OK, I'm dumb when it comes to paging file placement...help?

[MiG29TangentBoy]

All right, I have a 320GB Seagate SATA drive partitioned into two drives: one for os and programs, and one for data storage. Would there be any benefit to placing the paging file on another partition...or creating another (third) one just for it alone? I can't add another physical drive, no room for it.
Also, what size is optimal for 2Gb of physical ram...any benefit to shrinking the paging file, thus maybe forcing use of more physical ram? Or just let Windows decide?
Thank you from the bottom of my noob heart for looking!

 

[Gorankar]

You are bound to cause an argument with this one..
I recomend you leave your virtual memory set to auto on whatever partition win xp is installed on.. Disable vm for the other partitions..

 

[Fark_Maniac]

There is a sticky about pagefile discussion.

To answer your question, there will be no benifit to putting the pagefile on the OS or data partition...you are still on the same drive.. Some will say to disable your pagefile if you have 2GB of physical ram for a speed increase. I have performed paging tests myself and published them here....there is absolutely no performance increase between no page file, 512MB pagefile, or a 1GB pagefile. I too have 2GB...I set mine to 256MB static.

Windows needs a pagefile for some functions. Go to Barnes & Noble and read about XPs memory management in those huge books. The information is in there.

 

[br0adband]

He doesn't need a book about it if he's online. He can read this:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=555223 from Microsoft itself, or an expanded version of the same info at:

http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/WindowsGeneralWeb/RAMVirtualMemoryPageFileEtc.htm

and even:

http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php

The basic rules of thumb are thus:

1) If you have separate physical drives, some boost in performance can be noted if you assign the pagefile to a separate physical one other than the system drive where the OS is located. That would allow for access to both drives concurrently as long as we're talking about IDE drives on separate controllers (Master and Master or Slave and Slave or a mix, but not Master and Slave on the same cable) or SATA drives.

2) Typically a static pagefile size can work best but really it's up to you. There is a big debate in the community of hardware tweakers as to the effectiveness of such a tweak: one could argue that if you choose a static size that's too small, Windows is going to enlarge it anyway so why not just let Windows handle it from the start. The counterpoint to that stance is that if Windows needs to resize the pagefile at various times, fragmentation of the pagefile will be the result. So this particular tweak is totally up to you since both points of view are valid in and of themselves.

3) The old "set the pagefile to 1.5x your physical RAM" thing is ok I suppose. Personally I use a static size of 512MB minimum and maximum since I've got 1GB of RAM. I've loaded this thing with tons of apps, done video editing, played games, etc - I really push my machine like some people never will - and it's never complained about not having enough.

If you're running XP Pro (and you are, right?) you can go to Start - Run - and enter this command:

systeminfo

It will do a quick scan of system specifics and counter metrics and then provide you with some very useful information. The lines you should pay attention to are these (I'm using my machine as an example):

Windows just can't seem to add very well when it comes to virtual memory. I've got 1GB so it should be 1,024 MB but that 1MB missing is probably due to something related to the BIOS and caching - I can't disable that stuff on this Dell laptop.

If you'll note it says I have 2,048 MB (2GB) for virtual memory max size; that comes from the automagic Windows setting of 1.5x the physical RAM (1GB x 1.5 = 1.5GB roughly) plus the 512MB of pagefile I created which isn't shown on the systeminfo output. On your machine, if you run the systeminfo command, the Virtual Memory: Max Size: line value should be equal to 1.5x your physical RAM plus whatever the pagefile is currently set at - if it's left to Windows, it could be a random amount so it'll vary.

The biggest problem of ALL when it comes to "the pagefile" is that people think the pagefile is the virtual memory in Windows and that's simply not the case. Virtual memory is an entire subsystem of the Windows platform; the pagefile is just one small component of the entire subsystem. Once you begin to understand that particular aspect of this whole thing, it gets easier to understand.

Hope this helps...
bb

 

[mikeblas]

Windows just can't seem to add very well when it comes to virtual memory. I've got 1GB so it should be 1,024 MB but that 1MB missing is probably due to something related to the BIOS and caching - I can't disable that stuff on this Dell laptop.

You can use the Device Manager to look at your memory map and figure out where everything is.

 

[djnes]

There is one part of your question that can be answered without a debate. Since you only have one physical drive, leave the pagefile on the C partition where it is by default.

There's no "optimal" setting for a computer with 2 GB of memory....it all comes down to how the computer is used and what apps/games are run on it. The sticky that was mentioned above does a great job of explaining how to monitor your own usage, to find out how much is needed. I still prefer to make my fpagefile a static size though. On my box with 2 GB of memory, I have it set at 1024 MB, and that works fine for me.

 

[HHunt]

There is one part of your question that can be answered without a debate. Since you only have one physical drive, leave the pagefile on the C partition where it is by default.

Or, if space for some reason is tight on C, move it to somewhere with more room. The performance difference should be neglible.
("No debate"? Optimist. )