Pagefile

[richy]

Hello i currently have 3 harddrives in my pc and 3gb of memory.On one
hardrive(c) i have the operating system on (f) i have games installed from
DVD and downloaded and on (g) i have my steam account games.At the moment i
only have a pagefile on c drive can i split the page file across all 3 drives
would this be wise if how much on each drive with 3gb of ram or should i
leave it as it is.I hope im in the right section for this question thanks
richard munden.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Hello i currently have 3 harddrives in my pc and 3gb of memory.On
one hardrive(c) i have the operating system on (f) i have games
installed from DVD and downloaded and on (g) i have my steam
account games.At the moment i only have a pagefile on c drive can i
split the page file across all 3 drives would this be wise if how
much on each drive with 3gb of ram or should i leave it as it is.

If these are actual physical hard disk drives - your best bet is to move the
pagefile from the C drive to one of the other two - no need to 'split' it.
The pagefile is used by the system - so getting it off the system drive
keeps that drive frm taking a 'double-hit', so to speak.

 

[Asger Joergensen]

Hi richy

Hello i currently have 3 harddrives in my pc and 3gb of memory.On one
hardrive(c) i have the operating system on (f) i have games installed from
DVD and downloaded and on (g) i have my steam account games.At the moment i
only have a pagefile on c drive can i split the page file across all 3 drives
would this be wise if how much on each drive with 3gb of ram or should i
leave it as it is.I hope im in the right section for this question thanks
richard munden.

Better to have it on the fastest harddrive with the smallest amount of trafic,
but it all depends on how much Your games use the pagefile, if they do that at
all, I'm not a gamer so I dont know about that.
But You can check it Your self, by opening the task manager and if the
column VM-Size isn't visible You can make it visible in the menu:
View->Chose Columns
In the VM-Size column You can see how much Virtual memory each process have
used You cant be sure that they actually have it at the moment, but
at some point they have used the amount You see in that column.
When You minimize a program its memory is swapped to the pagefile.
If a program stay out of focus for some time and the system need ram
it will swap the most idle process (typically background windows) to
the pagefile.

About the size, just chose the size that Windows recommend.

Kind regards
Asger

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hello i currently have 3 harddrives in my pc

OK.


and 3gb of memory.

Why? That's considerably more than most people need or can make
effective use of.

On one
hardrive(c) i have the operating system on (f) i have games installed from
DVD and downloaded and on (g) i have my steam account games.

"Steam account" games? Sorry, I have no idea what steam account games
are.

At the moment i
only have a pagefile on c drive can i split the page file across all 3 drives

Yes.


would this be wise if how much on each drive with 3gb of ram or should i
leave it as it is.

The answer is that it depends, but you probably should leave it alone.
With as much RAM as you have, it's very likely that you hardly ever
use the page file at all, and where it is or anything else about it
hardly matters at all.

Also please confirm that these three drives are physical drives, not
three partitions on a single drive.

 

[richy]

If these are actual physical hard disk drives - your best bet is to move the
pagefile from the C drive to one of the other two - no need to 'split' it.
The pagefile is used by the system - so getting it off the system drive
keeps that drive frm taking a 'double-hit', so to speak.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way



i always thought that you had to have a page file on the c drive the drive with the operating system is this not true

 

[richy]

Why? That's considerably more than most people need or can make
effective use of.






"Steam account" games? Sorry, I have no idea what steam account games
are.





The answer is that it depends, but you probably should leave it alone.
With as much RAM as you have, it's very likely that you hardly ever
use the page file at all, and where it is or anything else about it
hardly matters at all.

Also please confirm that these three drives are physical drives, not
three partitions on a single drive.

 

[richy]

Why? That's considerably more than most people need or can make
effective use of.






"Steam account" games? Sorry, I have no idea what steam account games
are.





The answer is that it depends, but you probably should leave it alone.
With as much RAM as you have, it's very likely that you hardly ever
use the page file at all, and where it is or anything else about it
hardly matters at all.

