BillW50 wrote:

> In news:udaUlOncJHA.1336@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl,
> John John (MVP) typed on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:03:17 -0400:
>
>>Ardent wrote:
>>
>>
>>>And I have never used pagefile right from the Win98 days with no
>>>deterioration in performance - editing video and audio files.
>>
>>Tell us, other than saving disk space, what are the benefits of
>>running without a pagefile?
>
>
> Hi John! Some machines I use a pagefile and some I don't. I started not
> to since using SSD instead of hard drives. As too much writing to a SSD
> slows them down and shortens their lifespan.

A few days ago you told us that your SSD drives had a very long life
expectancy. Do you intend on living longer than 228 years?


> And I have noticed no difference at all if you have enough RAM. Although
> Windows isn't even using the pagefile even if you have it turned on in
> this case, so it really doesn't matter. I have noticed 1GB or more
> though is the trip point for me.
>
> Having not enough memory (RAM), what happens without a pagefile is you
> will see delays (pauses) in the OS and applications. And it will get
> worse if you don't start closing down applications you are not using or
> simply rebooting. If you ignore the freezing, Windows will suddenly just
> stop. And you will barely have a chance to even shutdown if it will even
> allow you to do this.
>
> But the whole purpose of VM (aka pagefile) is to use the mass storage
> device as more physical RAM anyway. And if you have enough, you actually
> don't need it at all. As I never had seen a single problem yet.

You don't really understand how process address space works.

John

In news:u0ZtvkocJHA.1188@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl,
John John (MVP) typed on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:37:28 -0400:
> BillW50 wrote:
>
>> In news:udaUlOncJHA.1336@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl,
>> John John (MVP) typed on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:03:17 -0400:
>>
>>> Ardent wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> And I have never used pagefile right from the Win98 days with no
>>>> deterioration in performance - editing video and audio files.
>>>
>>> Tell us, other than saving disk space, what are the benefits of
>>> running without a pagefile?
>>
>>
>> Hi John! Some machines I use a pagefile and some I don't. I started
>> not to since using SSD instead of hard drives. As too much writing
>> to a SSD slows them down and shortens their lifespan.
>
> A few days ago you told us that your SSD drives had a very long life
> expectancy. Do you intend on living longer than 228 years?

Yes true and since I limit my writing to the SSD to about 100MB per day,
my 8GB SSD should last over 22,000 years. But writing a lot unnecessary
can reduce one to a short 11 years.

But even so, SSD can read as fast as most hard drives, they are much
slower at writing than most hard drives are. So even if you are not
worried about the lifespan (and I was in the beginning until I figured
out how long it would take), reducing unnecessary writes speeds up
performance on SSD.

>> And I have noticed no difference at all if you have enough RAM.
>> Although Windows isn't even using the pagefile even if you have it
>> turned on in this case, so it really doesn't matter. I have noticed
>> 1GB or more though is the trip point for me.
>>
>> Having not enough memory (RAM), what happens without a pagefile is
>> you will see delays (pauses) in the OS and applications. And it will
>> get worse if you don't start closing down applications you are not
>> using or simply rebooting. If you ignore the freezing, Windows will
>> suddenly just stop. And you will barely have a chance to even
>> shutdown if it will even allow you to do this.
>>
>> But the whole purpose of VM (aka pagefile) is to use the mass storage
>> device as more physical RAM anyway. And if you have enough, you
>> actually don't need it at all. As I never had seen a single problem
>> yet.
>
> You don't really understand how process address space works.

Sure I do John, very well. Back before ramdrives and VM, we used to
write software that used overlays to swap parts of an application in and
out of memory. Back in those days, ram was very expensive. Nowadays it
is cheaper than ever and most people could afford 2GB or more of ram.
Thus the days of not being able to afford enough ram and having to use
software tricks to make up for the lack of it are being numbered.

--
Bill
2 Gateway MX6124 - Windows XP SP2
3 Asus EEE PC 701G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
2 Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 1GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2 ~ Xandros Linux - Puppy - Ubuntu

On Fri, 9 Jan 2009 13:32:54 -0600, "BillW50" <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:

>>> Hi John! Some machines I use a pagefile and some I don't. I started
>>> not to since using SSD instead of hard drives. As too much writing
>>> to a SSD slows them down and shortens their lifespan.
>>
>> A few days ago you told us that your SSD drives had a very long life
>> expectancy. Do you intend on living longer than 228 years?
>
>Yes true and since I limit my writing to the SSD to about 100MB per day,
>my 8GB SSD should last over 22,000 years. But writing a lot unnecessary
>can reduce one to a short 11 years.
>
>But even so, SSD can read as fast as most hard drives, they are much
>slower at writing than most hard drives are. So even if you are not
>worried about the lifespan (and I was in the beginning until I figured
>out how long it would take), reducing unnecessary writes speeds up
>performance on SSD.

Given the read/write/life span/cost issues, I can see no good reason
to even THINK about moving towards SSD technology at this point.

