Wow I just learned Bleachbit is bad for SSD, is Ccleaner bad too?

[mechtech]

I don't use anything. Just set the shut down time high and let windows trim and garbage collection algorithms take care of it. Then again I don't have much installed, nor do install and uninstall a bunch of stuff constantly.

Every 2-3 years I will secure erase OS ssd and put on a fresh install. (especially when ms was putting out service packs......errrrr updates every 6 months)

 

[Calenhad]

Cause all hardware is designed with a MTBF. By design this can vary greatly generally by usage.

And the other metric used for ssd life is what? TBW? What does the W stand for again? And this is only the guaranteed value from the manfacturer. Look up some actual durability testing and you will see that most ssds will perform way beyond this figure. But, of course, there are some of us that will get the drive with the minimum value. Otherwise the guaranteed minimum would be higher.

Reading from a ssd is harmless. For a ssd rated in TBW, you are looking at a similar value in the EBR range or higher. Or put it this way: MBTF is a much more realistic metric when it comes to max number of reads.

Having a pagefile on a ssd is harmless. It is pretty much never, ever used. And when it is used, you really need it. Otherwise that, probably poorly programmed, piece of software you are running will crash and burn.

Regarding operating temperatures, nvme drives do not care much about temperatures when reading, just stay within the min/max temps from the manufacturer. Writing has a narrower optimal temperature range. Which is why watercooling nvme drives is seldom recommended. Because your drive will often be below optimal temperatures for writes, and having to heat up cells to write to them is very inefficient.

Oh and don't fill your drive entirely. The load-levelling algorithm in the drive controller will thank you by extending the life of your drive.

Sauce: I am a computer engineer. I have been knee-deep in operating systems and how their low level functions work. I have studied physical properties of computer hardware. Amongst other things, how ssds are built and function. Do some work with server-grade hardware and this is something you actually have to take into consideration while planning the setup.

 

[Shrek]

And the other metric used for ssd life is what? TBW? What does the W stand for again?

Total Bytes Written?

 

[Toothless]

Total Bytes Written?

Total bytes or terabytes. Typically it's 150 terabytes written for endurance, as an example.

 

[Shrek]

You are right

Tera

I need to get some rest

 

[Mussels]

Terabytes written.

Some modern SSD's can be stupidly low, anything that inflates the writes is just suicide.

 

[Deleted member 185158]

And the other metric used for ssd life is what? TBW? What does the W stand for again? And this is only the guaranteed value from the manfacturer. Look up some actual durability testing and you will see that most ssds will perform way beyond this figure. But, of course, there are some of us that will get the drive with the minimum value. Otherwise the guaranteed minimum would be higher.

Reading from a ssd is harmless. For a ssd rated in TBW, you are looking at a similar value in the EBR range or higher. Or put it this way: MBTF is a much more realistic metric when it comes to max number of reads.

Having a pagefile on a ssd is harmless. It is pretty much never, ever used. And when it is used, you really need it. Otherwise that, probably poorly programmed, piece of software you are running will crash and burn.

Regarding operating temperatures, nvme drives do not care much about temperatures when reading, just stay within the min/max temps from the manufacturer. Writing has a narrower optimal temperature range. Which is why watercooling nvme drives is seldom recommended. Because your drive will often be below optimal temperatures for writes, and having to heat up cells to write to them is very inefficient.

Oh and don't fill your drive entirely. The load-levelling algorithm in the drive controller will thank you by extending the life of your drive.

Sauce: I am a computer engineer. I have been knee-deep in operating systems and how their low level functions work. I have studied physical properties of computer hardware. Amongst other things, how ssds are built and function. Do some work with server-grade hardware and this is something you actually have to take into consideration while planning the setup.

The page file is harmless, cause it typically isn't used. Virtual memory is used consistently.

In order to read from a drive, you write to it first.

If counting writes happens to account into how a company describes the definition to MTBF, then so be it.

None of this means a drive will last longer or not really. Some come DOA.

Yes, with enough testing and gathering data, we could approximate a life cycle of devices. For sure. But at least some manufacturers do this research and give a ball park of expectancy.

 

[Keullo-e]

Hasn't cclener been crap for ages? I remember that it was good in the Win7 days though.

 

[Vayra86]

Should everyone do this?

No probably not. There's a lot of people that need page file cause they just don't have the required amount of system memory to cover all the applications they run. Which is a shame, cause generally an SSD and HDD is much much slower than system memory and would come with a HUGE performance hit if Page File did in fact need to be used.

It's also used to store system dumps. Like I bet everyone takes the time to read those also.... I'd bet not.

