[Question] | Frequently changing the Paging File

[coldoven]

Hola--

I'm a TV student that has to work with large GB's of video footage. Uploading them to my external hard-drive was eating up the Gigs on my laptop too... so the solution was setting up a "No Paging File" on my laptop during dumpdowns.

Once the process is complete, I usually reset everything back to normal.

I do this at least twice a week, and was wondering if the frequency inwhich I change my Paging File and reboot my computer may be harming the OS (XP Home SP2) or the hardware.

If somebody has a suggestion besides icing the paging file, that would also be appreciated.

Thanks Everyone--

[eyeball]

altering the page file shouldnt have any adverse effect since it acts just like ram (or virtual ram if you will) and will be cleared (along with any entries in the index/TOC of the hdd) once you reboot your pc.

so as far as i can see it shouldnt have any effect, unless anyone else can inform me otherwise?

thanks

[djone21]

i doubt this will have any effect... why do you want to disable the page file though?

[coldoven]

thanks guys-- (eyeball is a great name, by the way!_HA!)

i doubt this will have any effect... why do you want to disable the page file though?

The reason I disable the page file, is that for some reason, when I'm transfering like 6 or 7 GBs of video from my cd/dvd reader to the external hard-drive (I do this because my vid-editor can use the files faster) there is always like a gig of phantom memory taken up on my C: drive. I cant pin it down, and at the rate I download footage to my external drive, if a gig was consumed each time, I'd have to reformat in a month.

Turning off C:'s paging file and assigning my external drive a paging file takes care of the problem, and my computer runs fine. Only, I have to do this like twice a week and, well, thus the original question.

What do you think?

[nmX.Memnoch]

it acts just like ram (or virtual ram if you will) and will be cleared (along with any entries in the index/TOC of the hdd) once you reboot your pc.

Actually, the page file is not cleared at every reboot unless you tell Windows to do so using secpol.msc (Local Security Policy) via the Local Polices > Security Options > Shutdown: Clear virtual memory pagefile setting.

The only "danger" there could be is that the page file could become fragmented when it's recreated. This can have an adverse effect on disk performance. A good disk defrag utility (not the built in one) can take care of this though.

[Zxian]

The reason I disable the page file, is that for some reason, when I'm transfering like 6 or 7 GBs of video from my cd/dvd reader to the external hard-drive (I do this because my vid-editor can use the files faster) there is always like a gig of phantom memory taken up on my C: drive. I cant pin it down, and at the rate I download footage to my external drive, if a gig was consumed each time, I'd have to reformat in a month.

Turning off C:'s paging file and assigning my external drive a paging file takes care of the problem, and my computer runs fine. Only, I have to do this like twice a week and, well, thus the original question.

What do you think?

I think there's something else going on here...

I've never noticed a change in the amount of free space on my system drive when transferring files to/from CD/DVDs or other digital devices (cameras, digital camcorders, USB keys).

You're saying that each time that files are transferred, the free space on your system drive drops? If you go to transfer another 6-7 GB of video, the free space drops again?

The pagefile is like backup RAM if you will. If your system runs out of RAM to use, it will write unused memory to the pagefile. There shouldn't be any connection between it and your transferring of files.

[coldoven]

I've never noticed a change in the amount of free space on my system drive when transferring files to/from CD/DVDs or other digital devices (cameras, digital camcorders, USB keys).

You're saying that each time that files are transferred, the free space on your system drive drops? If you go to transfer another 6-7 GB of video, the free space drops again?

Yeah... exactly. I'll usually compress the 6-7 GB of footage with DVD Shrink.... ending up with, oh, 4.7 GB. If I dont dump the footage to DVD at school, I do it right from the camera onto my PC. (They have us use a lot of footage to learn editing.... plus my job in post production demands it.)

Lets say I'm using the DVD way. I open Shrink, open the DVD and create back-up files onto my external HD. After doing this, there is roughly a GIG taken away from my laptop's free space.

I posted a similar query here awhile ago, and somebody suggested setting the page file "no page file". I did that, and the problem was solved. Consequently, I could not find any temp files or anything that was causing the problem.

[Zxian]

I posted a similar query here awhile ago, and somebody suggested setting the page file "no page file". I did that, and the problem was solved. Consequently, I could not find any temp files or anything that was causing the problem.

Try using programs like Sequoia or iDisk to try to track down the used hard drive space. Obviously something's changing, so you should be able to find out what's different before and after.

You could also try to make a batch file that compares two files (the directory listing before and after) and prints out the differences. I'll see what I can come up with if you don't know how to do that yourself.

[eyeball]

it acts just like ram (or virtual ram if you will) and will be cleared (along with any entries in the index/TOC of the hdd) once you reboot your pc.