Richie Hardwick

The date and time was Friday, January 09, 2009 10:37:28 AM, and on a
whim, John John (MVP) pounded out on the keyboard:

> BillW50 wrote:
>
>> In news:udaUlOncJHA.1336@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl,
>> John John (MVP) typed on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:03:17 -0400:
>>
>>> Ardent wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> And I have never used pagefile right from the Win98 days with no
>>>> deterioration in performance - editing video and audio files.
>>> Tell us, other than saving disk space, what are the benefits of
>>> running without a pagefile?
>>
>> Hi John! Some machines I use a pagefile and some I don't. I started not
>> to since using SSD instead of hard drives. As too much writing to a SSD
>> slows them down and shortens their lifespan.
>
> A few days ago you told us that your SSD drives had a very long life
> expectancy. Do you intend on living longer than 228 years?
>
>
>> And I have noticed no difference at all if you have enough RAM. Although
>> Windows isn't even using the pagefile even if you have it turned on in
>> this case, so it really doesn't matter. I have noticed 1GB or more
>> though is the trip point for me.
>>
>> Having not enough memory (RAM), what happens without a pagefile is you
>> will see delays (pauses) in the OS and applications. And it will get
>> worse if you don't start closing down applications you are not using or
>> simply rebooting. If you ignore the freezing, Windows will suddenly just
>> stop. And you will barely have a chance to even shutdown if it will even
>> allow you to do this.
>>
>> But the whole purpose of VM (aka pagefile) is to use the mass storage
>> device as more physical RAM anyway. And if you have enough, you actually
>> don't need it at all. As I never had seen a single problem yet.
>
> You don't really understand how process address space works.
>
> John
>

Hi John,

I don't think someone needs to know how it works in order to test it out
in real workday situations. I ran Windows for years without a pagefile,
and it clearly ran MUCH faster, as long as the programs I ran didn't
require more RAM than was installed. I use pagefiles now as my computer
usage changed and I run three hard drives; OS's on one drive and paging
files on the other two.


--
Terry R.

***Reply Note***
Anti-spam measures are included in my email address.
Delete NOSPAM from the email address after clicking Reply.

In news:a3afm416q23ipklk5par3d3cti1ksq3gaa@4ax.com,
Richie Hardwick typed on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:43:52 -0600:
> On Fri, 9 Jan 2009 13:32:54 -0600, "BillW50" <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:
>
>>>> Hi John! Some machines I use a pagefile and some I don't. I started
>>>> not to since using SSD instead of hard drives. As too much writing
>>>> to a SSD slows them down and shortens their lifespan.
>>>
>>> A few days ago you told us that your SSD drives had a very long life
>>> expectancy. Do you intend on living longer than 228 years?
>>
>> Yes true and since I limit my writing to the SSD to about 100MB per
>> day, my 8GB SSD should last over 22,000 years. But writing a lot
>> unnecessary can reduce one to a short 11 years.
>>
>> But even so, SSD can read as fast as most hard drives, they are much
>> slower at writing than most hard drives are. So even if you are not
>> worried about the lifespan (and I was in the beginning until I
>> figured out how long it would take), reducing unnecessary writes
>> speeds up performance on SSD.
>
> Given the read/write/life span/cost issues, I can see no good reason
> to even THINK about moving towards SSD technology at this point.

Hi Richie! Well that is you. And you probably think you need as much GB
as your hard drive is, or close. Well this isn't so at all for most of
us. Plus 8GB SLC SSD are the same price as say 2.5 inch 160GB hard
drives. So the price is competitive.

Plus the big plus for SSD is the durability. As while laptops with hard
drives are said to be portable. You shouldn't move them too much while
they are on do to head crashes. Which will ruin one in no time flat.

This isn't so with SSD. As you can accidentally drop them, bang them,
hand them to somebody else (like they do on Star Trek), etc. without
worries. Very useful for true portability IMHO. Much like the
portability of PDA, but with the power of a laptop.

As for the space issue of smaller GB in SSD... well I thought this would
be an issue too. And I do find it so on my 4GB SSD machines. As they are
a bit tight for my tastes. But 8GB is plenty of space for the OS and
applications for Windows XP.

Data is another issue. For most people, you don't need data to be on a
speedy mass storage device. And I have found tiny 16GB SD cards to be
the answer there. You could carry like 100 of these things just to equal
the size of one 2.5 inch hard drive. Need more space? You could plug in
an USB hard drive, but you have to be careful about bumping it like you
do with other hard drive devices. But I rarely need that much storage
anyway and most of the time (over 99.99%) I don't.

