What Are These Huge Files on My System?

by Jason Bean on June 22nd, 2008

pagefile-hiberfil-system-files

Here’s some quick information to probably serve as a reminder for everyone. I saw these two files on my system and wondered what they were for:

pagefile.sys
hiberfil.sys

With names like those and the listing of them as a System file type, it’s at least a little obvious that these aren’t just some random temp file you can easily delete. A quick search found this information about these two files and more information about them.

pagefile.sys

This file is used by Windows as a virtual memory file to extend the capabilities and functions of a system with what in essence works like virtual RAM. The higher you have your virtual memory space set to use, the larger this file will become.

hiberfil.sys

The hiberfil.sys file is used when you put your computer in hibernation instead of shutting it off. The size of this file will usually be right about the same size as your amount of installed RAM. The hiberfil.sys takes everything in memory and stores it so that your computer can wake back up from hibernation and restore your system right where you left it.

Tags: file size, hiberfil.sys, pagefile.sys, virtual memory, Windows-XP

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