commit charge your workloads require? You might have noticed in the screenshots that Windows tracks that number and Process Explorer shows it: Peak Commit Charge. To optimally size your paging file you should start all the applications you run at the same time, load typical data sets, and then note the commit charge peak (or look at this value after a period of time where you know maximum load was attained). Set the paging file minimum to be that value minus the amount of RAM in your system (if the value is negative, pick a minimum size to permit the kind of crash dump you are configured for). If you want to have some breathing room for potentially large commit demands, set the maximum to double that number. (Source)

 

is there any reason the pagefile should not be turned off?

The page file should be left ENABLED. You do not want to disable it completely. Please read the article above for a technical explanation (or click here for a shorter version).

Edited November 2, 2011 by Arthur

[Arthur]

Never ever ever ever ever put it on a SSD, unless you enjoy buying new ones every couple of years.

Utter nonsense!

[glennda]

TBH i've always just moved the pagefile to an HDD rather then SSD purely for space.