--
Bill
2 Gateway MX6124 - Windows XP SP2
3 Asus EEE PC 701G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
2 Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 1GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2 ~ Xandros Linux - Puppy - Ubuntu

In news:%23Vjl0RpcJHA.2132@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl,
Terry R. typed on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:57:11 -0800:
> The date and time was Friday, January 09, 2009 10:37:28 AM, and on a
> whim, John John (MVP) pounded out on the keyboard:
>
>> BillW50 wrote:
>>
>>> In news:udaUlOncJHA.1336@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl,
>>> John John (MVP) typed on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:03:17 -0400:
>>>
>>>> Ardent wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> And I have never used pagefile right from the Win98 days with no
>>>>> deterioration in performance - editing video and audio files.
>>>> Tell us, other than saving disk space, what are the benefits of
>>>> running without a pagefile?
>>>
>>> Hi John! Some machines I use a pagefile and some I don't. I started
>>> not to since using SSD instead of hard drives. As too much writing
>>> to a SSD slows them down and shortens their lifespan.
>>
>> A few days ago you told us that your SSD drives had a very long life
>> expectancy. Do you intend on living longer than 228 years?
>>
>>
>>> And I have noticed no difference at all if you have enough RAM.
>>> Although Windows isn't even using the pagefile even if you have it
>>> turned on in this case, so it really doesn't matter. I have noticed
>>> 1GB or more though is the trip point for me.
>>>
>>> Having not enough memory (RAM), what happens without a pagefile is
>>> you will see delays (pauses) in the OS and applications. And it
>>> will get worse if you don't start closing down applications you are
>>> not using or simply rebooting. If you ignore the freezing, Windows
>>> will suddenly just stop. And you will barely have a chance to even
>>> shutdown if it will even allow you to do this.
>>>
>>> But the whole purpose of VM (aka pagefile) is to use the mass
>>> storage device as more physical RAM anyway. And if you have enough,
>>> you actually don't need it at all. As I never had seen a single
>>> problem yet.
>>
>> You don't really understand how process address space works.
>>
>> John
>>
>
> Hi John,
>
> I don't think someone needs to know how it works in order to test it
> out in real workday situations. I ran Windows for years without a
> pagefile, and it clearly ran MUCH faster, as long as the programs I
> ran didn't require more RAM than was installed. I use pagefiles now
> as my computer usage changed and I run three hard drives; OS's on one
> drive and paging files on the other two.

Hi Terry! While I completely agree with you that you don't need to
understand the inner workings to know what the end results are. But what
John fails to understand that I am also a retired electronic engineer.
Now if he wants to claim I don't know how the process address space
works. I beg to differ. As I am sure I know far better than he does
about this subject just by his reply. And if he actually knew what he
was talking about, he wouldn't have made that claim in the first place.

--
Bill
2 Gateway MX6124 - Windows XP SP2
3 Asus EEE PC 701G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
2 Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 1GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2 ~ Xandros Linux - Puppy - Ubuntu

BillW50 wrote:
> In news:u0ZtvkocJHA.1188@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl,
> John John (MVP) typed on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:37:28 -0400:
>> BillW50 wrote:
>>
>>> In news:udaUlOncJHA.1336@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl,
>>> John John (MVP) typed on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:03:17 -0400:
>>>
>>>> Ardent wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> And I have never used pagefile right from the Win98 days with no
>>>>> deterioration in performance - editing video and audio files.
>>>>
>>>> Tell us, other than saving disk space, what are the benefits of
>>>> running without a pagefile?
>>>
>>>
>>> Hi John! Some machines I use a pagefile and some I don't. I started
>>> not to since using SSD instead of hard drives. As too much writing
>>> to a SSD slows them down and shortens their lifespan.
>>
>> A few days ago you told us that your SSD drives had a very long life
>> expectancy. Do you intend on living longer than 228 years?
>
> Yes true and since I limit my writing to the SSD to about 100MB per day,
> my 8GB SSD should last over 22,000 years. But writing a lot unnecessary
> can reduce one to a short 11 years.

But the point I made before (given a typical SSD 100,000 maximum disk
writing cycles, and with most of those going on continously behind the
scenes by the operating system) comes out to about 3 years, not 11 years.

> But even so, SSD can read as fast as most hard drives, they are much
> slower at writing than most hard drives are. So even if you are not
> worried about the lifespan (and I was in the beginning until I figured
> out how long it would take), reducing unnecessary writes speeds up
> performance on SSD.

In news:O$Uj0PqcJHA.4492@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl,
Bill in Co. typed on Fri, 9 Jan 2009 14:48:01 -0700:
> BillW50 wrote:
>> In news:u0ZtvkocJHA.1188@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl,
>> John John (MVP) typed on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:37:28 -0400:
>>> BillW50 wrote:
>>>
>>>> In news:udaUlOncJHA.1336@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl,
>>>> John John (MVP) typed on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:03:17 -0400:
>>>>
>>>>> Ardent wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> And I have never used pagefile right from the Win98 days with no
>>>>>> deterioration in performance - editing video and audio files.
>>>>>
>>>>> Tell us, other than saving disk space, what are the benefits of
>>>>> running without a pagefile?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hi John! Some machines I use a pagefile and some I don't. I started
>>>> not to since using SSD instead of hard drives. As too much writing
>>>> to a SSD slows them down and shortens their lifespan.
>>>
>>> A few days ago you told us that your SSD drives had a very long life
>>> expectancy. Do you intend on living longer than 228 years?
>>
>> Yes true and since I limit my writing to the SSD to about 100MB per
>> day, my 8GB SSD should last over 22,000 years. But writing a lot
>> unnecessary can reduce one to a short 11 years.
>
> But the point I made before (given a typical SSD 100,000 maximum disk
> writing cycles, and with most of those going on continously behind the
> scenes by the operating system) comes out to about 3 years, not 11
> years.

