What's the best place for my paging file?

S

Stan Kay

I have two identical hard drives. The first drive (the C drive) contains
only my 32 bit Vista Ultimate operating system and the second drive (the D
drive)contains all the programs (that I am allowed to place here rather than
on the C drive) and data. My system also has 4Gb of DDR2 memory.

Left to it's own devices, Vista sets up a "System Managed" paging file on
the C drive. However, I have read that Microsoft recommends that the paging
file should NOT be on the same drive as the operating system. In these
circumstances, I should be most grateful for any advice on whether I
should:-

1. allow Vista to continue to use a "System Managed" paging file?
2. set up the paging file in a different way. If so, how should it be
set up for best performance?
 
R

Richard Urban

All Windows operating systems place the pagefile on the same partition as
the operating system - by default. If that is not a recommendation as to
it's location by Microsoft, I don't know what is.

That being said - experiment to see what YOU think.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
A

Adam Albright

I have two identical hard drives. The first drive (the C drive) contains
only my 32 bit Vista Ultimate operating system and the second drive (the D
drive)contains all the programs (that I am allowed to place here rather than
on the C drive) and data. My system also has 4Gb of DDR2 memory.

Left to it's own devices, Vista sets up a "System Managed" paging file on
the C drive. However, I have read that Microsoft recommends that the paging
file should NOT be on the same drive as the operating system. In these
circumstances, I should be most grateful for any advice on whether I
should:-

1. allow Vista to continue to use a "System Managed" paging file?
2. set up the paging file in a different way. If so, how should it be
set up for best performance?
Click to expand...

Depends on what you use your computer for. For a casual user that
mainly uses his computer to do some light activity, like surfing the
web, reading email, maybe once in awhile using a spreadsheet or word
processor then your system is just loafing along and neither the size
or the location of the paging file really matters that much.

However if you're a "power user" do a lot of multi-tasking or push
your system where a lot of activity is happening between your hard
drives and virtual memory (your paging file) then maybe you will
benefit from both moving the paging file to a different partition
and/or managing it's size. You need to be willing to experiment.

Since you have a 32 bit version of Vista and 4GB of RAM, you probably
already know only roughly 3GB of your RAM gets used.

If you want to improve overall performance one of the quickest ways is
to overclock your system. While that was strictly geek territory a few
years ago today many motherboards and their BIOS allow you with just a
few simple clicks to overclock. That will boost performance more than
any tweak of your paging file settings. By overclocking you increase
the speed of the FSB (front side bus) on your MB which is the pathway
your CPU communicates with your RAM. Obviously the faster it can
access RAM, the more lively you system becomes. Like with anything
else there are limits. Don't get carried away. If you attempt to
overclock to the limits of your CPU, MB and memory the system will
become unstable and crash a lot more or simply refuse to boot until
you reset BIOS. It also runs hotter which isn't good, but a modest
amount of overclocking can be a blessing.
 
S

Steve Easton

Providing that you have to separate physical drive, move the paging file to the opposite drive from the OS.
It makes a definite difference.

My machine is a dual drive dual boot with XP Pro and Vista Ultimate.
XPs' paging file is on the vista drive, Vistas' paging file is on the XP drive.

Noticeable performance boost for both.
 
J

JerryM

If you are a power user, you can create a paging file on the first part of
your second hard drive to keep the read write heads on the first drive from
beating back and forth between the paging file and your programs.

Just to go along with you, run the following:

If you have programs on the second drive you want to save, do it now.

Right click Computer, choose manage, choose disk management, expand your
screen to maximum so you can see all your drives.
Then,
Right click the second drive to see all the options.
Delete the partitions to clean the drive,
Create a new partition and format in NTFS.
Shrink the partition to around 3 1/2 to 4 gb, creating a space for your
paging file.
Then create a partition on the rest of the drive for your programs.
Click the X to back out of disk management.
REBOOT.

Right click Computer, choose Properties,
click Advanced system settings,
under Performance, click Settings,
click Advanced tab,
Under Virtual memory, click Change,
Highlite C: drive and click custom size,
Initial size 16 (this must be done to allow error reporting)
Maximum size 50
and then click Set.
Up in the volume label again, highlite the second hard drive,
click system managed size,
then click Set again.
OK your way out and REBOOT.
 
D

-Draino-

Steve Easton and JerryM are correct in what they are saying. One thing they
don't mention is that a lot of today's computers are configured using RAID.
With RAID writes to the drives are written ACROSS all drives, meaning that
one drive is not filled up first then the other drive. ALL drives are used
at the same time with RAID.

D
 
T

Terry R.

On 7/19/2007 5:01 PM On a whim, -Draino- pounded out on the keyboard
Steve Easton and JerryM are correct in what they are saying. One thing they
don't mention is that a lot of today's computers are configured using RAID.
With RAID writes to the drives are written ACROSS all drives, meaning that
one drive is not filled up first then the other drive. ALL drives are used
at the same time with RAID.

D
Click to expand...

Don't know if this was brought out earlier, but the whole thing is
pointless if the users C: & D: are on one physical drive. Any advantage
would only be realized if one physical drive were to be used for each
partition.

--
Terry R.

***Reply Note***
Anti-spam measures are included in my email address.
Delete NOSPAM from the email address after clicking Reply.
 
