"Pagefile.sys" on Both Hard Drives?

[Pat]

Hello-

I have two hard drives, only one operating system.
Hard Drive #1 has the Windows XP operating system on it.

Hard Drive #2 has some applications on it.

I notice that both drives have a large section (959MB) devoted to
something called pagefile.sys

Do I need this on Hard Drive #2 or is only something I need only on Hard
Drive #1 where the operating system lives?

Thank you,

 

[jaeger]

Do I need this on Hard Drive #2 or is only something I need only on Hard
Drive #1 where the operating system lives?

In general, it's best to have the pagefile on a different physical drive
than the OS. And you only need one.

 

[Jaeger Meister]

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From: jaeger <[email protected]>
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Subject: Re: "Pagefile.sys" on Both Hard Drives?
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In general, it's best to have the pagefile on a different physical drive
than the OS. And you only need one.

 

[Andrew Rossmann]

[This followup was posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage and a copy
was sent to the cited author.]

Hello-

I have two hard drives, only one operating system.
Hard Drive #1 has the Windows XP operating system on it.

Hard Drive #2 has some applications on it.

I notice that both drives have a large section (959MB) devoted to
something called pagefile.sys

Do I need this on Hard Drive #2 or is only something I need only on Hard
Drive #1 where the operating system lives?

You may want to check if both, or only one, is active. Those swapfile
sizes are rather large (how much RAM memory do you have?)

As other said, putting the swapfile on a second physical drive might
help, but wouldn't help if you have IDE drives and the two are
master/slave, as only one can talk at a time anyways. It might be helpful
if they are on different IDE channels.

To be honest, leaving a small swapfile on your OS drive would be a smart
idea. Windows can freak out and crash if it unexpectedly loses it's
swapfile. Keeping a small swapfile (64-128M) on the drive with Windows on
it can prevent problems if your second drive gets disconnected for some
reason.

As far as total swapfile size: That is a black art. Generally, Windows
seems to default to about 1.2-1.5 times physical RAM. If you have tons of
RAM, but don't run anything big, you can use a smaller one. If you do lots
of video editing or other things that use lots of RAM, you could go 2-3
times. Going over 2G total (RAM+swap) is probably a waste for anything
outside of a server or high-end workstation.

Some think keeping it tiny, or even eliminating it is best because
Windows won't waste time swapping things in/out of memory. I have a dual-
boot computer at work (2K/98) with 512M. I have Win98 configured with NO
swapfile, and it works fine (I have some ancient DOS software that is not
Win2K friendly).

 

[Pat]

[This followup was posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage and a copy
was sent to the cited author.]

Hello-

I have two hard drives, only one operating system.
Hard Drive #1 has the Windows XP operating system on it.

Hard Drive #2 has some applications on it.

I notice that both drives have a large section (959MB) devoted to
something called pagefile.sys

Do I need this on Hard Drive #2 or is only something I need only on Hard
Drive #1 where the operating system lives?

You may want to check if both, or only one, is active. Those swapfile
sizes are rather large (how much RAM memory do you have?)

As other said, putting the swapfile on a second physical drive might
help, but wouldn't help if you have IDE drives and the two are
master/slave, as only one can talk at a time anyways. It might be helpful
if they are on different IDE channels.

To be honest, leaving a small swapfile on your OS drive would be a smart
idea. Windows can freak out and crash if it unexpectedly loses it's
swapfile. Keeping a small swapfile (64-128M) on the drive with Windows on
it can prevent problems if your second drive gets disconnected for some
reason.

As far as total swapfile size: That is a black art. Generally, Windows
seems to default to about 1.2-1.5 times physical RAM. If you have tons of
RAM, but don't run anything big, you can use a smaller one. If you do lots
of video editing or other things that use lots of RAM, you could go 2-3
times. Going over 2G total (RAM+swap) is probably a waste for anything
outside of a server or high-end workstation.

Some think keeping it tiny, or even eliminating it is best because
Windows won't waste time swapping things in/out of memory. I have a dual-
boot computer at work (2K/98) with 512M. I have Win98 configured with NO
swapfile, and it works fine (I have some ancient DOS software that is not
Win2K friendly).

Thank you.