How do you figure Bill? I figured that you have to rewrite the whole SSD
24 times a day and it would only last 11 years. I am not including wear
leveling which I guess could make it ½ as bad (but doesn't matter with
whole SSD writes anyway). But with me on the computer all day browsing,
email, and newgrouping I only average about 100MB writes a day. I know
this because I buffer all writes to RAM with MS EWF before commiting.
That would take like 22,000 years to wear out one of my 8GB SSD @
100,000 complete writes. Or the worst case with wear leveling acting
with every write (which is very unlikely), 11,000 years.

One manufacture figured out that that the average SSD will last 228
years. Obviously they plan on more writing than I am doing. I do turn
off the pagefile as this greatly decreases my writes and improves
performance. Although I must have enough RAM to make this possible.

There are times that I do write a lot like converting video files which
can be GB worth. Here I throw on an USB hard drive (or network to one)
for these big writes. But I don't do this a lot and it isn't a big deal
to do so.

So while you believe you can wear out a SSD in 3 years, I seriously
doubt that unless you used all of your time to actually try too. Then
and only then, maybe. But most users I don't believe they can wear one
out in 100 years using it normally.

--
Bill
2 Gateway MX6124 - Windows XP SP2
3 Asus EEE PC 701G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
2 Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 1GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2 ~ Xandros Linux - Puppy - Ubuntu

BillW50 wrote:

> In news:%23Vjl0RpcJHA.2132@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl,
> Terry R. typed on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:57:11 -0800:
>
>>The date and time was Friday, January 09, 2009 10:37:28 AM, and on a
>>whim, John John (MVP) pounded out on the keyboard:
>>
>>
>>>BillW50 wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>In news:udaUlOncJHA.1336@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl,
>>>>John John (MVP) typed on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:03:17 -0400:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Ardent wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>And I have never used pagefile right from the Win98 days with no
>>>>>>deterioration in performance - editing video and audio files.
>>>>>
>>>>>Tell us, other than saving disk space, what are the benefits of
>>>>>running without a pagefile?
>>>>
>>>>Hi John! Some machines I use a pagefile and some I don't. I started
>>>>not to since using SSD instead of hard drives. As too much writing
>>>>to a SSD slows them down and shortens their lifespan.
>>>
>>>A few days ago you told us that your SSD drives had a very long life
>>>expectancy. Do you intend on living longer than 228 years?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>And I have noticed no difference at all if you have enough RAM.
>>>>Although Windows isn't even using the pagefile even if you have it
>>>>turned on in this case, so it really doesn't matter. I have noticed
>>>>1GB or more though is the trip point for me.
>>>>
>>>>Having not enough memory (RAM), what happens without a pagefile is
>>>>you will see delays (pauses) in the OS and applications. And it
>>>>will get worse if you don't start closing down applications you are
>>>>not using or simply rebooting. If you ignore the freezing, Windows
>>>>will suddenly just stop. And you will barely have a chance to even
>>>>shutdown if it will even allow you to do this.
>>>>
>>>>But the whole purpose of VM (aka pagefile) is to use the mass
>>>>storage device as more physical RAM anyway. And if you have enough,
>>>>you actually don't need it at all. As I never had seen a single
>>>>problem yet.
>>>
>>>You don't really understand how process address space works.
>>>
>>>John
>>>
>>
>>Hi John,
>>
>>I don't think someone needs to know how it works in order to test it
>>out in real workday situations. I ran Windows for years without a
>>pagefile, and it clearly ran MUCH faster, as long as the programs I
>>ran didn't require more RAM than was installed. I use pagefiles now
>>as my computer usage changed and I run three hard drives; OS's on one
>>drive and paging files on the other two.
>
>
> Hi Terry! While I completely agree with you that you don't need to
> understand the inner workings to know what the end results are. But what
> John fails to understand that I am also a retired electronic engineer.
> Now if he wants to claim I don't know how the process address space
> works. I beg to differ. As I am sure I know far better than he does
> about this subject just by his reply. And if he actually knew what he
> was talking about, he wouldn't have made that claim in the first place.

You fail to realize that without a pagefile all the Virtual Address
Space for processes is mapped to the RAM instead of the pagefile and
that even if the committed RAM is not really needed or actually even
used it will not be available to other processes. It isn't uncommon for
applications to demand much more address space than what they really
need, by mapping these superfluous unneeded demands to the pagefile
rather than the RAM other processes will have accesss to the RAM for
productive use instead of having it being used up for nothing else but
unused address space! Each 32-bit process has access to a 4GB address
space, (but on 32-bit Windows it can only use 2GB, or 3GB with the /3G
switch), without a pagefile when processes run out of available address
space things will come to a screeching halt, heaven forbid that you
should ever have to deal with a leaky application or driver! Running
without a pagefile is akin to having all the processes run on memory
mapped files, except that without the pagefile they can share none of
the memory areas!

