What is pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys?

Norbic · Sep 23, 2014

What are the pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys and what do they do? Im wondering because they are some of the biggest space hogs on my ssd and that space is precious. Is there ways of reducing their size? Better yet are they needed?

smorizio · Sep 23, 2014

pagefile is windows swap file. depending on the size of the ram in your pc or laptop you can turn it off. the other file used for when window sleeps. used mostly on laptops.

ThatVietGuy · Sep 23, 2014

Pagefile - When your system runs low on RAM because an application like Firefox is taking too much memory, Windows moves the least used "pages" of memory out to a hidden file named pagefile.sys in the root of one of your drives to free up more RAM for the applications you are actually using. What this actually means to you is that if you've had an application minimized for a while, and you are heavily using other applications, Windows is going to move some of the memory from the minimized application to the pagefile since it's not being accessed recently.

- http://lifehacker.com/5426041/understanding-the-windows-pagefile-and-why-you-shouldnt-disable-it

hiberfile.sys - Windows has two power management modes that you can choose from: one is Sleep Mode, which keeps the PC running in a low power state so you can almost instantly get back to what you were working on. The other is Hibernate mode, which completely writes the memory out to the hard drive, and then powers the PC down entirely, so you can even take the battery out, put it back in, start back up, and be right back where you were.

Hibernate mode uses the hiberfil.sys file to store the the current state (memory) of the PC, and since it’s managed by Windows, you can’t delete the file.

- http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/15140/what-is-hiberfil.sys-and-how-do-i-delete-it/

ThatVietGuy · Sep 23, 2014

You can easily disable the hiberfile.sys if you don't use hibernation at all using the link above.

Norbic · Sep 23, 2014

ThatVietGuy :

Pagefile - When your system runs low on RAM because an application like Firefox is taking too much memory, Windows moves the least used "pages" of memory out to a hidden file named pagefile.sys in the root of one of your drives to free up more RAM for the applications you are actually using. What this actually means to you is that if you've had an application minimized for a while, and you are heavily using other applications, Windows is going to move some of the memory from the minimized application to the pagefile since it's not being accessed recently.

- http://lifehacker.com/5426041/understanding-the-windows-pagefile-and-why-you-shouldnt-disable-it

hiberfile.sys - Windows has two power management modes that you can choose from: one is Sleep Mode, which keeps the PC running in a low power state so you can almost instantly get back to what you were working on. The other is Hibernate mode, which completely writes the memory out to the hard drive, and then powers the PC down entirely, so you can even take the battery out, put it back in, start back up, and be right back where you were.

Hibernate mode uses the hiberfil.sys file to store the the current state (memory) of the PC, and since it’s managed by Windows, you can’t delete the file.

- http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/15140/what-is-hiberfil.sys-and-how-do-i-delete-it/

Wow, instant 6gb extra space. Basically i understand i should not alter pagefile.sys?

ThatVietGuy · Sep 23, 2014

It depends on the person you ask. You'll probably get a 50/50 answer on whether to do it or not.

I personally still have mine.

Norbic · Sep 23, 2014

ThatVietGuy :

I think i am going to reduce my pagefile.sys, i got 8gb ram so i might make max like 6gb or something.
EDIT: Or could moving it to a different hard drive be a good option.

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What is pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys?

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