This is absolute nonsense.

The page file is a level of memory that relieves bandwidth elsewhere in the pipeline. I game a lot. I use the page file and never turn it off. Why? Because it improves system responsiveness, rather than reduces it, and especially when performance is wanted, it helps. I have way too much RAM for gaming, 16GB, never have I seen it at capacity, in fact, it often sits royally below 8GB. Still, the page file is used during gaming, I monitor it in for example Space Engineers, and in that application, turning it off is harmful to performance of the simulation. Even with many GBs of RAM to spare.

The page file plays a role in scheduling. Its really fantastic you don't see a disadvantage in your 'simple' use case of running a bench and dialing in some frequencies to run it at. But what kind of use case IS that? You're running a single type of load where you tweak memory usage to fit your capacity, on a system built for many concurrent types of loads. You think you're pushing that system. Its laughable, honestly.

Nobody who disables the page file has managed to quantify what performance they've actually gained or lost; I honestly can't even do it for Space Engineers, unless I'd program my path through the simulation for the exact same run. You speak of a huge performance hit if the page file needed to be used - without backing it up. There isn't one. And if there is one, you need more RAM regardless of whether you use it or not

Still though I understand your argument about unnecessary writes on a disk, it stands because if you're not using it, you're 'writing and reading' more directly out of RAM. Sure. But again... can you actually quantify this or is this 99% impression and historical evidence from ages gone by and 1% reality? I think its the latter. I'm using a 2011 Samsung 830 that has always ran a page file and Windows OS and its still in perfect health. That's eleven years worth of writes and reads in a gaming system.

Things change, in hardware as it progresses, there was also an age where having a filesystem with folder names as brief as you could get them (coded, letter/number, etc.) was considered useful to gain some performance, I'm sure that in the time of kilobytes of data being relevant, this was measurable. Today? You're considered a nutcase for doing so. The same applies here. Old principles are simply no longer relevant.

Terabytes written.

Some modern SSD's can be stupidly low, anything that inflates the writes is just suicide.

And those SSDs are definitely not to be used as 'active' disks, but rather for mass storage. They're generally QLC, which also makes them more suited for mass storage rather than high usage-use cases.

 

[Mussels]

And those SSDs are definitely not to be used as 'active' disks, but rather for mass storage

not that they're marketed that way at all, or used that way by the common folk who just buy the cheapest in-store


page file re-enables itself

Even just today was posts in a gaming group i'm in from someone with "out of memory" errors that were just the page file being too small since their C: drive was full

plenty of free RAM, plenty of space on the games drive - just under 1GB on C: so crashy crashy time

 

[Shrek]

The page file is harmless, cause it typically isn't used.

True, unless you have little RAM or something with a memory leak.

And those SSDs are definitely not to be used as 'active' disks, but rather for mass storage. They're generally QLC, which also makes them more suited for mass storage rather than high usage-use cases.

At which point use a hard drive.

If I have an SSD I want to take advantage of its speed and use it as a boot drive.

 

[Vayra86]

True, unless you have little RAM or something with a memory leak.



At which point use a hard drive.

If I have an SSD I want to take advantage of its speed and use it as a boot drive.

Yeah, well, I do like not having the hum of HDD in my room since my rig is 100% on solid state. But if its really mass storage, I do agree, I just wouldn't do it on my main box.

 

[Deleted member 185158]

This is absolute nonsense.

The page file is a level of memory that relieves bandwidth elsewhere in the pipeline. I game a lot. I use the page file and never turn it off. Why? Because it improves system responsiveness, rather than reduces it, and especially when performance is wanted, it helps. I have way too much RAM for gaming, 16GB, never have I seen it at capacity, in fact, it often sits royally below 8GB. Still, the page file is used during gaming, I monitor it in for example Space Engineers, and in that application, turning it off is harmful to performance of the simulation. Even with many GBs of RAM to spare.

The page file plays a role in scheduling. Its really fantastic you don't see a disadvantage in your 'simple' use case of running a bench and dialing in some frequencies to run it at. But what kind of use case IS that? You're running a single type of load where you tweak memory usage to fit your capacity, on a system built for many concurrent types of loads. You think you're pushing that system. Its laughable, honestly.