Can Windows run without a pagefile? Yes, of course it can, many do run
without a pagefile! Is this a good idea? For most users no! With
large amounts of RAM it sounds like a good idea but in reality on 32-bit
Windows this is usually just another one of those bad "tweaks" given by
well intended persons who unfortunately give the advice based on bad
sources of information. If your operating system has more than enough
RAM available then it won't use the pagefile for much of anything other
than virtual address commitment and the RAM will be available for oher
more useful purposes.

John

BillW50 wrote:
> In news:O$Uj0PqcJHA.4492@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl,
> Bill in Co. typed on Fri, 9 Jan 2009 14:48:01 -0700:
>> BillW50 wrote:
>>> In news:u0ZtvkocJHA.1188@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl,
>>> John John (MVP) typed on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:37:28 -0400:
>>>> BillW50 wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> In news:udaUlOncJHA.1336@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl,
>>>>> John John (MVP) typed on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:03:17 -0400:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Ardent wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> And I have never used pagefile right from the Win98 days with no
>>>>>>> deterioration in performance - editing video and audio files.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Tell us, other than saving disk space, what are the benefits of
>>>>>> running without a pagefile?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi John! Some machines I use a pagefile and some I don't. I started
>>>>> not to since using SSD instead of hard drives. As too much writing
>>>>> to a SSD slows them down and shortens their lifespan.
>>>>
>>>> A few days ago you told us that your SSD drives had a very long life
>>>> expectancy. Do you intend on living longer than 228 years?
>>>
>>> Yes true and since I limit my writing to the SSD to about 100MB per
>>> day, my 8GB SSD should last over 22,000 years. But writing a lot
>>> unnecessary can reduce one to a short 11 years.
>>
>> But the point I made before (given a typical SSD 100,000 maximum disk
>> writing cycles, and with most of those going on continously behind the
>> scenes by the operating system) comes out to about 3 years, not 11
>> years.
>
> How do you figure Bill? I figured that you have to rewrite the whole SSD
> 24 times a day and it would only last 11 years. I am not including wear
> leveling which I guess could make it ½ as bad (but doesn't matter with
> whole SSD writes anyway). But with me on the computer all day browsing,
> email, and newgrouping I only average about 100MB writes a day. I know
> this because I buffer all writes to RAM with MS EWF before commiting.
> That would take like 22,000 years to wear out one of my 8GB SSD @
> 100,000 complete writes. Or the worst case with wear leveling acting
> with every write (which is very unlikely), 11,000 years.

It's not the actual number of MB (megabytes) written a day to the HD that's
spec'd. It's the number of actual disk writes to the HD that counts (not
the file sizes in MB, (IIRC). And I don't think it has to be rewriting the
whole SSD for that figure of 100,000 maximum writes, but I don't recall all
the details.

So, if we assume there are nominally say 100 writing cycles to the HD each
day, with many going on behind the scenes (this may be a low number), then
given the 100,000 maximum write spec of a SSD, we get: 100,000 / 100 per
day = 1000 days, or 3 years, more or less.

> One manufacture figured out that that the average SSD will last 228
> years.

But as I mentioned in a previous post, that may be just sitting there, not
taking into account the actual number of disk writes going on in RL.

> Obviously they plan on more writing than I am doing.

I just don't know that for a fact. Who knows. But if you look at my
calculations above, obviously something is wrong somewhere in some
assumptions.

<snipped for brevity>
>
> So while you believe you can wear out a SSD in 3 years, I seriously
> doubt that unless you used all of your time to actually try too. Then
> and only then, maybe. But most users I don't believe they can wear one
> out in 100 years using it normally.