I have 640MB of Ram.
Hard Drive #2 is the slave, Hard Drive #1 the master
I have tons of room on Hard Drive #1, but am getting tight on space on
Hard Drive $2.
What I was hoping to do was to eliminate the Pagefile.sys file hard
drive #2.
Am I correct in concluding from what you and the other poster have said
that pagefile.sys should stay on Hard Drive #2?

(I do not want to configure with no swapfile, tried that before and had
trouble with a screen shot program freezing the computer).

Thanks.

 

[Eric Gisin]

|
| I have 640MB of Ram.
| Hard Drive #2 is the slave, Hard Drive #1 the master
| I have tons of room on Hard Drive #1, but am getting tight on space on
| Hard Drive $2.
| What I was hoping to do was to eliminate the Pagefile.sys file hard
| drive #2.
| Am I correct in concluding from what you and the other poster have said
| that pagefile.sys should stay on Hard Drive #2?
|
| (I do not want to configure with no swapfile, tried that before and had
| trouble with a screen shot program freezing the computer).

You can get by with a very small pagefile, I use 32-256MB and it never grows.

The most you ever need is RAM+1, assuming you have over 64MB RAM.

 

[Q]

Pat - typed:

[This followup was posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage and a
copy was sent to the cited author.]

Hello-

I have two hard drives, only one operating system.
Hard Drive #1 has the Windows XP operating system on it.

Hard Drive #2 has some applications on it.

I notice that both drives have a large section (959MB) devoted to
something called pagefile.sys

Do I need this on Hard Drive #2 or is only something I need only
on Hard Drive #1 where the operating system lives?

You may want to check if both, or only one, is active. Those
swapfile sizes are rather large (how much RAM memory do you have?)

As other said, putting the swapfile on a second physical drive
might help, but wouldn't help if you have IDE drives and the two are
master/slave, as only one can talk at a time anyways. It might be
helpful if they are on different IDE channels.

To be honest, leaving a small swapfile on your OS drive would be a
smart idea. Windows can freak out and crash if it unexpectedly loses
it's swapfile. Keeping a small swapfile (64-128M) on the drive with
Windows on it can prevent problems if your second drive gets
disconnected for some reason.

As far as total swapfile size: That is a black art. Generally,
Windows seems to default to about 1.2-1.5 times physical RAM. If you
have tons of RAM, but don't run anything big, you can use a smaller
one. If you do lots of video editing or other things that use lots
of RAM, you could go 2-3 times. Going over 2G total (RAM+swap) is
probably a waste for anything outside of a server or high-end
workstation.

Some think keeping it tiny, or even eliminating it is best because
Windows won't waste time swapping things in/out of memory. I have a
dual- boot computer at work (2K/98) with 512M. I have Win98
configured with NO swapfile, and it works fine (I have some ancient
DOS software that is not Win2K friendly).

Thank you.

I have 640MB of Ram.
Hard Drive #2 is the slave, Hard Drive #1 the master
I have tons of room on Hard Drive #1, but am getting tight on space on
Hard Drive $2.
What I was hoping to do was to eliminate the Pagefile.sys file hard
drive #2.
Am I correct in concluding from what you and the other poster have
said that pagefile.sys should stay on Hard Drive #2?

(I do not want to configure with no swapfile, tried that before and
had trouble with a screen shot program freezing the computer).

Thanks.

This article is the best I've seen on the subject & is specific to XP:
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm
Although both my identical h/ds are on the same channel due to the
physical layout of my case, I've dedicated the 1st partition on the
slave drive to the main pagefile exclusively. However, I've left the
unused one on my C drive but sized its minimum to just 10MB & the max to
be just over the amount of RAM. Setting it this small means it never
gets created unless the 2nd disc becomes unavailable, then it would when
rebooted.

MS's own advice:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314482&Product=winxp
doesn't mention head movement being minimised by keeping the pf on the
OS partition but suggests using another one will reduce fragmentation
when that's all it contains. MS also recommends 1.5x the amount of RAM
for the minimum size but is only necessary if you wish to have full
memory dumps for debugging kernel stop error messages which I sure you
don't. I've set my main pf's minimum to the amount of RAM, having
monitored usage.

The only gain by having the pf on another disc is when that disc's
performance is very similar to the one with the OS & if there's a
disparity of speed, the OS should be on the fastest IMO.