Circuits, methods, and apparatus that inhibit the collection or updating of page characteristics where such information is not useful. One example inhibits the updating of page usage information for pages that are to be kept resident in memory and not swapped to disk. The pages for which page usage or other characteristic updates are to be suppressed can be identified in a number of ways, including using a set range of addresses, bits in page directory entries, bits in page table entries, one or more address registers, or one or more segments.