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Pagefile settings for partitions?

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dreamtfk

Member
Joined
Feb 1, 2002
Location
Orlando FL
I recently reinstalled windows on a seperate 7GB partition I made specifically for windows. My system has 2 physical drives installed so now I have d (my secondary drive), f (my primary drive) and c (the partition made from f)

How should i set my virtual memory settings now that windows is on its own partition? Previously I had c: and d: both set to 1500mb (1.5x my amount of RAM which is 1GB).
 
The way I do it is have no page file on C and a page file on D. As for amounts I just use the same amounts that Window's uses at it's default settings. I'm not sure it's the best way, but it works fine.
 
Well c: on my system is where windows is installed, so your saying I should disable paging on c? Is it possible to move my pagefile?
 
dreamtfk said:
Well c: on my system is where windows is installed, so your saying I should disable paging on c? Is it possible to move my pagefile?

yes you can move it what os are you using?

you basicly just shut off the pagefile on the partition you have windows on and setup a new one on a seperate partion/drive
 
If I had two drives that performed well, I'd put the pagefile on the drive that didn't host the OS too. If there were two partitions on that drive, I'd put the whole pagefile on the first one. Splitting between partitions on the same disk will only slow you down, and you want the pagefile on the fastest portion of the disk anyway.

Yes you can move your pagefile, just configure it the way you want it and reboot.

I use a fixed pagefile about 3x my physical RAM. I'm not sure the 3*RAM rule of thumb makes sense anymore, especially when I try to have enough physical RAM that I never use the file, but I've been doing it that way for years.
 
The main reason I am asking this is because I am experiencing some lagginess when playing BF2 and it isnt my connection, it played fine before the new install. I am pretty sure it is related to virtual memory.

Should I have my pagefile on the drive that has BF2 installed on it? Also, how do I do this I am running XP and I cant find pagefile.sys anywhere on my computer..
 
Haven't there been threads that prove that disabling Paging File and VM does NOT actually turn it off? I thought the NT kernel used ALL memory through a form of Virtual Memory - no matter what the OS's settings? The thread was floating around here last week, and had some good links, too IIRC...

:cool:
 
So which is better?

So which is better...placing the pagefile on the same hdd but different partition or different hdd altogether? I'm going to install a 74GB WD Raptor and i'm working out my partitioning format. OS will be windows xp pro. My other hdd is 120GB.

Cheers,
Kawzman
 
Qutoted from this article from MS:

" To enhance performance, it is good practice to put the paging file on a different partition and on a different physical hard disk drive. That way, Windows can handle multiple I/O requests more quickly. When the paging file is on the boot partition, Windows must perform disk reading and writing requests on both the system folder and the paging file. When the paging file is moved to a different partition, there is less competition between reading and writing requests. "

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314482
 
Thank you for your post. Am i reading this correctly, "it is good practice to put the paging file on a different partition and on a different physical hard disk drive", to mean 2 pagefiles. 1 on on a different partition and 1 on a different physical hard disk drive or just 1 on a different partition that resides on a different physical hard disk drive.

Cheers,
Kawzman
 
Kawzman said:
Thank you for your post. Am i reading this correctly, "it is good practice to put the paging file on a different partition and on a different physical hard disk drive", to mean 2 pagefiles. 1 on on a different partition and 1 on a different physical hard disk drive or just 1 on a different partition that resides on a different physical hard disk drive.

Cheers,
Kawzman
No, you only need one page file. You put it on a different hard drive than the one with your operating system.
 
Where can I find my pagefile on my computer? If I am correct the name is supposed to pagefile.sys but I cant find anything with that filename.
 
Kawzman said:
Thank you for your post. Am i reading this correctly, "it is good practice to put the paging file on a different partition and on a different physical hard disk drive", to mean 2 pagefiles. 1 on on a different partition and 1 on a different physical hard disk drive or just 1 on a different partition that resides on a different physical hard disk drive.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314482
goes on to say:

The optimal solution is to create one paging file that is stored on the boot partition, and then create one paging file on another partition that is less frequently accessed on a different physical hard disk if a different physical hard disk is available. Additionally, it is optimal to create the second paging file so that it exists on its own partition, with no data or operating-system-specific files. By design, Windows uses the paging file on the less frequently accessed partition over the paging file on the more heavily accessed boot partition. An internal algorithm is used to determine which paging file to use for virtual memory management.

It's not clear to me why you'd need two page files. Perhaps Windows would use the one in the boot partition during boot if it didn't have enough RAM. Or perhaps the idea is that if somethign happens to the second disk, you can still boot using the page file in the boot partition. If you don't have enough RAM to load windows, though, it's definitely time for an upgrade.

I doubt putting the file in a different partion on the same disk will help except to keep it from fragmenting. But if you're going to put the page file in its own partition, why not just give it a fixed size? A fixed size page file won't fragment either, and it's not as if a file is going to get larger than the partition it resides in anyway.
 
Kawzman said:
dreamtfk, see rseven's post above posted on 07-27-05, 10:36 AM.

Cheers,
Kawzman

Yeh thats how I adjust my pagefile settings but I dont see any option to move my pagefile.
 
In the "My Computer/Properties/Advanced/Settings" tab, You should see a list of all of your drives, and then an indication of which drives currently have a page file set up, and their relative page file sizes. If you want to add a Page File, click on the desired Drive, and then continue to select your desired type of Page File management. Then, if you want to, you can REMOVE the page file off of the C: drive to reduce read/write conflicts with system files, and to increase overall HD bandwidth avalibility to the OS. I didn't notice much difference in removing my System Drive's Page File and replacing it with another Drive for Page File useage, but whatever...

You can't get rid of it, so you might as well make it as fast as possible, eh? Here is the other OCF thread I referred to where you can NOT actualy disable VM:
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=387205&page=1&pp=30

:cool:
 
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