Pagefile usage

[David]

Hi

I have a customer with a HP Proliant ML 350 (2.8GHz, 1GB RAM), Windows
Server 2003 SBS
When I went to task manager, I saw pagefile usage was +- 1.5GB so he ordered
another gigabyte which I installed.
After reboot the server sees 2GB but when I go to task manager again I still
see pagefile usage @ 1.5GB

Why does it use its pagefile before the RAM? Can I safely disable the
pagefile?

thanks

David

 

[Dan Seur]

This comes up from time to time, and the answer
is there is no way to force W2k to stop using
the pagefile. At least, I've never come across
one. Others may have suggestions on improving
server performance.

 

[Rob Stow]

Hi

I have a customer with a HP Proliant ML 350 (2.8GHz, 1GB RAM), Windows
Server 2003 SBS
When I went to task manager, I saw pagefile usage was +- 1.5GB so he ordered
another gigabyte which I installed.
After reboot the server sees 2GB but when I go to task manager again I still
see pagefile usage @ 1.5GB

Why does it use its pagefile before the RAM? Can I safely disable the
pagefile?

thanks

David

1.) Are you sure you are looking at page file usage and not
merely the pagefile size ? It is normal for the page file
size to be much larger than the actual page file usage.
A 1.5 GB page file would be a good size for a system with
1 GB of RAM and perhaps should be increased now that you
have doubled the RAM to 2 GB.

2.) You cannot stop Windows from unnecessarily using
the page file. A major flaw in Windows is that if
something in RAM has not been used for a while it WILL
be swapped out to the page file regardless of whether
or not the RAM is needed for something else. You can
have a system with 0.5 GB of RAM used and 3.5 GB free,
but let it sit idle for a while and that 0.5 GB will
still be swapped out. Idiotic, but that is MicroSoft
for you.