Hughe pagefile.sys

[Phil Weldon]

'ilyaz' wrote:
| I have WinXP Home running on a 60GB HD. Recently, I noticed that my
| pagefile.sys is over 1GB, which, given the size of my HD, is quite large.
| May I reduce the size of this pagefile? How to do it?
| Your suggestions will be appreciated.
_____

Short answer: yes, you can change the page file size, but no, you should
not change the page file size.
Windows XP chooses the best page file size based on the amount of installed
RAM (about 100% to 150% of as installed RAM.) If you reduce the page file
size you will likely reduce system performance. The page file is used as
extra 'RAM' when the amount of installed RAM is insufficient to hold all the
program modules and data that are currently being used or that have been
used recently.

You can get more precise advice if you include the following information -

Total hard drive size?

Free Space on hard drive?

If the hard drive is partitioned, what size is the partition with the
page file and how much space is free on that partition?

Amount of installed RAM?

Desktop or notebook?

Age of system?

CPU?

Typical use of your computer system (web browsing & word processing?
plus email? Photo image editing? 3D intense games?)

A new 300 GByte hard drive (for a desktop) costs less than $100 US, so a new
drive might be a good solution for you (or a notebook, a new 120 GByte drive
will run about the same price.) Also, the answer to the above questions
might suggest another solution to someone here.

Phil Weldon

|I have WinXP Home running on a 60GB HD. Recently, I noticed that my
| pagefile.sys is over 1GB, which, given the size of my HD, is quite large.
| May I reduce the size of this pagefile? How to do it?
| Your suggestions will be appreciated.
| --
| Ilya Zeldes
| Fort Myers, Florida
|
|

 

[ilyaz]

I have WinXP Home running on a 60GB HD. Recently, I noticed that my
pagefile.sys is over 1GB, which, given the size of my HD, is quite large.
May I reduce the size of this pagefile? How to do it?
Your suggestions will be appreciated.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have WinXP Home running on a 60GB HD. Recently, I noticed that my
pagefile.sys is over 1GB, which, given the size of my HD, is quite large.
May I reduce the size of this pagefile? How to do it?
Your suggestions will be appreciated.

Read here: "Virtual Memory in Windows XP" by the late MVP Alex Nichol,
at http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

 

[ilyaz]

Phil,
thanks for your quick reply. I appreciate it. The answers to your questions
see below.
Ilya

'ilyaz' wrote:
| I have WinXP Home running on a 60GB HD. Recently, I noticed that my
| pagefile.sys is over 1GB, which, given the size of my HD, is quite
large.
| May I reduce the size of this pagefile? How to do it?
| Your suggestions will be appreciated.
_____

Short answer: yes, you can change the page file size, but no, you should
not change the page file size.
Windows XP chooses the best page file size based on the amount of
installed
RAM (about 100% to 150% of as installed RAM.) If you reduce the page file
size you will likely reduce system performance. The page file is used as
extra 'RAM' when the amount of installed RAM is insufficient to hold all
the
program modules and data that are currently being used or that have been
used recently.

You can get more precise advice if you include the following information -

Total hard drive size? 60 GB

Free Space on hard drive? 20 GB

If the hard drive is partitioned, what size is the partition with the
page file and how much space is free on that partition? No partition

Amount of installed RAM? 760 MB

Desktop or notebook? Desktop

Age of system? Under 4 years

CPU? Celeron 2 66 Ghz

Typical use of your computer system (web browsing & word processing?
plus email? Photo image editing? 3D intense games?) All the above, minus
games

A new 300 GByte hard drive (for a desktop) costs less than $100 US, so a
new
drive might be a good solution for you

Yeah, but I'd rather survive for a while with the old system until I
get a new one...

(or a notebook, a new 120 GByte drive

 

[ilyaz]

Ken,
thanks for the reference. Quite understandable and detailed.
Ilya

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Ken,
thanks for the reference. Quite understandable and detailed.

You're welcome. Glad to help.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

'ilyaz' wrote:
| I have WinXP Home running on a 60GB HD. Recently, I noticed that my
| pagefile.sys is over 1GB, which, given the size of my HD, is quite large.
| May I reduce the size of this pagefile? How to do it?
| Your suggestions will be appreciated.
_____

Short answer: yes, you can change the page file size, but no, you should
not change the page file size.
Windows XP chooses the best page file size based on the amount of installed
RAM (about 100% to 150% of as installed RAM.) If you reduce the page file
size you will likely reduce system performance.

This is not accurate. The amount of page file that Windows provides by
default is often more than many people need, and it *is* often
possible to reduce the page file size without any performance hit at
all. See the Alex Nichol article I cited in another message in this
thread.

I am not advocating that everyone reduce the page file size. Unless
they are short of disk space, there is often no great advantage to
doing so, but if it's done properly, it certainly isn't true that
doing it will "likely reduce system performance."

A new 300 GByte hard drive (for a desktop) costs less than
$100 US, so a new drive might be a good solution for you

Your point here that if a 1GB page file is that significant to him, he
badly needs additional disk space is well-taken and one that I
completely agree with.

 

[ilyaz]

Ken,
for the last couple of hours, I was moving files from HD to a DVD and
deleting other files... Well, now I have 27 GB used and 30 GB free... Hope
this will solve my problem (if I had one)...
Ilya

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Ken,
for the last couple of hours, I was moving files from HD to a DVD and
deleting other files... Well, now I have 27 GB used and 30 GB free... Hope
this will solve my problem (if I had one)...

Good! I hope so too.