Can i defrag the Pagefile which is a system file?

Hi boh88ca,

I work in the Tech Support section of Diskeeper Corporaiton and thought I might be able to help with that question. You are correct in that defragmenting a Solid State Device in the normal fashion (with the same procedure as you'd use for a spinning-platter drive), would not be recommended. Therefore, if the PageFile resides on the SSD, it may be better to be left alone.

If the Page File doesn't reside on the SSD and actually resides on a spinning-platter drive, then I would say you could feel free to defragment it. There are SSD optimization utilities out there, we even have one, but it likely wouldn't help with the Page File though because the Page File is usually unavailable while the machine is up and running so it would only be tackled during a boot cycle defrag.

As an alternate option, you could consider disabling the Page File, rebooting the system so that one is not present and then re-enabling one afterwards. Doing that may help to reduce the fragments in the Page File to mimic a defrag of it.

I hope that helps!

-Diskeeper Corporation Tech Support

Don't worry about defragging the SSD at all.

Just make sure your TRIM is enabled, that comes with Win7. Check if it is enabled, it should be by default.


Just check ,
The Trim command is enabled by default on Windows 7, but to be sure of that :
Type Command or paste prompt > fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify
Hit Enter button.
DisableDeleteNotify = 1 (Windows TRIM commands are disabled)
DisableDeleteNotify = 0 (Windows TRIM commands are enabled)
0 is good : )

Hello to the 2 specialists above,
I find a correlation to my 2GB ddr ram kingston and pagefile 2GB...are they somehow related?
One of you mentioned that the pagefile is in the HD and i always assumed that since the PF and DDR RAM are the same,then the PF is actually in the DDR RAM sticks.I have two Kington PC3200 Ram and each one is of 1GB.
Since there are no moving parts in the 2 ram sticks,i associated the ram sticks to memory/storage capacity of the SSD drives.
That was why i was concerned with defragging something that is no moving parts >> Kingston RAM..is my assumption wrong ( btw,i do not possess a degree in computing science )  

Opps,these are my specs:
Win XP sp3
Hitachi 2TB
Two sticks of Kingston ddr ram pc 3200 ,each of 1TB capacity
Asus p4p800-vm
Utility:
Win standard defrag as standard option but it does a poor job
Defraggler as preferred option

Is that Hitachi 2TB your boot drive?

yes,i have the hitachi deskstar as my boot drive.
In addition,since i have another sata connection free,i connected to another 2TB hitachi.
All in all,my whole system has 4TB.
As all hd's have to be formatted ,the next procdure was to activate windows which i did and it seems ok ..but there were some complications later on.. 

What is the size of the boot drive? Did u made a partition?

Boot drive is c drive and partition was formatted with ntfs and windows xp installed,sp1 to sp3.
Since i had another hd,i assigned it as primary slave and same thing done to it.
I tried prep the primary master for dual boot by installing windows xp to another partition in same hd and it worked in the beginning but 2 days later,it did not..hmmmm

Oppps,my boot drive,which is C: is 100 GB

I am talking about creating a partition, it will increase performance of the boot drive and u don't have to bother to defrag the whole HDD!

So u save the drive from excessive work and if the XP gets corrupted it is isolated from the files that u don't want to loose, especially the 2TB of data!!!

#1 - 10GB for the Page file

#2 - 60GB for the System only

#3A - 50GB (if u don't install large games) - programs installation

#3B - 400GB (if u play a lots of the games) - programs installation

#4 - 150GB for files up to 30MB

#5 - Whats left for large data.

ok,this is what i have configured
Since i have 2tb,it is really big, i chose c drive to be 100gb and the others,100,100,100,200,200,200,500,500...or something like that.
C is small and once it is half full,i transfer date to the ones having 200gb or more.
I chose the next 100gb partition to hold another win xp os in case c is infected or corrupted and then once i go to recovery console,i can boot to the alternate safe one.
Once the alternate drive is ok,i will delete and format the corrupted C and re-use it again.
In theory,it is like having spare glasses.If i loose one on holiday,i can use the alternate to see and proceed to buy another pair of glasses.Once i have 2,i feel fine but existing on only 1 is risky.
Same as my c drive and extra copy on another partition.You see i have three 100gb as spares.I keep it unformatted so nothing goes in there until i say so.
If c is messed up,i just delete it and format it using the brains of the emergency system.
Once c is ok,i switch back to c.
Here is something i just thought about.
It is about bad sectors and i can assume it is present in an exact physical location in one of this platters right?
Since C is used so much,it is prone to usage and error and mechanical wear.Well,i thought,if C keeps on having many red fragments,and it re-occurs often,then i would just dump C altogether and never use it again.
In theory,i would then use another partition and make it take win xp.In this way,i have a fresh partition to install the OS.
Let's call this "unusable drive" a no-no for future use.
Does this make sense or am i missing something?
Like i said,i lack a U degree in computing science so,planning and final results are seldom ok...
thanks for your advice Sir!  

Well, I don't have a degree in anything computing : )

I do not know how partitions work and how they fail..in my research,i have read that temperature differences causes the metal to expand and contract and so when the HD is powered up,the heat that results from activity is going to increase and the temp drops when it is shutdown..the cycle of temp variance and differential heating causes more metal fatigue..and so when i increase the number of partitions,i am offering myself more avenues of escape to a better location ..it is knowing all of us is gonna age right,so when one finishes one story in our life.we move on to the next..and the more sectors (stories ) we have ,the better so that we have something to forward to..until the end..

Selection of best answer has been delayed cos the moment i select one,this thread is finished and i want other inputs to come in,so that,not only me,but other people can learn from this experience and give their perspective..

nikorr ,,you have the best answer..thanks

Best answer selected by boh88ca.

Thanx for the vote boh88ca : )

This topic has been closed by Nikorr