2 Drives - Virtual Memory Settings?

[Guest]

I have a Dell Dimension 4400 with 1.7ghz CPU. I was wondering if I should alter my virtual memory settings for Windows XP. I just added a 2nd hard drive and more memory

Memory = 768m

Hard Drive (C = 40g

Hard Drive (D = 80g

Right now I left the C: drive virtual memory set to "system managed size" which was my setting when I just had a single hard drive. On the new D: drive I also set virtual memory to "system managed size".

According to Microsoft, Windows XP by design will use the physical drive NOT used by the OS most of the time. Should I just leave everying set to system managed size, or should I enter a custom size for Drive C: (and/or drive D - say 384mb minimum and 2304mb maximum?

This is what was suggested in an article I read, 1/2 RAM for minimum and 3 times RAM for maximum. They suggested not totally removing the page file from the boot drive to allow debugging dumps. Should I do this for both physical drives, or just custom sizes for the boot drive and leave the 2nd drive as system mangaged size

 

[aragorn]

minimum recommended is 1 1/2 times your RAM..not 1/2!
(according to microsoft)
So the minimum for 768mb should be 1152.
You could split the settings 50/50 to your 2 drives.
There's lot of info when you use the built-in help
function of XP and search for virtual memory..
good luck

-----Original Message-----
I have a Dell Dimension 4400 with 1.7ghz CPU. I was

wondering if I should alter my virtual memory settings for
Windows XP. I just added a 2nd hard drive and more memory:

Memory = 768mb

Hard Drive (C = 40gb

Hard Drive (D = 80gb

Right now I left the C: drive virtual memory set

to "system managed size" which was my setting when I just
had a single hard drive. On the new D: drive I also set
virtual memory to "system managed size".

According to Microsoft, Windows XP by design will use the

physical drive NOT used by the OS most of the time. Should
I just leave everying set to system managed size, or
should I enter a custom size for Drive C: (and/or drive
D - say 384mb minimum and 2304mb maximum?

This is what was suggested in an article I read, 1/2 RAM

for minimum and 3 times RAM for maximum. They suggested
not totally removing the page file from the boot drive to
allow debugging dumps. Should I do this for both physical
drives, or just custom sizes for the boot drive and leave
the 2nd drive as system mangaged size?

 

[Guest]

I'm aware of the 1.5x general rule but this is the Microsoft article that says if you have more than 512mb RAM you can use 1/2 RAM as the initial size

http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsXP/expertzone/columns/mcfedries/03june16.as

"The more RAM you have, the less likely it is that Windows XP will use the page file. Therefore, the default initial page file size is too large and the disk space reserved by Windows XP is wasted. On systems with 512 MB of RAM or more, you should set the initial page file size to half the RAM size, while leaving the maximum size at three times RAM, just in case.

 

[Ron Martell]

I have a Dell Dimension 4400 with 1.7ghz CPU. I was wondering if I should alter my virtual memory settings for Windows XP. I just added a 2nd hard drive and more memory:

Memory = 768mb

Hard Drive (C = 40gb

Hard Drive (D = 80gb

Right now I left the C: drive virtual memory set to "system managed size" which was my setting when I just had a single hard drive. On the new D: drive I also set virtual memory to "system managed size".

According to Microsoft, Windows XP by design will use the physical drive NOT used by the OS most of the time. Should I just leave everying set to system managed size, or should I enter a custom size for Drive C: (and/or drive D - say 384mb minimum and 2304mb maximum?

This is what was suggested in an article I read, 1/2 RAM for minimum and 3 times RAM for maximum. They suggested not totally removing the page file from the boot drive to allow debugging dumps. Should I do this for both physical drives, or just custom sizes for the boot drive and leave the 2nd drive as system mangaged size?

Your settings are just fine as they are, and unless you have a
desperate need for a few extra megabytes of hard drive space they are
probably not worth tinkering with. However you could reduce the size
of the page file on the boot (C drive to perhaps 10 mb minimum 50 mb
maximum if you really wanted to.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

 

[Ron Martell]

minimum recommended is 1 1/2 times your RAM..not 1/2!
(according to microsoft)
So the minimum for 768mb should be 1152.
You could split the settings 50/50 to your 2 drives.
There's lot of info when you use the built-in help
function of XP and search for virtual memory..
good luck

Actually *all* of the articles and web sites that relate Windows
virtual memory settings to some multiple of RAM are basically
horseshit, including the ones in the Microsoft Knowledge Base.

The fundamental principle is that Windows creates the page file to
compensate for the *lack* of sufficient RAM to meet the total memory
load being placed on the computer.

Provided all other factors are held constant more RAM means less page
file and less RAM means more page file.

The relationship between page file size and the total amount of RAM is
essentially an inverse one - as one increases the other decreases and
vice-versa.

Hope this clarifies the situation.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

 

[Guest]

Thanks

I did a little experimentation. BTW I'm not looking to save drive space, just trying to optimize performance for 3D games, etc. I'm probably beating a dead horse because it was swapping when I had 512mb before I just upgraded to 768mb RAM. I noticed back then with a system managed pagefile, it was pretty huge while in use like 2302mb or something. Anyway, I did a little test with these values below. I know I can go to a lot smaller size on the C: drive, don't laugh at me but I overkilled the values there just in case I ever lost the 2nd physical drive

Drive 0 (C Min = 384mb, Max = 1152 (I can't find a pagefile.sys at all on the C: drive

Drive 1 (D Min= 512mb, Max = 2304 (note: I had Min at 384mb during my test

Currently allocated for all drives says 512mb. (I have a question about the in use total later

I was simply monitoring Task Manager performance tab PF Usage to see what was happening. I launched everything I could think of to stress the memory out. I had Photoshop open with multiple image folders loaded, with one having 9 scans that were 13gb each. I also ran Maya 3D modeling program, a 130mb video clip, and every other application I could until I got memory usage well beyond 1gb (768mb RAM + the 384mb pagefile on D until I finally forced a warning virtual memory was low and it would increase the size, which it did on drive D:. I mean I ran more stuff than I ever would on 5 computers

The only reason I increased D: drive's minimum to 512mb is because I didn't expect to get a warning bubble. I thought it would auto-adjust without warning like with the system managed size setting. In reality I could probably go with half the minimum I used or less before running out of physical RAM space. In regular use I wonder it it would ever need to do paging at all. Remember I have 768mb physical RAM now. I was surprised that even though I set values for C:, it seems to ignore it and didn't even create a 384mb pagefile.sys. I mean I can see the one on D: but nothing on C:. I guess this shows that Windows XP prefers to use on the the 2nd non-OS physical drive

Now for a question: The in use total etc. If I select my min/max values based on my installed RAM and I supposed to split this amount between both drives? I was wondering if I would have but it is academic anyway since it only wanted to use the 2nd physical drive to increase the pagefile when it needed to

 

[Guest]

Update 4/2/04 - Wierd, I turned on my computer this morning and noticed the paging for all drives was double. It had finally created a pagefile on the C: boot drive. All day yesterday it had not created one on C: even after rebooting many times. So now I set the minimum pagefile size on the second physical D: drive back down to 384mb. Now the combined virtual memory for both drives is 768mb, which is the 2 minimum settings added together. I'll keep an eye on it and adjust accordingly. I might be able to go half lower on the boot drive if it stays combined with both drives. There is supposed to be a performance benifit if Windows can page to both drives simutaneuously.