Optimal location for page file?

LaPoule

Newbie Joined: Jun 15, 2012 17:28 Messages: 11 Offline

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Jun 17, 2012 17:04

I'm confused about where the page file should be located.
I'm coming to PD from Adobe Premiere. In the past I've read users on the Adobe forums advocating moving the page file to a different disk drive from the drive that holds the operating system.

From a brief search of PD discussions, it seems that some here have thought that, yes, the page file is best placed on a different disk drive when several drives are available.
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/20041.page#105723
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/20155.page#106725

But in some cases, eg main drive is an SSD with a decent amount of free space, it is best to leave the page file on the main drive.
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/23218.page#125137

So what is the current thinking?
My :C drive is an SSD with about 175GB of free space. I only keep the OS and applications there. I generally store data on different disks.
Will keeping the page file on the SSD be more likely to improve or impede performance with editing/rendering (or would the impact either way likely be negligible)?

Window 7 64-bit Home Premium
~175GB free SSD for :C drive
1TB free internal hard drive

~235GB free external hard drive (USB-2)

3TB USB-3 external hard drive just for backup

(Btw, I obviously realize I could just test this kind of thing out for myself, but there are so many different variables to consider in setting up the system, learning how to use the software, figuring out which settings are optimal for specific projects, etc, it could take me months and months to test everything out. I'm hoping to be able to better direct which tests I ultimately run and cut down on the testing time by benefiting from the experiences of others who have already dealt with some of these questions.)

LaPoule

Newbie Joined: Jun 15, 2012 17:28 Messages: 11 Offline

Jun 17, 2012 17:23

And a related question, to hijack my own thread, is what's the best location for storing projects saved by Auto Save?

The default has it set to my main drive, but I'm afraid that there may not be enough space there.
(Plus, I'm worried that SSDs don't hold up as well over the long term as disk drives to repetitive save/erase activity.)

HalCon

Senior Contributor Location: Charlottetown, PEI Joined: Mar 01, 2008 10:36 Messages: 719 Offline

Jun 17, 2012 17:46

LaPoule,

I always move my page file to a drive other than my OS drive. On this machine it is on the D drive. Not sure on how to go about that with Win7 as I am still running Win XP.

As for the Autosaves, I move them to my editing drive (E drive). I have one folder for PD9 Autosave and one for PD10 Autosave.

I do all of my editing on the E drive. I change the export location for every different main project.

As far as SSDrives are concerned there is a varied opinion as to whether they are suitable for video editing. Some have had problems that were cured by switching to a spinning drive for the OS and others are using SSD's without problem.

Quote: Plus, I'm worried that SSDs don't hold up as well over the long term as disk drives to repetitive save/erase activity.

I have heard this many times, and my choice is to shy away from SSDrives. Boot times and program load times are not that important to me in the big scheme of things.

Hope this helps you a little.

Hal

Edited to add: What Jerry says below. Upon re-reading my post I may have given a wrong impression. I did not mean to imply that my way was good or bad, just the way I do it.
Hal

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Jun 17. 2012 17:54

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jerrys

Senior Contributor Location: New Britain, CT, USA (between New York and Boston) Joined: Feb 10, 2010 21:36 Messages: 1038 Offline

Jun 17, 2012 17:49

As to your first question (about the page file), the definitive answer is "It depends."

You mentioned that there are a lot of variables to consider, and you're absolutely right. There are so many that it would be extremely difficult to duplicate any given set of results.

It's far more important to have enough physical memory. If you do, your page file will very rarely be accessed and the whole business becomes moot.

Do it one way, do it the other way, I doubt you'll see consistent differences.

As to your second question, I suppose the best place would be on a different drive from your project file. That gives you a degree of robustness in the event of a disk failure. Since the project files are quite small, and they're only created once every x minutes, and in the event of a disk failure you'll have bigger fish to fry, I wouldn't worry about this either. Jerry Schwartz