Actually, the page file is not cleared at every reboot unless you tell Windows to do so using secpol.msc (Local Security Policy) via the Local Polices > Security Options > Shutdown: Clear virtual memory pagefile setting.

The only "danger" there could be is that the page file could become fragmented when it's recreated. This can have an adverse effect on disk performance. A good disk defrag utility (not the built in one) can take care of this though.

thanks for that, never knew it

i just assumed it was cleared just like ram

[nmX.Memnoch]

it acts just like ram (or virtual ram if you will) and will be cleared (along with any entries in the index/TOC of the hdd) once you reboot your pc.

Actually, the page file is not cleared at every reboot unless you tell Windows to do so using secpol.msc (Local Security Policy) via the Local Polices > Security Options > Shutdown: Clear virtual memory pagefile setting.

The only "danger" there could be is that the page file could become fragmented when it's recreated. This can have an adverse effect on disk performance. A good disk defrag utility (not the built in one) can take care of this though.

thanks for that, never knew it

i just assumed it was cleared just like ram

No problem. A lot of people actually assume that. Trust me though, it's not something you want to set if you don't have to. Security policy where I work says that I have to set that on my servers...all of which have 4-8GB RAM and 2-4GB page files....even with Ultra320 15K RPM SCSI drives it takes FOREVER To clear a 4GB page file so I do not reboot my servers unless I absolutely have to. Edited November 21, 2005 by nmX.Memnoch

[coldoven]

Try using programs like Sequoia or iDisk to try to track down the used hard drive space. Obviously something's changing, so you should be able to find out what's different before and after.

You could also try to make a batch file that compares two files (the directory listing before and after) and prints out the differences. I'll see what I can come up with if you don't know how to do that yourself.

thanks-- I'll google that stuff and try to read up on it. However, I should note, that what you suggest is way out of my league as of yet. Especially the batch file. Hopefully after some more research, I'll know better.

Also- I'm going on vacation for this week, so I may not reply for a while. (Starting the 22nd) I'll make sure to check in if I can. I'm not ignoring you B) and I really appreciate everyone's help.

I'll leave the page file settings (as far as a memory clear) alone for now. Soundz like a real pain in the arse.

Edited November 21, 2005 by coldoven

[Zxian]

Actually... you can use a program like WinMerge to compare the directory structures before and after.

Before anything, open a command prompt (Start->Run->cmd->Enter) and type in the following commands:

%systemdrive%
cd \
dir /s > dir1.txt

Then copy the files, and let the system fill up its extra 1GB of space. Then run the commands again, but this time replace dir1.txt by dir2.txt. Now you should have two text files in the root of your system drive. Open WinMerge, and open those two files. WinMerge will be able to show you the differences between the two (use the "Next Diff" feature). You'll be able to find the differences in the lines between them and what files are changing.

Let's hope this works... *crosses fingers*

[coldoven]

Zxian--

Thanks. I downloaded and installed the newest version of WinMerge. However, (and forgive me for being slow here) I am stuck there.

When I open a command prompt (Start->Run->cmd->Enter) and plug in %systemdrive% I get the same prompt (C:\Documents and Settings...)

Then, if I cut and paste the entire code you offered, it says:

not recognized as an internal or external command.

by the way, just to be sure, Im running Win XP SP2 Home Edition.

Could you walk me through it a little bit... and as far as copying the files for use in WinMerge... do I cut and paste into notepad or word or something?

Thanks--

[HyperHacker]

Toggling the page file on and off shouldn't harm anything, but it's best to leave it on. Once you start to run low on memory, XP gets very buggy. I managed to use up all of both my RAM and page file today (found an allocation bug in a program I use), and everything just started acting up. Programs wouldn't open or wouldn't do certain things. Eventually the program which was using up all this memory crashed because it couldn't open a file (because it tried to read the file into memory), Windows un-allocated all the memory it had been using which freed up about 400MB of page file, and everything worked fine again.

[Zxian]

Sorry coldoven. Sometimes I take the command prompt for granted.

If you type in %systemdrive% and hit enter, it should move you to whatever directory you were last in on your system partition. Since most command lines are set to start in your profile directory (C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\), this probably won't make much difference, but it's a simple precaution.

After that, you type in cd \. This will move your position (what you see at the beginning of the line) to the root, or base, of the partition (C:\ in your case).

After that, the final command (dir /s > dir1.txt) will generate a text file in C:\ that lists the contents of your system partition (i.e. all the files on C:\). If you go to My Computer, and then C:\, you should see the text file there (named dir1.txt).

Hopefully that's a little easier to follow.

@Hyperhacker - No, it won't do much harm, but it's something that shouldn't happen in the first place. Hopefully we'll be able to dig to the bottom of this and make his computer work as it should.