Nobody who disables the page file has managed to quantify what performance they've actually gained or lost; I honestly can't even do it for Space Engineers, unless I'd program my path through the simulation for the exact same run. You speak of a huge performance hit if the page file needed to be used - without backing it up. There isn't one. And if there is one, you need more RAM regardless of whether you use it or not

Still though I understand your argument about unnecessary writes on a disk, it stands because if you're not using it, you're 'writing and reading' more directly out of RAM. Sure. But again... can you actually quantify this or is this 99% impression and historical evidence from ages gone by and 1% reality? I think its the latter. I'm using a 2011 Samsung 830 that has always ran a page file and Windows OS and its still in perfect health. That's eleven years worth of writes and reads in a gaming system.

Things change, in hardware as it progresses, there was also an age where having a filesystem with folder names as brief as you could get them (coded, letter/number, etc.) was considered useful to gain some performance, I'm sure that in the time of kilobytes of data being relevant, this was measurable. Today? You're considered a nutcase for doing so. The same applies here. Old principles are simply no longer relevant.


And those SSDs are definitely not to be used as 'active' disks, but rather for mass storage. They're generally QLC, which also makes them more suited for mass storage rather than high usage-use cases.

In use case page file Yada Yada. I get it.

People seek performance at different levels.
Scheduling and so forth ... across many platforms and operating systems.
All of which handle this differently.
W10 vs w11 is a fi e example.

For me, in general not interested in page file. Obviously, which there are users here and there disable it, with no issues.

But generally speaking, people don't use it. Well, the operating system doesn't use it.

If a system is low on memory, the user is generally notified. Then, the wise man saves pennies and purchases a larger amount of system RAM.

It's not difficult to conceive the fact it's not needed.

And I could back the statement up just fine on the given hardware on my bench right now consisting of a whopping 1024MB of system memory. IDE on a 40 pin cable..... shit performance loss is so great...

But my use case is the actual seek for performance. Operating systems and slash of services, back ground tasks and everything in between is slashed.

Because performance doesn't come from using more resources. It comes from using less. If you need proof to that statement, then go to HWBot and find yourself some examples. I'm not in the mode to prove facts this morning.

 

[Mussels]

If a system is low on memory, the user is generally notified

Actually, those low memory errors are only about the page file running out - not about RAM running out (since that was extremely common in earlier versions of 32 bit windows)

You get the errors only after your programs crashed out, which isnt super helpful and they still mention "memory" in the error messages today since its technically correct, even tho it gives everyone the wrong impression

I'm all for page files. Any and all caching is fantastic - you just want the writes minimised, and the reads maximised. A bigger cache is written once and re-read many times.

 

[Bill_Bright]

But generally speaking, people don't use it. Well, the operating system doesn't use it.

You are correct, "people" don't use page files.

But you are totally wrong when you say operating systems don't. In fact, operating systems typically are the biggest users of page files. This is a primary reason to just leave the defaults alone!!!!

 

[Deleted member 185158]

You are correct, "people" don't use page files.

But you are totally wrong when you say operating systems don't. In fact, operating systems typically are the biggest users of page files. This is a primary reason to just leave the defaults alone!!!!

I'm a competitive overclocker.

You guys leave defaults alone cause that suits your needs. And it's fine.

I mentioned, which was quoted again, that I don't recommend users to turn this feature off.

But am entitled to my opinion and views on the subject just as much as the next guy.

No?

Actually, those low memory errors are only about the page file running out - not about RAM running out (since that was extremely common in earlier versions of 32 bit windows)

You get the errors only after your programs crashed out, which isnt super helpful and they still mention "memory" in the error messages today since its technically correct, even tho it gives everyone the wrong impression

I'm all for page files. Any and all caching is fantastic - you just want the writes minimised, and the reads maximised. A bigger cache is written once and re-read many times.

Um, not what I meant.
When system memory is full, windows notifies the user of it.

 

[Bill_Bright]

But am entitled to my opinion and views on the subject just as much as the next guy.

No?

Of course you are entitled to your own opinion. I spent 24 years in the military defending your right to express them. I see no reason to stop doing that now.

But you are NOT entitled to your own facts. You claimed operating systems don't use the PF. That is not true.

Actually, I don't have a problem with folks disabling the PF (or setting a fixed size) - AS LONG AS they know what they are doing. The problem is, most do not. They are not experts in memory management. They don't fully understand virtual memory. They have no clue what commit rates are. They don't understand that setting a fixed size is NOT a "set and forget" setting. In fact many, if not most who dink with the PF settings do so simply because they read somewhere to do it. Or worse, they assume they are smarter and know better than all the PhDs and computer science professionals at Microsoft who have 100s of decades of hands-on experience and exabytes of empirical data to draw on.

The most silly, asinine excuse I have ever heard is, "I disabled it and didn't notice any issues, so I left it disabled." The next most asinine is, "I've always done it that way".

