Re: paging file neccessary or not ?

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

From: Colin Barnhorst (colinbarharst(nojunk)_at_msn.com)
Date: 02/27/05 

Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:51:21 -0700

Placing the page file on another partition on the same drive is ineffective.
Placing it on a different drive on a separate controller can help in slow
systems with small hard drives, but otherwise offers negligible performance
improvement.

Please post in plain text. 

-- 
Colin Barnhorst [MVP  Windows - Virtual Machine]
(Reply to the group only unless otherwise requested)
"plb2862" <plb2862@cox.net> wrote in message 
news:%alUd.24047$Tt.23229@fed1read05...
Pagefile is necessary. However, size is arbitrary with at least a minimum of 
2MB and windows XP has adjusted mine when I set it too low.  Usually, it is 
set to 2 MB minimum and 1½ times Physical RAM.  Some suggestions are 1½ to 3 
times Physical RAM.  In your case minimum could be 2 MB or 768 x 1½ = 1152 
MB or maximum could be 768 x 1½ = 1152 MB or 768 x 3 = 2304 MB.  Personally, 
I don't use this general guide that is documented in MS KB and other 
sources.  I have 512 MB and I set my minimum and maximum to 768 MB. 
All-be-it, I don't do severe processing (large graphic file processing) and 
I monitor my pagefile using a utility called pagemon.exe I only use 
approximately 33% - about 252 MB at the peak use.  If you do a lot of 
intensive graphics manipulation, you need at least 1GB Physical RAM and I 
would also set the pagefile.sys to the recommended 1½ to 3 times Physical 
RAM.  I know you have a bad memory slot but, if you needed to could you up 
the DIMMs on the slots you have (2-512MB DIMMS)?  Here is another technique 
that some MVPs won't agree with.  On my 38GB HD I have C:, D:, E:, F:, G:, 
(7GB each) and H: (3GB) partitions.  I put a 2MB pagefile on each C: - F: 
partition and 760 MB on the H: partition which is totally dedicated to 
pagefile.sys with a little extra space.  Some may want to know why 7GB on 
the partitions which has to do with future dual boot restrictions.  The 3GB 
final partition is large enough to expand the pagefile.sys to 3 times the 
Physical RAM.
"brugnospamsia" <brugnospamsia@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message 
news:ThhUd.24409$8B3.4978@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
> Dear group,
>
> I was in the process of advising a collegue on how much RAM she needed in
> her new PC.
>
> I have a system with an Athlon 1.33GHz processor and 768 MBytes of 266MHz
> DDR RAM.
> (I originally fitted a whole GByte but one of my RAM slots turned out to 
> be
> faulty.)
>
> I have been having performance issues when running Google Desktop Search 
> and
> AVG antivirus.
> (delays when clicking on shortcuts etc)
>
> I realise now I don't understand the meaning of the "memory meter" in task
> manager (as well as just about everything else !)
>
> It occured to me that my XP Pro might have configured itself to suit
> outdated expectations of hardware and might be unneccesarily using clunky
> hard drive instead of speedy RAM.
>
> Having now just set the paging file size to zero, I find the performance 
> has
> improved significantly and the PF Usage meter now never exceeds 512MBytes 
> no
> matter how hard I push the machine .....
>
> Is there a way to make Windows take full advantage of all my RAM  or any
> more I choose to fit ?
> (RAM disk perhaps) Or can I give my spare 256MBytes away ?
>
> thanks...
>
> Jeremy
>
>

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