Also please confirm that these three drives are physical drives, not
three partitions on a single drive.

 

[Asger Joergensen]

Hi richy

yes they are all pysical drives seems there will always be mixed opinions
on weather to move or split the pagfile thanks you.

Please make not that Ken is from Microsoft, so he has to say that
how they do it is good..;-)

At the moment Explorer.exe and IExplorer.exe they take 100MB
by them self and thats just for 10 folders and a WebRaido
biside those roughly calculated about 700MB.
But If You fire up an old version of NewsBinPro and go to one
of the big binaies it can easily use 1GB by it self if You
minimize it.
So if You know that You are at risk of using pagefile a lot it
is defenetly a good idea to move away from C.

Kind regards
Asger

 

[alpha]

Please make not[e] that Ken is from Microsoft, so he has to say that
how they do it is good..;-)

Asger,
Microsoft MVPs are not employed (paid) by Microsoft, although some of
them eventually do become employed by Microsoft, or consult to them.

 

[Asger Joergensen]

Hi alpha

Please make not[e] that Ken is from Microsoft, so he has to say that
how they do it is good..;-)

Asger,
Microsoft MVPs are not employed (paid) by Microsoft, although some of
them eventually do become employed by Microsoft, or consult to them.

Thanks for letting me know.

Kind regards
Asger

 

[Twayne]

Hello i currently have 3 harddrives in my pc and

3gb of
memory.On one hardrive(c) i have the operating
system on
(f) i have games installed from DVD and
downloaded and on
(g) i have my steam account games.At the moment
i only
have a pagefile on c drive can i split the page
file
across all 3 drives would this be wise if how
much on
each drive with 3gb of ram or should i leave it
as it
is.I hope im in the right section for this
question
thanks richard munden.

Assuming you mean 3 physical hard drive, yes, it
might be helpful to move the pf to another drive.
Leave a small pf on the C drive, say 200 Meg. Put
the PF on the fastest spinning (5400 vs 7200 rpm?)
that gets the least use and hopefully has about
50% free space.
Before creating page files on another drive,
defrag it first so the pf can be certain not to ge
too fragmented.
This is based on some very unscientific, quick
testing I did once, but:I don't think splitting
the pf between the f & g drives will do any good;
the user has no control over which gets used when.
Getting the pf to where the game/whatever are not
is the target. And those are probably on C.
However, if a game lets you put some
directories on a particular drive, and is
defaulted to c, then send those folders to the
drive the pf is NOT on. Now you have up to 3
possibly parallel tasks can go on much more
efficiently.

3 Gig: Are you sure the page file is even being
used? If not or if it's very minimal, moving the
pg may not accomplish anything anyway. It can't
hurt, but might not help either.
There are many pagefile monitors available
online to download that will monitor your
pagefile use and report it in real time. Others
just record the maximum useages; either would work
for you. I suspect you may not find any advantage
to moving the pagefile, but only you can determine
that. Mine sits at a pretty steady 137 Meg. On C
it's set for a max of 512 Meg and on E it's
windows managed.

HTH,

Twayne

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hi richy



Please make not that Ken is from Microsoft, so he has to say that
how they do it is good..;-)

Please make note that I am *not* from Microsoft, nor is any other MVP.
The MVP status is an award given by Microsoft to people with a history
of providing frequent and accurate information here in the newsgroups.
Microsoft has a policy of *not* awarding MVP status to their
employees.

You can read about MVPs here:
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/mvpexecsum

I don't have to say that what Microsoft does is good, or have to say
anything else. What I say here is up to me. Like most MVPS, I say what
I believe. Sometimes I believe that what Microsoft does is good; other
times I believe it's not.

 

[David B.]

The page file can reside where ever you want it, does not have to be on the
system drive.

 

[Kevin M.]

David,
You might want to add "How to not top-post a reply in a newsgroup" to your
..sig list. j/k

 

[David B.]

This from a top poster