And if folks don't understand why those are silly, it just proves my point about them not being experts and therefore, should leave the defaults alone!

 

[Deleted member 185158]

Of course you are entitled to your own opinion. I spent 24 years in the military defending your right to express them. I see no reason to stop doing that now.

But you are NOT entitled to your own facts. You claimed operating systems don't use the PF. That is not true.

Actually, I don't have a problem with folks disabling the PF (or setting a fixed size) - AS LONG AS they know what they are doing. The problem is, most do not. They are not experts in memory management. They don't fully understand virtual memory. They have no clue what commit rates are. They don't understand that setting a fixed size is NOT a "set and forget" setting. In fact many, if not most who dink with the PF settings do so simply because they read somewhere to do it. Or worse, they assume they are smarter and know better than all the PhDs and computer science professionals at Microsoft who have 100s of decades of hands-on experience and exabytes of empirical data to draw on.

The most silly, asinine excuse I have ever heard is, "I disabled it and didn't notice any issues, so I left it disabled." The next most asinine is, "I've always done it that way".

And if folks don't understand why those are silly, it just proves my point about them not being experts and therefore, should leave the defaults alone!

I'm far from a page file expert. This is true.

Perhaps you could provide us a screen shot of the page file being used in your system. I cannot.

So again, more information provided for your mind, not your eyes.

Page files in Windows with large physical memory​

When large physical memory is installed, a page file might not be required to support the system commit charge during peak usage. For example, 64-bit versions of Windows and Windows Server support more physical memory (RAM) than 32-bit versions support. The available physical memory alone might be large enough.

So again, the OS isn't using page file on most systems when there's enough system memory installed. I'm sure there are exceptions where some people are running 2gb of memory on LGA 1700 systems, but I'm probably mistaken for sure.

I can provide the link upon your request as well.

Maybe there's something I'm missing. I dunno. But my opinion is based on that above.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Perhaps you could provide us a screen shot of the page file being used in your system. I cannot.

I see no purpose for doing that. Every computer is different. Every user is different. My PF requirements today may be different tomorrow. So anything I posted would be anecdotal.

So again, the OS isn't using page file on most systems when there's enough system memory installed.

Your understanding of English is different from reality.

If something says, "might be" or "might not", that does NOT mean "is" or "is not".

And just because something isn't currently be used, that does not indicate it is better to disable it. And "better" should be the criteria. Not, "I didn't notice any difference".

Even for those with lots of system memory installed, for the vast majority of those users, there is no harm or negative impact in leaving the defaults as is. If it is not being used, what's it hurting?

"IF" the argument is to save disk space, I say "bullfeathers!" If someone is that negligent to allow their computer to get that desperately low on disk space, disabling the PF is not proper resolution.

Are there exceptions? Of course. But having "lots of RAM installed" is not sufficient criteria or justification to disable the PF, or set a fixed size.

 

[Deleted member 185158]

I see no purpose for doing that. Every computer is different. Every user is different. My PF requirements today may be different tomorrow. So anything I posted would be anecdotal.


Your understanding of English is different from reality.

If something says, "might be" or "might not", that does NOT mean "is" or "is not".

And just because something isn't currently be used, that does not indicate it is better to disable it. And "better" should be the criteria. Not, "I didn't notice any difference".

Even for those with lots of system memory installed, for the vast majority of those users, there is no harm or negative impact in leaving the defaults as is. If it is not being used, what's it hurting?

"IF" the argument is to save disk space, I say "bullfeathers!" If someone is that negligent to allow their computer to get that desperately low on disk space, disabling the PF is not proper resolution.

Are there exceptions? Of course. But having "lots of RAM installed" is not sufficient criteria or justification to disable the PF, or set a fixed size.

I cannot dictate how words are used to ascribe meaning within the context of the use.

I would take a guess it's worded in such fashion because there are users with old operating systems running 32 bit with a 3.5gb cap.

Which for most users with MODERN hardware, page file is unnecessary.

And because there are 32 bit users, the wording ascribed to the use is mandatory because 32b systems are still a thing. Though I don't know why.

Page file is used only when system memory has been filled.

Nobody here has proven otherwise. So I'll stand by my statements.

Introduction to the page file - Windows Client

Learn about the page files in Windows. A page file is an optional, hidden system file on a hard disk.

learn.microsoft.com

 

[Bill_Bright]

I cannot dictate how words are used to ascribe meaning within the context of the use.

Huh? You can dictate how YOU use words to insure they are truthful and are used in the context of their accepted definitions. Again, you are not entitled to your own set of facts.

