Pagefile.sys and Hiberfil.sys are gigantic and filling my SSD

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PudgyChicken

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May 17, 2010
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Hello,

I run Win 7 Ultimate x64, and when I just went to My Computer, I saw that my C: drive (60GB OCZ Vertex II SSD) had only 4GB of space left. I was confused since last time I checked it had a good 10-12 GB of space left. I then noticed that pagefile.sys was 9.99GB and hiberfil.sys was 7.49GB. While I may have written something to disc without realizing it, aren't these files a little bloated? From what I know hiberfil.sys is only necessary if you actually put your PC into hibernate, something which I have never done and will never do, so I'm also wondering if it's possible to remove it from my PC.

Thanks!
PudgyChicken

System Specs:

Intel Core i7 980X @4.2GHz
ASUS Rampage III Extreme
12GB Corsair Dominator DDR3 1866MHz
ASUS ENGTX 480
2x1TB WD Caviar Black SATA III 6GB/s RAID 0
OCZ Vertex 2 60GB MLC SSD
1x DVD drive w/ Lightscribe
1x BR, DVD, CD writer
Coolermaster HAF 932 Blue LED edition
Corsair Hydro H50 in push-pull
ABS Majesty 1000W PSU

23" Samsung SyncMaster P2450
Razer Lachesis
Razer Lycosa
Sherwood reciever
2x Yamaha NS-5290 speakers
1x Polk Audio PSW10 subwoofer
 
Solution
With 12GB of memory you may not need a page file at all. Run task manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and select the "Performance" tab. Watch the Memory graph while you run the biggest load you ever have on your system - all the programs you ever run simultaneously with all the documents and web pages you ever work on at the same time. If the memory graph shows, say, 8GB or less, then a pagefile is probably a complete waste.

I have 12GB on my Windows 7 system and I've always had the pagefile disabled.
I disabled hiberfil.sys on my system.

Open the Windows Control Panel
Double-click Power Options
Click the Hibernate tab, de-select the 'Enable hibernate support' check box, and then click Apply.
Restart your computer and hiberfil.sys should be automatically deleted (this is not always the case - simply delete it if Windows didn't do it for you).
If you change your mind in the future and would like to use hibernation, go back to the Hibernate tab as described in the first three steps and check the box 'enable hibernation'.
or you can do this
Open Command prompt which you find in All Programs > Accessories (run as admin) and type : powercfg -h off then hit Enter.
Here's a tutorial for pagefile which also works on 7
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/132201-virtual-memory-paging-file-change.html







 

mavroxur

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You can disable hibernation in your power options (control panel). Your pagefile is managed by default by windows. You can force a pagefile to be a certain size if you want to, and with 12gb RAM, and depending on what you run on your system, you could force it to a smaller size. Generally, it's recommended to leave it to windows to manage it, because as demand rises, Windows will resize it to the current demand. If you want to force it to a certain size, Go to Control Panel > System > Advanced System Settings > Performance Settings > Advanced > Virtual Memory. Set it to "custom size" and select a size (in MB). If you don't do anything that demands loads of RAM, since you have 12gb RAM, you could set it to a small amount (4gb or so) or even disable it, depending on what you do or what applications you run. Worst case, you disable it, and launch several apps or games, and get an "out of memory" error. Just increase it and reboot.
 
With 12GB of memory you may not need a page file at all. Run task manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and select the "Performance" tab. Watch the Memory graph while you run the biggest load you ever have on your system - all the programs you ever run simultaneously with all the documents and web pages you ever work on at the same time. If the memory graph shows, say, 8GB or less, then a pagefile is probably a complete waste.

I have 12GB on my Windows 7 system and I've always had the pagefile disabled.
 
Solution

theking2

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Jul 26, 2010
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I case you want the hibernate function but not want it that back you can trim it to half the size
First turn it off
powercfg /h off
(you might want to reboot here)
the turn it on with half the size (in percent)
powercfg /h /size 50

Unfortunately you cannot go under 50%
The page file size can be reduced by opening System Properties, by right click-ing my computer, select properties. Select Advanced system settings, in the windows called System Properties select Advanced, and click Settings to get Performance Options and select Advanced again. Observe the current size of the page file and click Change... . Default this is 1.5 times the size for large amounts of memory. I set this to custom size of 2000 Initial and Maximum 4000
 

CyChrome

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Mar 16, 2014
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NO NO NO NO NO.

The pagefile is your virtual memory. You want this to be as fast as possible. I would even suggest that you want this on your SSD more than you want the windows directory.

The hiberfil.sys is meant to be the same size as your MEMORY (which is ram + virtual). The amount of virtual memory that you have can vary widely depending on your windows settings and how you use your device.

If you don't ever use hibernation, then disable this and you can get that disk space back. If you do, then you probably want faster "boot" time and you should keep this file on the SSD.

If you need to recover space on the SSD, I would look to move application install directories to the HDD. Loading those applications will be slower since they are on the HDD, but they will run just as fast, because once they load then they are in memory and you won't need your SSD/HDD (except virtual memory (pagefile.sys) which I hope you have left on the SSD).
 

jgboston

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Mar 16, 2014
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I'm getting the same issue plus massive files filling up in "officefilecache" . it seam to be related to MS OneDrive syncing or backups to OneDrive. I lost 100gb of memory on my SSD in two days.



 

Amoenus

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Jul 20, 2011
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I will just leave it here.
Disable Hibernate (which auto-deletes the Hiberfil.sys file)

    ■ Run cmd.exe as an Admin
    ■ Type in powercfg -h off
    ■ ???????????
    ■ Profit

 
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