Where is best for the page file?

R

Royston

Hi,

I newly run WinXP PRO SP2, on a recent DFI nF3 motherboard, with an
AMD64 Venice 3800+ CPU, and 1GB Corsair Twinx XMS memory.

At the moment the page file is in the default location C: drive. Will
you please suggest where is the best place to move it to? After moving
should I retain a small space, say 20MB on the C: drive?

I have on IDE 1, master, a 250GB HDD, partitioned as a 50GB C: System
drive, and a 150GB drive for Applications. A space of 50GB is kept free
for future use.
The slave on IDE 1 is an 80GB HDD, partitioned as E: of 40GB, used for
keeping images and F: 40GB used for games.
I have on IDE 2, a DVD burner as master, and an 'old' 40GB HDD as slave
used for nothing in particular.
I further have on SATA 3 a 120 GB HDD partitioned to 80GB for Backups
and 40 GB used to keep Data.

I have sufficient space available to place the page file on any of the
above drives.

Would it give any advantage if the page file were created in its own
exclusive partition?

The default page file is currently 1536MB. In view of the amount of RAM
I have, is this size of page file really necessary? As far as I can make
out from the Windows Task Manager, the page file usage seldom exceeds
about 500MB.

Many thanks
roystont5038
 
U

Uncle John

Alex's article is very good but he first wrote a long time ago and the
technology today is such that you really do not need to worry about the page
file. I believe he would agree that with your highly specified system and
substantial memory you do not need to mess about setting the page file
manually, just use the default settings.

If you do set it manually other than on the system drive Windows XP + SP2
will keep restoring the default settings.
 
M

Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)

Royston

Leave it where it is, or move it to a second physical hard drive if you have
one installed.. you may or may not detect any performance advantage.. and
always let Windows manage it, regardless of location..
 
M

Manny Borges

Place your page file on the SATA storage drive. Partition is irrelevant.

Remove it from c: (unless you want to grab debugging info, but honestly, who
really will use a dump file?)

Common myth : Placing your page file on a separate disk increases
performance.

Actual fact: Placing your page file on a SCSI or SATA drive increases
performance.

IDE drives are only accessed one at a time, SCSI and SATA drives can be
accessed in parallel to each other.

This is not true in Windows server 2003 and I am going to assume it won't be
true in Vista, but we are talking XP here.

So you will have better throughput for paging on the SATA drive since paging
is going to happen no matter how much RAM you have.

And you will have to defrag your OS partition less.

My main machine has our SATA dives and I keep a 20 GB partition on one
devoted just to paging. Yes, that's way too large, but it is *relatively*
not an issue when you consider the drive sizes are all over 200 MB.

--
Manny Borges
MCSE NT4-2003 (+ Security)
MCT, Certified Cheese Master

The pen is mightier than the sword, and considerably easier to write with.
-- Marty Feldman
 
K

Ken Blake

Royston said:
I newly run WinXP PRO SP2, on a recent DFI nF3 motherboard, with an
AMD64 Venice 3800+ CPU, and 1GB Corsair Twinx XMS memory.

At the moment the page file is in the default location C: drive. Will
you please suggest where is the best place to move it to? After moving
should I retain a small space, say 20MB on the C: drive?
Click to expand...


Several points:

1. Do not move the page file to a second partition on your main drive. What
it does is move the page file to a location on the hard drive distant from
the other frequently-used data on the drive. The result is that every time
Windows needs to use the page file, the time to get to it and back from it
is increased.
2. Putting the swap file on a second *physical* drive is a good idea, since
it decreases head movement, but not to a second partition on a single drive.
A good rule of thumb is that the page file should be on the most-used
partition of the least-used physical drive.

3. If one drive is substantially faster than the others, that may override
what I said in number 2, above. In that case, you should try it both ways to
see which way is best.

4. Chances are that, since you have a lot of RAM (1GB), it will make little
or no difference where you put it. Unless you run particularly memory-hungry
applications, 1GB is enough to keep most people from using the page file. If
that's the case, it doesn't matter which where you put it.
 
