Paging File

[Express]

Hi All,

Hope this is the right place for this quick and I am sure an easy question.

I have as the topic states a 2.5 gig ram with an 80 gig HD running on XP Pro. what should be the appropriate paging size for Initial MB and Maximum MB.

Thanks for your help in advance.

EXPRESS

[ripken204]

well with that much ram u dont need more than a 1gig pagefile. i have 2gigs of ram and my pagefile is set to 800mb on a separate partition.

[Yzöwl]

Set it to System managed size, probably 3838 MB

<Edit>

ripken204, putting your pagefile onto a different partition on the same hard drive as your system will actually degrade performance.

</Edit>

<Edit2>

changed probably figure due to mis-calculation

</Edit2>

Edited June 24, 2006 by Yzöwl

[Express]

I see you guys keep mentioning partitions, I only have one partition... what would be the best bet for me?

EXPRESS

[Yzöwl]

ripken204, mentioned partitions, and I responded directly to him on that, my response to you and everyone else is to leave it alone, (System managed size).

Edited June 23, 2006 by Yzöwl

[Express]

gotcha, thanks...

EXPRESS

[LLXX]

If you have 2.5Gb of RAM I don't think you even need a pagefile. Try disabling it and see if you notice any performance improvements.

[Yzöwl]

Try setting the 'dumpfile' appropriately if you intend to attempt running your system without virtual memory. Without making that change Windows needs a paging file, so don't just try it!

[ripken204]

why will it degrade performance if its on a parition?

[Aegis]

It depends. The first partition usually corresponds to the inner tracks of a hard drive, which is the fastest area, and the place where your page file should be. The further out the partition, the slower access to the page file will be. On the other hand, 2.5GB of RAM is enough to run any application comfortably without a page file.

[ripken204]

well i did make it the first partition. the reason i put it in its own partition is so that it wont frag my other files

[atomizer]

@Express -- I've done a fair amount of research on the subject and based on what i've learned, here's some suggestions:

1) The applications you're using can make a difference if you want to set a static pagefile size.

2) DO NOT disable the pagefile! Period. It makes no difference whatsoever how much memory you have.

3) Certain applications require a larger pagefile size, such as some games, photo/video editing stuff, etc.. Again, a pagefile may be required for some apps regardless of the amount of physical memory and you will have problems if the pagefile is not there.

4) It's probably a good idea to always keep a pagefile on the system drive. Since you only have one drive, this is a moot point. If you had 2, then the primary pagefile should be on the fastest, least accessed drive.

There's also 3 types of pagefiles; dynamic, semi-permanent and static. Many people shoot for a static pagefile when this is often not the best choice.

This is often a hotly debated topic and i'm not sure there are any 100% correct answers, however i do know there is a lot of myths being passed around by people who "think" they know what they're talking about (like disabling the pagefile or coming up with some sort of formula to set its size based on the amount or RAM you have which is total baloney). I'm no expert on the subject, but i believe the material that i've researched was provided by knowledgeable people.

See this topic and my post there (#12) for more references.

[Tarun]

The rule of thumb is to take your RAM and times it by 1.5

I have 2GB of RAM and have my pagefile set to 512/512MB (Min/Max). It's plenty for me when I use Photoshop or game.

[atomizer]

The rule of thumb is to take your RAM and times it by 1.5...

That's a very popular "tweak", and one which is wrong and makes absolutely no sense. If you read the post i linked to you'll find out why. The less RAM you have, the LARGER the swap file needs to be and the more RAM, the smaller it needs to be. That formula results in exactly the opposite. Using that formula, if i have 256 MB of RAM then a swap size of 384 MB is called for, while if i had 1 GB, then the swap should be 1.5 GB. This makes no sense because the less RAM you have, the more virtual memory the OS and applications will need. However having said that, there's more to setting a semi-permanent or static swap size then RAM alone.

[LLXX]

It depends. The first partition usually corresponds to the inner tracks of a hard drive, which is the fastest area, and the place where your page file should be. The further out the partition, the slower access to the page file will be. On the other hand, 2.5GB of RAM is enough to run any application comfortably without a page file.

...shouldn't it be the outer tracks are faster? Higher velocity + more sectors per track.

If you do decide to use a pagefile, at least fix its size so that it won't be able to change size. Otherwise it might become fragmented when it changes size, and then performance decreases.