SSD + HDD virtual Memory

[miragetetra]

Heya all,

So I'm getting a G73SX soonish and I happen to have a spare SSD that might do well in the new machine. I'm thinking of using the SSD as my main drive and the 500gb HDD as my storage (as well as home for older games) and it dawned on me, which disk should I use for my virtual memory?

The machine will have 16gbs of memory and the SSD is a 160gb drive.

If I put the virtual memory on the SSD, then a little more then a third of the drive will be virtual memory.

If I put it on the HDD I'm not sure how that will affect performance (maybe it will negate having an SSD?).

So overall not sure which direction I should go here.

[Simba7]

BAD IDEA!!! Do NOT put your swap file on an SSD, unless you want to kill it rather quickly.

[miragetetra]

That was my thoughts as well. As well as the issue of the Virtual Memory file taking up most of the SSD capacity. That said, how much of a hit will the machine take if the Virtual memory file is on the HDD?

[Simba7]

Not alot. I have 24GB in my G53SX and I never get close to touching the swap.

It all depends on how much stuff you run.

[AQUASTEVAE]

yeah, i have a 256 gb crucial m4 as my os drive on my g74sx, and i put my virtual mem on the 750 hdd. this works absolutely perfectly. the swapfile will wear out a ssd, so you don't want it on there. and you should always put it on a partition that isn't going to be used much. most of the time i make a partition just for the virtual memory. that allows it to run unfettered. with this setup, my system is blazing fast. good luck, and post back once you have set it all up.

[BrodyBoy]

HSo I'm getting a G73SX soonish and I happen to have a spare SSD that might do well in the new machine. I'm thinking of using the SSD as my main drive and the 500gb HDD as my storage (as well as home for older games) and it dawned on me, which disk should I use for my virtual memory?

The machine will have 16gbs of memory and the SSD is a 160gb drive.

If I put the virtual memory on the SSD, then a little more then a third of the drive will be virtual memory.

If I put it on the HDD I'm not sure how that will affect performance (maybe it will negate having an SSD?).

So overall not sure which direction I should go here.

I'm going to diverge from the opinions offered here.....

First, with 16Gb RAM, you only need a page file "in name only." That is, you will virtually NEVER use it, but some programs expect to find one when they are configured. Not that they'll ever necessarily use it, but part of their set-up is knowing where it is, and they can get pissy if they don't find one. Therefore, you just need a nominal page file of 1-2Gb, not the 3x that used to be recommended when 1-2Gb RAM was the norm.

Second, there is no harm at all in putting it on your SSD. SSDs use wear leveling algorithms that prevent particular cells from getting used significantly more or less than others. And as mentioned, it's not going to get used anyway.

So go ahead and put it on your SSD. On the rare occasions that it might actually get used, why wouldn't you put it on the next fastest location in your system (after RAM)? SSDs aren't nearly so fragile as some might suggest....they're meant to be used, not babied.

FWIW, I have 1-2Gb page files set up on the SSDs in both my laptops (i.e., 1Gb min, 2Gb max). They work just fine.

[fostert]

I agree with the BB...a swap partition on an SSD will be rarely used on a machine with a good amount of RAM on it, and SSDs are meant to be used, abused, and thrown away when they can no longer be made to work. No use in preserving it when theres work (games) to be done! When you access a swap often you'll be reading and writing in bursts, the speeds for which are exceedingly fast on an SSD and approach saturating the SATA III bandwidth limit of 6Gb/s (750 MB/s). That really isn't swap anymore by definition...its more like having slow PC-800 RAM in reserve.

[miragetetra]

Nice, I believe I'll try out BB's config and see how it works out. Actually I'm hoping that the >= 500gb SSD fall down to the $200-$300 range by the end of 2012/2013 so I'm not too concerned about longevity (though I will likely keep this drive for many years to come. Either way, I'm excited to see how the new machine is going to run with this new hardware going in

[Simba7]

You *might* want to see how well your SSD does on random writes before shifting your swap file to it.

I would still suggest putting your swap on the HDD, even if you barely use it.

---
Router(2xP3@1GHz,1GB RAM,18GB HDD,Allied Telesyn AT-2560FX,2xDigital DE504(QP),Compaq NC3131(DP),2xSun GigaSwift(QP),SMC 8432BTA,FreeBSD)
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MyNB(Asus G53SX,24GB RAM,2x750GB HDDs,BD-RE,W7U)

[fostert]

As soon as they come out with 2+TB 2.5 inch HDDs, I'll be getting one (I need that kind of space, yes), and filling the other bay in my G74 with the fastest and smallest SSD I can get. Will make the thing one big swap partition for Linux. Compiling some of my code with gfortran is pushing my physical RAM limit (32GB) and for some programs the linker ld fills 32 GB of physical RAM and spills over to using ~4GB of extra virtual RAM. What should take 15 minutes takes over two hours.