U

Uncle John

Anando

Absolutely true and I was not meaning any disrespect to Alex's article. If
you read it carefully and apply the conclusions applied to Royston's case it
would indicate that he should leave his page file to Windows, as I
recommended.

--
Uncle John
Anando said:
Alex's article was last updated on February 13, 2005. It was also written
specifically for Windows XP. I have yet to find a better explanation about
the windows virtual memory.

--

Anando
Microsoft MVP- Windows Shell/User
http://www.microsoft.com/mvp
http://www.mvps.org


Folder customizations
http://newdelhi.sancharnet.in/minku

Protect your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/protect
Click to expand...
 
R

Royston

Several points:

1. Do not move the page file to a second partition on your main drive. What
it does is move the page file to a location on the hard drive distant from
the other frequently-used data on the drive. The result is that every time
Windows needs to use the page file, the time to get to it and back from it
is increased.
2. Putting the swap file on a second *physical* drive is a good idea, since
it decreases head movement, but not to a second partition on a single drive.
A good rule of thumb is that the page file should be on the most-used
partition of the least-used physical drive.

3. If one drive is substantially faster than the others, that may override
what I said in number 2, above. In that case, you should try it both ways to
see which way is best.

4. Chances are that, since you have a lot of RAM (1GB), it will make little
or no difference where you put it. Unless you run particularly memory-hungry
applications, 1GB is enough to keep most people from using the page file. If
that's the case, it doesn't matter which where you put it.
Click to expand...

Hi, and thank you for every response.

I was, more or less, aware of all the possibilities mentioned, but did
not know which of them would provide a noticeable edge. I still do not.

No one addressed the question of whether a small size page file should
be kept remaining in the default location, after the bulk page file was
relocated to another HDD.

I would imagine that putting the page file on the SATA drive makes the
most sense. Also I like the dedicated partition idea which I used until
my most recent rebuild. For now,I think I will just leave it in the
default location.

Thank you all again

roystont5038.
 
M

Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)

Royston

You can split the total pagefile in two parts if you like, but putting 99%
on a slave drive and leaving 20mb on the primary is probably an exercise in
futility as it will not make any difference to pagefile or general
performance.. the pagefile just needs space, but not necessarily a whole
partition of its own..
 
R

Rock

Royston said:
Hi, and thank you for every response.

I was, more or less, aware of all the possibilities mentioned, but did
not know which of them would provide a noticeable edge. I still do not.

No one addressed the question of whether a small size page file should
be kept remaining in the default location, after the bulk page file was
relocated to another HDD.

I would imagine that putting the page file on the SATA drive makes the
most sense. Also I like the dedicated partition idea which I used until
my most recent rebuild. For now,I think I will just leave it in the
default location.

Thank you all again

roystont5038.
Click to expand...

Read the late Alex Nichol's page, http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm.
That has the info in it. In short, put the main page file on the first
partition of a second drive and dedicate that partition to the page
file. Create a small page file on the C: drive, say 2MB initial and
50MB max. It will probably not create that file, but could complain if
it's not set. Use the utility he mentions to monitor page file usage.
 
M

Manny Borges

Answers in line

--
Manny Borges
MCSE NT4-2003 (+ Security)
MCT, Certified Cheese Master

The pen is mightier than the sword, and considerably easier to write with.
-- Marty Feldman

Paging will always happen. It isn't a matter of having memory hungry
applications. Maybe you meant excessive paging?


If
Hi, and thank you for every response.

I was, more or less, aware of all the possibilities mentioned, but did
not know which of them would provide a noticeable edge. I still do not.
Click to expand...

I told ya, use the SATA drive.
No one addressed the question of whether a small size page file should
be kept remaining in the default location, after the bulk page file was
relocated to another HDD.
Click to expand...

Yes I did. The small page file area on C: is for creating a debugging or a
"dump" file in case of a blue screen of death.

Its pointless in most cases.
 

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