In news:erJ9$BrcJHA.4124@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl,
John John (MVP) typed on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:18:00 -0400:
> BillW50 wrote:
>
>> In news:%23Vjl0RpcJHA.2132@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl,
>> Terry R. typed on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:57:11 -0800:
>>
>>> The date and time was Friday, January 09, 2009 10:37:28 AM, and on a
>>> whim, John John (MVP) pounded out on the keyboard:
>>>
>>>
>>>> BillW50 wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> In news:udaUlOncJHA.1336@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl,
>>>>> John John (MVP) typed on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:03:17 -0400:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> Ardent wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> And I have never used pagefile right from the Win98 days with no
>>>>>>> deterioration in performance - editing video and audio files.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Tell us, other than saving disk space, what are the benefits of
>>>>>> running without a pagefile?
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi John! Some machines I use a pagefile and some I don't. I
>>>>> started not to since using SSD instead of hard drives. As too
>>>>> much writing to a SSD slows them down and shortens their lifespan.
>>>>
>>>> A few days ago you told us that your SSD drives had a very long
>>>> life expectancy. Do you intend on living longer than 228 years?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> And I have noticed no difference at all if you have enough RAM.
>>>>> Although Windows isn't even using the pagefile even if you have it
>>>>> turned on in this case, so it really doesn't matter. I have
>>>>> noticed 1GB or more though is the trip point for me.
>>>>>
>>>>> Having not enough memory (RAM), what happens without a pagefile is
>>>>> you will see delays (pauses) in the OS and applications. And it
>>>>> will get worse if you don't start closing down applications you
>>>>> are not using or simply rebooting. If you ignore the freezing,
>>>>> Windows will suddenly just stop. And you will barely have a
>>>>> chance to even shutdown if it will even allow you to do this.
>>>>>
>>>>> But the whole purpose of VM (aka pagefile) is to use the mass
>>>>> storage device as more physical RAM anyway. And if you have
>>>>> enough, you actually don't need it at all. As I never had seen a
>>>>> single problem yet.
>>>>
>>>> You don't really understand how process address space works.
>>>>
>>>> John
>>>>
>>>
>>> Hi John,
>>>
>>> I don't think someone needs to know how it works in order to test it
>>> out in real workday situations. I ran Windows for years without a
>>> pagefile, and it clearly ran MUCH faster, as long as the programs I
>>> ran didn't require more RAM than was installed. I use pagefiles now
>>> as my computer usage changed and I run three hard drives; OS's on
>>> one drive and paging files on the other two.
>>
>>
>> Hi Terry! While I completely agree with you that you don't need to
>> understand the inner workings to know what the end results are. But
>> what John fails to understand that I am also a retired electronic
>> engineer. Now if he wants to claim I don't know how the process
>> address space works. I beg to differ. As I am sure I know far better
>> than he does about this subject just by his reply. And if he
>> actually knew what he was talking about, he wouldn't have made that
>> claim in the first place.
>
> You fail to realize that without a pagefile all the Virtual Address
> Space for processes is mapped to the RAM instead of the pagefile and
> that even if the committed RAM is not really needed or actually even
> used it will not be available to other processes.

No I understand this. Thus why I add you need more RAM. Or in this case,
enough RAM.

> It isn't uncommon
> for applications to demand much more address space than what they
> really need, by mapping these superfluous unneeded demands to the
> pagefile rather than the RAM other processes will have accesss to the
> RAM for productive use instead of having it being used up for nothing
> else but unused address space! Each 32-bit process has access to a
> 4GB address space, (but on 32-bit Windows it can only use 2GB, or 3GB
> with the /3G switch), without a pagefile when processes run out of
> available address space things will come to a screeching halt, heaven
> forbid that you should ever have to deal with a leaky application or
> driver! Running without a pagefile is akin to having all the
> processes run on memory mapped files, except that without the
> pagefile they can share none of the memory areas!

Yes I know. And Firefox is a big memory leaker and I rarely use it for
this reason. But all of the other applications I use, they are well
behaved if I have 1GB or more.

> Can Windows run without a pagefile? Yes, of course it can, many do
> run without a pagefile! Is this a good idea? For most users no! With
> large amounts of RAM it sounds like a good idea but in reality
> on 32-bit Windows this is usually just another one of those bad
> "tweaks" given by well intended persons who unfortunately give the
> advice based on bad sources of information. If your operating system
> has more than enough RAM available then it won't use the pagefile for
> much of anything other than virtual address commitment and the RAM
> will be available for oher more useful purposes.

Well we fall back on what Terry has said. Those with experience with and
without a pagefile is the best people to ask. I also have many computers
here and I experiment a lot. Thus if I make a big mistake
experiementing, it is no big deal. As I have other computers here to
continue on with my work.

The only problem I have ever seen without a pagefile and you not having
enough RAM is that the OS and some applications will start pausing
breifly. This isn't good for performance and turning on the pagefile
this goes away. If you push it further the whole system can lock up.
Although if I have enough RAM, I never see this problem at all. Nor do I
see any performance difference if I do turn it on.

I dunno John... if you see pauses that shouldn't be there, turn on the
pagefile and if it goes away you are fine. But if you toggle the
pagefile on and off and can't see any difference. Then you obviously
don't need it, now do you?

I check the amount of ram being used with the Task Manager. If I have
hundreds of MB available, turning on the pagefile isn't going to help at
all. I don't know what the magic number is, but somewhere about 150MB
free seems like the trip point to me.

