What is a Paging File or Pagefile as Fast As Possible

A paging file is an overflow for your RAM or system memory. This video explains what that means and how to optimize it.

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[christwoodyhussar]

you gotta love it when somebody has a video for every thing you can think of for pc.

[zeitecsmith]

Okay so it's like downloading RAM...

[officialsterlingarcher]

Lol I'm studying for my operating systems class and I was thinking to myself, "why can't there be a LTT where he covers virtual memory, because this would be so much easier to understand coming from Linus." So I googled it and sure enough there was a video! I am so happy because you're so much easier to understand than a lot of the videos and documentations I come across

[valentinrafael]

Whenever i have something unclear about anything in a PC or some other things, I just type on google " <insertunclearnesshere> as fast as possible". You are the best Linus.

[CRyanStephens]

Out of respect for this channel listing their sponsers at the end of this video and giving you the option to easily skip them, I almost always watch them all they way though. Thanks for the great content and viewer oriented product. Should i have a need for any of these services that support you ill be sure to make them my first stop on my shopping list. <3

[thegonch]

Easy Just download more ram and run everything at once

[pyrioncelendil]

Speaking as someone who uses a SSD, my advice as a compromise for retaining a pagefile while not committing a significant chunk of the drive to the pagefile: define a custom-sized pagefile with an initial size of 16MB, which is the absolute minimum Windows allows. Set the maximum to the recommended size. Windows will then default to acting similar to Linux in how it uses the pagefile, in that it won't use it for much of anything until it actually *needs* to.

See, Windows likes to fill up the pagefile with stale process standby pages (which are different from system standby pages, aka "system/disk cache", which will always sit in ram), as a sort of "just in case" solution for freeing up ram for other processes, but if you set it to 16MB, it'll fill it up very quickly but won't actually grow the size of the pagefile unless it's absolutely necessary (such as when you actually start to run out of ram). Keeping the pagefile size small saves the SSD the need to copy large chunks of stale data around for wear-leveling purposes, and you don't need to worry about pagefile fragmentation on a SSD in the first place..

[sanjeever]

I love these kinds of videos! even though it's nothing i care to mess with, i like learning about this kind of stuff and they break it down and make it easy and quick to understand. Keep up the good work guys! More videos like this, please!

[Jacky]

1:28-1:32 I can't stop laughing. xD LOL

[humbertoforte]

I must thank u guys so much for giving me accurate information. There's so many guys on here that won't just say "you don't need this, but this is what it is". Thanks again. Keep up the great work. We need you!

[dawn_h]

I found a 20GB paging file on my SSD alongside 8GB of physical RAM is a good combo

[hirokurobane]

So, maybe related or unrelated question, is the "extended RAM" on android phones just comparable to pagefile in PCs?

[Robert]

I have disabled page files since I installed Windows 8 on my 120GB SSD, because it took 2GB of space, now, 8 months later I didn't had a single issue.
It defenetly works without page files.

[DuganPanther]

My Computer Security professor was just talking about this yesterday. People can use the pagefile ito get info about you that has already deleted, like you browsing history or that notepad doc with all your passwords.

Putting security issues aside, setting no page file can increase perfomance. If you have plenty of ram, I have 16gb, you can elimanate a large number of reads and writes. Only turn off the pagefile if you have a lot of ram that is not fully utilized, you don't want to run out of memory.

[spyroninja]

I watch these videos at 1.5x speed cuz as fast as possible is not fast enough

[galindojamie]

does all this still apply in 2021-2022? with newer hardware? can you please update a new video.

[j.d.]

I like how how all those tech advice websites reference these 10-year-old videos saying "if you are a hardcore user you probably have 4gb or RAM or even more!"

[romaverick]

If anyone is reading this, I am trying to edit a 2 hour video on VSDC and i am hakfway through. I have 15gb on RAM. I was told by customer support that it is a memory error and i shpuld adjust the swap file size and googling got me here. If I do custom what numbers should I put in and should I do anything about local disk D?

[DeToxCommunity]

Not sure if that is the description you wanted to have for this video....

[Shifter]

Linus! What a way to completely change the discussion! 3:48