Incorrect page/swap file size

  • Thread starter Thread starter JasonA
  • Start date Start date
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JasonA

People say to run a page file 250% of the installed RAM. Why would I run a
page file of 2G5bytes when my computer runs fine (except uses incorrect
spelling on American) with 200Mb swap file. The hard drive is better off
being used for other things.
 
Hi Jason,

The minimum pagefile size is to catch any full memory dumps on system error.
If you don't use this feature (and many do not), then you can set a small
minimum, say 100MB or so, depending on the size of the installed ram. Just
don't disable it entirely. More on WinXP's memory management from MVP Alex
Nichol here:
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Windows
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!

Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone
 
In
JasonA said:
People say to run a page file 250% of the installed RAM. Why would I
run a page file of 2G5bytes when my computer runs fine (except uses
incorrect spelling on American) with 200Mb swap file. The hard drive
is better off being used for other things.
Click to expand...


You are correct, and "people" are wrong.

There's good info here: http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm
 
JasonA said:
People say to run a page file 250% of the installed RAM. Why would I run a
page file of 2G5bytes when my computer runs fine (except uses incorrect
spelling on American) with 200Mb swap file.
Click to expand...

Those people are wrong. They are using an old rule of thumb which had
some relevance in multi-User Unix systems, but is entirely inappropriate
for Windows with a single active user. Read up at my page
www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm
 
They were talking about Windows OS. However the rule for Network Servers
(Novel Netware/MS Windows NT) relates to the hard drive to provide suitable
caching. The person that said disable it: True, I disabled the virtual
memory to do a defrag - system ran like a snail. Now that I don't use
MS's/Diskeeper the defrag utility even defrags this virtual memory file and
I never disable virtual memory..
 
There was a couple of things on that website worth noting (the advantage of
the experienced guys here). I had the same theory - the lower the RAM - the
higher the size of the virtual memory - the slower the PC ran with the same
spec hard drive and processor.
 
JasonA said:
They were talking about Windows OS. However the rule for Network Servers
(Novel Netware/MS Windows NT) relates to the hard drive to provide suitable
caching. The person that said disable it:
Click to expand...

This group is about Windows OS - XP Pro and Home; not for running server
applications.

The hard drive need there is really that of the Server daemon
concerned, and it finding it convenient to have copies of files cached.
If they are cached in Memory, using Virtual memory without a limit being
advised to the daemon, you either need an enormous amount of RAM for the
caching, or are going to overflow to a hard disk file: it is not obvious
that doing so is any better than going back to the original files. In
'end user' operations, which we are considering here, XP will use any
spare RAM as file cache, but (beyond a minimal amount) this is seen as
bottom priority, there 'just in case', and to be discarded as soon as
any other use comes along. And the cache *never* overflows into page
fie=le
 
Oops got this wrong (Am using Pro for processing not so much as a domain
server). But for servers it was the RAM that needs to be calculated from the
size of the hard drive. Never heard of Novel using virtual memory.

JasonA said:
They were talking about Windows OS. However the rule for Network Servers
(Novel Netware/MS Windows NT) relates to the hard drive to provide suitable
caching. The person that said disable it: True, I disabled the virtual
memory to do a defrag - system ran like a snail. Now that I don't use
MS's/Diskeeper the defrag utility even defrags this virtual memory file and
I never disable virtual memory..

run
Click to expand...
 
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