--
Bill
2 Gateway MX6124 - Windows XP SP2
3 Asus EEE PC 701G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
2 Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 1GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2 ~ Xandros Linux - Puppy - Ubuntu

In news:uJgorFrcJHA.552@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl,
Bill in Co. typed on Fri, 9 Jan 2009 16:24:25 -0700:
> BillW50 wrote:
>> In news:O$Uj0PqcJHA.4492@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl,
>> Bill in Co. typed on Fri, 9 Jan 2009 14:48:01 -0700:
>>> BillW50 wrote:
>>>> In news:u0ZtvkocJHA.1188@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl,
>>>> John John (MVP) typed on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:37:28 -0400:
>>>>> BillW50 wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> In news:udaUlOncJHA.1336@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl,
>>>>>> John John (MVP) typed on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:03:17 -0400:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Ardent wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> And I have never used pagefile right from the Win98 days with
>>>>>>>> no deterioration in performance - editing video and audio
>>>>>>>> files.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Tell us, other than saving disk space, what are the benefits of
>>>>>>> running without a pagefile?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi John! Some machines I use a pagefile and some I don't. I
>>>>>> started not to since using SSD instead of hard drives. As too
>>>>>> much writing to a SSD slows them down and shortens their
>>>>>> lifespan.
>>>>>
>>>>> A few days ago you told us that your SSD drives had a very long
>>>>> life expectancy. Do you intend on living longer than 228 years?
>>>>
>>>> Yes true and since I limit my writing to the SSD to about 100MB per
>>>> day, my 8GB SSD should last over 22,000 years. But writing a lot
>>>> unnecessary can reduce one to a short 11 years.
>>>
>>> But the point I made before (given a typical SSD 100,000 maximum
>>> disk writing cycles, and with most of those going on continously
>>> behind the scenes by the operating system) comes out to about 3
>>> years, not 11 years.
>>
>> How do you figure Bill? I figured that you have to rewrite the whole
>> SSD 24 times a day and it would only last 11 years. I am not
>> including wear leveling which I guess could make it ½ as bad (but
>> doesn't matter with whole SSD writes anyway). But with me on the
>> computer all day browsing, email, and newgrouping I only average
>> about 100MB writes a day. I know this because I buffer all writes to
>> RAM with MS EWF before commiting. That would take like 22,000 years
>> to wear out one of my 8GB SSD @ 100,000 complete writes. Or the
>> worst case with wear leveling acting with every write (which is very
>> unlikely), 11,000 years.
>
> It's not the actual number of MB (megabytes) written a day to the HD
> that's spec'd. It's the number of actual disk writes to the HD that
> counts (not the file sizes in MB, (IIRC). And I don't think it has
> to be rewriting the whole SSD for that figure of 100,000 maximum
> writes, but I don't recall all the details.
>
> So, if we assume there are nominally say 100 writing cycles to the HD
> each day, with many going on behind the scenes (this may be a low
> number), then given the 100,000 maximum write spec of a SSD, we get:
> 100,000 / 100 per day = 1000 days, or 3 years, more or less.

No it doesn't work that way. As one small area can be written 100,000
times. Then the next small area can be written 100,000 times and so on.
So the SSD itself can be written zillions of times. Every area has to be
written 100,000 times. The worst case is writing everything in one pass.
This would take 11 years writing 24 times a day. Which is normally
impossible unless you are trying to do so.

>> One manufacture figured out that that the average SSD will last 228
>> years.
>
> But as I mentioned in a previous post, that may be just sitting
> there, not taking into account the actual number of disk writes going
> on in RL.

No the number of writes only effect a very small part of the SSD. Only
if you write to the whole SSD every time it would be only 100,000
writes. But who overwrites the whole SSD 24 times a day? Writing smaller
blocks, writing becomes many times more than 100,000 times. We are
talking about billions or more writes.

>> Obviously they plan on more writing than I am doing.
>
> I just don't know that for a fact. Who knows. But if you look at
> my calculations above, obviously something is wrong somewhere in some
> assumptions.
>
> <snipped for brevity>

Not really! The 100,000 writes means every small segment has to be
written that many times. If you are only writing 100MB per day with a
8GB SSD, that won't happen for like 22,000 years.

I didn't mention wear leveling. As this makes sure that one area isn't
written too much more than the other areas. Kind of like defrag except
to equal out all of the writes evenly. And the worst case is it has to
move everything during every write (which is like impossible, but let's
just say it has too). Then my 22,000 year example would only last 11,000
years. The truth is that it would last somewhere between 11,000 to
22,000 years.

--
Bill
2 Gateway MX6124 - Windows XP SP2
3 Asus EEE PC 701G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
2 Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 1GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2 ~ Xandros Linux - Puppy - Ubuntu