L

Lang Murphy

Stan Kay said:
I have two identical hard drives. The first drive (the C drive) contains
only my 32 bit Vista Ultimate operating system and the second drive (the D
drive)contains all the programs (that I am allowed to place here rather
than on the C drive) and data. My system also has 4Gb of DDR2 memory.

Left to it's own devices, Vista sets up a "System Managed" paging file on
the C drive. However, I have read that Microsoft recommends that the
paging file should NOT be on the same drive as the operating system. In
these circumstances, I should be most grateful for any advice on whether I
should:-

1. allow Vista to continue to use a "System Managed" paging file?
2. set up the paging file in a different way. If so, how should it be
set up for best performance?
Click to expand...


Where did you read that MS recommends that the paging file not be on the
same drive as the OS? Just curious...

Lang
 
B

Brad

That's not entirely true. if you can have a defragmenter page file it is
faster. Programs that get installed around a large page file usually suffer.
The defrag of the system partition will be a lot more worthwhile without the
pagefile being present. A mirrored raid array will be faster but on a single
dish a lot can be done to speed it up when it counts.

--
Brad Leyden
6° 43.5816' S 146° 59.3097' E WGS84
You haven't seen a stolen election yet, just wait for PNG in 2007.
Correction it won't be stolen, it will be purchased wholesale.
To mail spam is really hot but please reply to thread so all may benefit (or
laugh at my mistakes)
 
S

Stan Kay

The MS article below explains in the final sentence of the summary that "you
can increase the performance of Windows, and increase free space on the boot
partition, by moving this file to a different partition."

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307886

I accept that this article refers to Windows XP and not Vista and this is
part of my reason for asking a question on this forum.

Furthermore, I have followed AJR's advice and found that my system runs
about 15% faster when I use Photoshop CS with an intensive operation.

I will continue to experiment with the size of the paging file to be left on
the C drive for emergency purposes.
 
S

Stan Kay

I am amazed at the very helpful responses I have received to my question.
Thank you to one and all.

Having experimented (as suggested by a few people) I have found that moving
the paging away from the hard disk that houses the operating system then I
do see a performance increase. However, this act exposes my system to a
problem should my system crash. So, at AJR's suggestion I set up a small
paging file on the C drive. Low and behold, my performance increased even
more. This got me thinking. Clearly since I have a hard disk controller
that can read and write to both hard disks simultaneously then two paging
files may well be better that one. Then I found this article:-

http://www.maximumpcguides.com/move-and-optimize-windows-vistas-paging-file/

Accordingly, I set up a "system managed" page file on both my C hard disk
and my D hard disk and can report that performance is very good indeed. I
am currently performing tests to try to quantify the obvious performance
improvement.

Others may want to experiment too.
 
R

Richard Urban

Isn't experimenting fun!

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
M

Mike

carl feredeck said:
you are saying that a small pagefile is better??
Click to expand...

No, he is saying that it's better to have multiple (perhaps smaller)
pagefiles on multiple disks than one huge pagefile on one disk, as long as
they add up the required amount (1.5 times RAM).

Frankly, it's rarely a good idea to mess with the pagefile settings. It's
usually best to let Windows manage it. Certainly don't change the size
settings - it needs to be at least 1.5 times your RAM size. Don't think
that "I have 4 gigs ram so I don't need a page file". That's not the way
it works. You need at least a 4 gig pagefile so there is somewhere to back
up all that ram.

Disabling the page file might be OK if you have 2 or more gigs RAM and all
you do is run IE and email. But you will quickly run out of memory if you
start loading up typical apps. The Windows memory management assumes there
is a pagefile. Let it work the way it's designed for best performance.

Mike
 
T

Terry R.

On 7/19/2007 11:54 PM On a whim, Brad pounded out on the keyboard
That's not entirely true. if you can have a defragmenter page file it is
faster. Programs that get installed around a large page file usually suffer.
The defrag of the system partition will be a lot more worthwhile without the
pagefile being present. A mirrored raid array will be faster but on a single
dish a lot can be done to speed it up when it counts.
Click to expand...

Defragmenting is a completely different subject than what is being
discussed. It is still a fact that two partitions on a single drive
won't perform any better, regardless of where you put the paging file.
If you have two physical drives, then a noticeable performance gain can
be realized, as the OP found out through his experimenting.

--
Terry R.

***Reply Note***
Anti-spam measures are included in my email address.
Delete NOSPAM from the email address after clicking Reply.
 
S

Stan Kay

Let me expand the explanation a little. AJR said that a small paging file
on the C drive was needed to save error file should the system crash. But
he agreed that the main paging file should be on the second drive (not the
one with the operating system). I followed his suggestion and found it
worked very well. Cettainly faster than with the whole of the paging file
on the C drive. However, I then experimented and placed a large paging file
on BOTH the C drive and the D drive...performance was even better. But then
I found an article (
http://www.maximumpcguides.com/move-and-optimize-windows-vistas-paging-file/
)
which said that for best performance set up a "system managed" pagefile on
BOTH the C drive and the D drive. This I have done and found that it was
the fasted of all options that I have tested so far.

I hope this explanation is helpful.
 
D

-Draino-

Steve Easton and JerryM are correct in what they are saying. One thing they
don't mention is that a lot of today's computers are configured using RAID.
With RAID writes to the drives are written ACROSS all drives, meaning that
one drive is not filled up first then the other drive. ALL drives are used
at the same time with RAID.

D
 

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