The truth about pagefile (SSD)

Question

Good afternoon!
Two years ago you guys (especially Harm) helped me to build a PC for Premiere. After two years I had to update my disks setup and decided to buy a Samsung 830 SSD for OS. Now, after I've read tons of informations about how to setup the drive, I know nothing...
As I remember, and as I checked on this forum, if you have 4 disks setup, you should set your pagefile on any other disk but OS disk - especially if You work in Photoshop, which uses pagefile a lot. This statement was totally ok for me until I found these:
Quote :
You don't need a pagefile at all with 8 gigs of RAM -- turn it off.
"This may be true, but it could also cause grief.   Each user is different, and it's dangerous to make generalizations such as this because people use different amounts of RAM depending on the combination of programs and documents/files that they have open at any one point in time.
To find out how much pagefile you need, run Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and click the "Performance" tab.   The "Memory" bar graph (to the left of the "Physical Memory Usage History" graph) shows how much memory you're using.   Start up all the programs you might possibly run at the same time and use them to open the biggest documents/files/photos/movies that you may ever have open at once. Note the amount of RAM in the bar graph and add perhaps 25% to 50% as a safety margin.   For example, if your bar graph shows 6GB, then you'd probably be safe in assuming that you need no more than 8GB of memory."
And MORE IMPORTANT:
"Do you understand what happens to an SSD that has run out of write cycles on it's NAND? It becomes read-only memory. It doesn't simply stop working. I work in manufacturer's SSD R&D (who also makes much of the NAND used in many SSD's) and while typical "current" 25nm and 34nm MLC is rated between 3000-5000 write cycles, it is "conservatively" rated as such.  Neither you or any of your friends who work with Photochop or Win Temp files are blowing through this many write cycles in a 6 month period without doing "other" much more destructive writing.
In fact it's extremely rare that any SSD has all of it's write cycles burned up. It is FAR more likely that there is a controller failure from firmware or other electrical burnouts/failures, that have nothing to do with the number of write cycle endurance left in the NAND. Even in our labs running 24x7 weeks-long full write tests, which is a thousand times more intensive than photoshop or win pagefiles, we rarely use up all the write cycles of the NAND before other failures occur. While these "other" (aka non NAND write-endurance related) failures suck when they happen, it has nothing to do with anything photoshop or win pagefiles is going to make occur faster or slower.
If your "friends" are buring out current SSD's in 6 month periods, they are either buying crappy SSD's, doing odd things to the SSD's, or simply have failures they are blaming erroneously on NAND write cycle limitations.  Don't get me wrong, SSD's will fail, but unfortunately, very rarely will the failure be from write cycle endurance life of the NAND, and definately not because the SSD is used with photshop scrathdisks or win pagefiles.
To use a unpopular automotive analogy, the NAND write cycle life is like the engine of a car that is used where they use salt on the roads to melt ice. While it is possible for the engine to die from being used too much, it is much more likely the body of the car is going to rust/rot away before the engine has outlived it's useful life. And this car does not care if photoshop or win temp files are in the passenger seat. If the SSD fails under 2-3 years of normal use, it won't be because of photoshop or win pagefiles using up the NAND write cycles. "
As I understand, this guy (who actually produces SSDs) says that firstly -  you CAN set your pagefile on SSD - and secondly - you do NOT need to set up a pagefile for photoshop at all.
Now I am REALLY confused... I trust Harm and I trust all of your expierence guys and would be very thankful for any information about this.
P.S. After I bought the SSD I found out that my MB has crappy Marvell SATA3 Controller... :/
My setup is:
GA-X58-UDR3
i7 930 @3.8Ghz
G.Skill Dual ECO 1.35v CL8 12GB
GeForce GTX460
Samsung SSD 830 128GB
Samsung F3 Spinpoint 2x1TB
WD something 160GB (just for backup or trash)
Regards,
Paul

Answer 1

Windows8 and possibly Windows7 - I'm not sure about Win7 - will create a pagefile in case of a system hang for the memory dump and it will create that on the C: drive, even if you have a pagefile on another drive. Windows will only start if there is a pagefile. If there is no pagefile defined, it will automatically create a dynamic one on the C: drive.
With these two items as a given, the question remains, what is wise. Jim always says let Windows decide, so his suggestion is a dynamic page file.
Pagefiles are a relic of the past, dating back to the times when memory was scarce, only 2, 4 or maybe 8 GB memory and at that moment the rule was to use up to 1.5 to 2.0 x  the amount of memory for the pagefile, a rule Windows still adheres to in its default setting. With systems now abundant that contain 32 or even 64 GB of memory, that no longer holds. You will have a difficult time to run PR where it uses more than 24 GB of memory, let alone 48 or more GB's. (AE is a different matter).
So, IMO we have to lose the old and outdated assumption that it is best to use a pagefile with a size of 1.5 or 2.0 times the physical memory. It no longer holds true. I think that a sum total of physical memory plus pagefile amounting to around 64 GB is more than enough for most cases. So I suggest the following rule of thumb for your pagefile, depending on your use of PR and AE, the nature of your source material and the complexity of your timelines:
With less than 32 GB installed, use a static pagefile of X GB to bring the sum total up to 32 - 48 GB.
With 32 GB installed, use a static pagefile of 32 GB to bring the sum total up to 64 GB.
With 64 GB installed, use a static pagefile of at least 1 GB, but no more than 16 GB. Everything more is a waste of space.
I intentionally mention STATIC pagefile, in contrast to Jim's suggestion, who pleads for dynamic pagefiles for the following reason:
Every time the pagefile changes its size, under Windows direction, it not only means that the data changes, but also that the file allocation table at the beginning of the disk needs to be rewritten to reflect the changed size. Every alteration in file size thus requires extra writing to the SSD, reducing its limited lifespan and leads to fragmentation of that pagefile. A static file does not have these negative consequences. Only data need to be written in the file, no alterations to the file allocation table need to be made. And Windows does not need to keep logs of those changes, further reducing the need to write additional data.
For example, if your bar graph shows 6GB, then you'd probably be safe in assuming that you need no more than 8GB of memory.
It is pretty easy with only Premiere Pro open and playing back a timeline to reach 24 GB memory use. Now add a few other applications and it is safe to say you need 32 GB memory at least, so with 8 GB memory, you need to add a pagefile of 24 GB or more.