"Might be" does not mean "is" or "will be". Yet that is what you posed "might" means.

Page file is used only when system memory has been filled.

What a bunch of bullcrap! Why are you posting falsehoods like that? Did you read the article you just linked to? Or hope I wouldn't?

NO WHERE in there does it say what you just claimed! Why be deceitful?

Your article clearly points out several scenarios where a page file is required. Yes, it mentions where it "might" not be required. But again, "might not" does not mean "is not". And nowhere in your article does it recommend or suggest the PF be disabled.

Nobody here has proven otherwise. So I'll stand by my statements.

LOL So if you believe that is how things should work, unicorns must exist because you cannot prove they don't, right?

I showed WITH YOUR OWN ARTICLE that you are wrong - the page file is indeed used in several other scenarios, contrary to your false statements.

Why don't you do us all a favor and show us any white paper, study, or knowledge base article that reports disabling the PF is better and recommended when lots of RAM is installed, okay? Then you will have the true facts for which you can stand by. And then, I will apologize and concede you were right and I was wrong and that you are not just fabricating and repeating the same old falsehoods.

 

[Deleted member 185158]

Huh? You can dictate how YOU use words to insure they are truthful and are used in the context of their accepted definitions. Again, you are not entitled to your own set of facts.

"Might be" does not mean "is" or "will be". Yet that is what you posed "might" means.


What a bunch of bullcrap! Why are you posting falsehoods like that? Did you read the article you just linked to? Or hope I wouldn't?

NO WHERE in there does it say what you just claimed! Why be deceitful?

Your article clearly points out several scenarios where a page file is required. Yes, it mentions where it "might" not be required. But again, "might not" does not mean "is not". And nowhere in your article does it recommend or suggest the PF be disabled.


LOL So if you believe that is how things should work, unicorns must exist because you cannot prove they don't, right?

I showed WITH YOUR OWN ARTICLE that you are wrong - the page file is indeed used in several other scenarios, contrary to your false statements.

Why don't you do us all a favor and show us any white paper, study, or knowledge base article that reports disabling the PF is better and recommended when lots of RAM is installed, okay? Then you will have the true facts for which you can stand by. And then, I will apologize and concede you were right and I was wrong and that you are not just fabricating and repeating the same old falsehoods.

You don't even have to click it.

Read.

Optional.

 

[Bill_Bright]

You don't even have to click it.

Read.

You do if you want to learn what it really says - because you certainly are not quoting it truthfully!

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

@ShrimpBrime Note that Hard Faults are accesses to page file (you probably knew, bot not everyone does). Yes, I have a lot of things open for my 16GB, but let's close some things:

Hm, page file still in use. Why would it be using page file? I cannot tell. I can tell what my system-managed page file looks like though:

I have a 2TB BX500 as disk C. This is a domain computer, so the C drive has around 20GB used. I also download large files regularly to local and move them to the domain as part of my job:

She's been running a while now without significant degradation. Long story short, if anyone is remotely concerned about page file damaging your SSD, just get the next size up or an extra and move it over.

Now, I fully understand disabling page file for an overclocking session like @ShrimpBrime does, if it causes memory errors, but I strongly recommend against it for anyone not running their system at the edge of stability.

 

[Bill_Bright]

if anyone is remotely concerned about page file damaging your SSD, just get the next size up or an extra and move it over.

If anyone is concerned a page file will "damage" a SSD, don't be it won't "damage" it.

If the concern is a page file will put too many writes on the SSD, reducing its life expectancy, no need to worry about that either - not with newer generation SSDs. Remember, more and more laptops and even PCs are coming only with SSDs these days. All our builds here have been SSD-only since 2013 and all of those SSDs are still in use, except for a couple early 64GB and 128GB SSDs, which have been retired early due to their small size. And another Samsung failed due to actual failure, not to reaching any write limit (which Samsung promptly replaced via RMA).

It is much more likely your entire computer will be retired long before you reach any SSD write limit. For this reason, even busy data centers, more and more are using SSDs to "cache" their most commonly accessed data. Also, operating systems use the Page Files to read many more times than they write. "WORM" (for write once - read many) is an often used acronym among many that, once exclusive to optical disks, is used often recently with SSDs. Reads have no effect on life expectancy.

The Count is absolutely correct. If you are concerned, get a bigger SSD or move the PF to a less used SSD. A bigger SSD makes sense for many reasons - most significantly is that wear leveling and TRIM takes advantage of extra free space to distribute any "wear" across many more storage locations, making any single location used for write much less often. But that is for normal use just as much as it applies to the PF.