> In news:O$Uj0PqcJHA.4492@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl,
> Bill in Co. typed on Fri, 9 Jan 2009 14:48:01 -0700:
>> BillW50 wrote:
>>> In news:u0ZtvkocJHA.1188@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl,
>>> John John (MVP) typed on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:37:28 -0400:
>>>> BillW50 wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> In news:udaUlOncJHA.1336@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl,
>>>>> John John (MVP) typed on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:03:17 -0400:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Ardent wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> And I have never used pagefile right from the Win98 days with no
>>>>>>> deterioration in performance - editing video and audio files.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Tell us, other than saving disk space, what are the benefits of
>>>>>> running without a pagefile?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi John! Some machines I use a pagefile and some I don't. I
>>>>> started not to since using SSD instead of hard drives. As too
>>>>> much writing to a SSD slows them down and shortens their lifespan.
>>>>
>>>> A few days ago you told us that your SSD drives had a very long
>>>> life expectancy. Do you intend on living longer than 228 years?
>>>
>>> Yes true and since I limit my writing to the SSD to about 100MB per
>>> day, my 8GB SSD should last over 22,000 years. But writing a lot
>>> unnecessary can reduce one to a short 11 years.
>>
>> But the point I made before (given a typical SSD 100,000 maximum disk
>> writing cycles, and with most of those going on continously behind
>> the scenes by the operating system) comes out to about 3 years, not
>> 11 years.
>
> How do you figure Bill? I figured that you have to rewrite the whole
> SSD 24 times a day and it would only last 11 years. I am not
> including wear leveling which I guess could make it ½ as bad (but
> doesn't matter with whole SSD writes anyway). But with me on the
> computer all day browsing, email, and newgrouping I only average
> about 100MB writes a day. I know this because I buffer all writes to
> RAM with MS EWF before commiting. That would take like 22,000 years
> to wear out one of my 8GB SSD @ 100,000 complete writes. Or the worst
> case with wear leveling acting with every write (which is very
> unlikely), 11,000 years.
> One manufacture figured out that that the average SSD will last 228
> years. Obviously they plan on more writing than I am doing. I do turn
> off the pagefile as this greatly decreases my writes and improves
> performance. Although I must have enough RAM to make this possible.
>
> There are times that I do write a lot like converting video files
> which can be GB worth. Here I throw on an USB hard drive (or network
> to one) for these big writes. But I don't do this a lot and it isn't
> a big deal to do so.
>
> So while you believe you can wear out a SSD in 3 years, I seriously
> doubt that unless you used all of your time to actually try too. Then
> and only then, maybe. But most users I don't believe they can wear one
> out in 100 years using it normally.

Actually, considering the case of running an OS on one, the lifetime
would be seriously cut short of the numbers normally tossed about. And
remember, things like MTBF and write cycles are all statistical
calculations complete with a bell curve and all. Get a component that's
too far to the side of the bell, and it's not going to last long, even
though it carries the same life expectancy numbers.
Anyway: That's because of the constant read/write accesses to the
registry among other system files. Since those writes are going to go
to a consistantly identifiable address set, those locations would get a
lot of writing to them over the course of a day, even if the machine
weren't used. Consider just the clock, for instance, and

I don't know about the 3 years but I do suspect that number isn't too
far off. The "wear" of writing is not an overall number. When you get
it pinned down, EACH address location can be written to so many times.
After that, the location is going to become unreliable and eventually
deteriorate to non-useful, even though overall, the rest of the
locations are going to be just fine, as in, for example, where your own
writings land in the addressing scheme. Those vary and the timing
formulae work.
There are always gotchas to these things.

OTOH, I do think that with some of the technologic advances we're
seeing, that it won't be too long before we see something akin to SSD
being turned into a disk drive with no moving parts. At that point,
alpha migration and all that obscure stuff becomes the life-span
determinants. There are already some types of SSD-like drives available
but it will be quite awhile yet before they see prime time. THAT is
where they become really interesting!

Regards,

Twayne

BillW said:
....

>

> what John fails to understand that I am also a retired electronic
> engineer. Now if he wants to claim I don't know how the process
> address space works. I beg to differ. As I am sure I know far better
> than he does about this subject just by his reply. And if he actually
> knew what he was talking about, he wouldn't have made that claim in
> the first place.

No offense, but I don't see that as meaning a single thing w/r to
credence or abilities. I'd also question the "electronic" part of that
comment - I doubt that's what's on your sheep skin unless it was a
diploma from a 3rd worlder.

In news:er41EDscJHA.556@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl,
Twayne typed on Fri, 9 Jan 2009 20:14:19 -0500:
> BillW said:
>
>> what John fails to understand that I am also a retired electronic
>> engineer. Now if he wants to claim I don't know how the process
>> address space works. I beg to differ. As I am sure I know far better
>> than he does about this subject just by his reply. And if he actually
>> knew what he was talking about, he wouldn't have made that claim in
>> the first place.
>
> No offense, but I don't see that as meaning a single thing w/r to
> credence or abilities. I'd also question the "electronic" part of
> that comment - I doubt that's what's on your sheep skin unless it was
> a diploma from a 3rd worlder.

Oh geez! Do I have to go into ones and zeros and how logic circuits
work? Most computer users don't have a clue and it isn't necessary to
know how a computer works to actually use them. And to do it correctly,
it would take about 2 years anyway to go into all of the details. That
being said, I *do* know how addresses and data lines actually works,
thank you very much. And to question a hardware engineer how the
hardware works is a bit like telling a rocket scientist how a rocket
works. Yes I have engineered computers to control missles too, so I
think I know a little of what I am talking about here.

--
Bill
2 Gateway MX6124 - Windows XP SP2
3 Asus EEE PC 701G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
2 Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 1GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2 ~ Xandros Linux - Puppy - Ubuntu