silentbob17

I have my paging file on one hard drive and windows xp on the other, but I just read that letting the system decide the size and management of it (which is what I have it set to currently "System managed size") is not the best. In fact, I read that if you have a lot of ram, you should set the paging file to something small. I have a gig of ram... what should I set my paging file size to?

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BWX

I have mine set on a different drive on it's own partition.. (a 1.6GB partition) to the recommended size of 1534MB.. Actually I am going to change that to 1536- a nice round 1.5GB... I have a gig of ram as well.


It works well.. and keeps the page file from being fragmented in theory anyway. It is hard to test the performance gain if any by this tweak.. but I have used it for years. More than anything you will feel the difference when you have a lot of apps running or when newly opened apps are cached and whatnot.. At least that's where I "think I can tell" the difference.

Games seem to like it, especially new games that use a lot of texture loading in real time.. You can easily set it back to defaults and test out different apps to see what works best on your particular system.

Always use the fastest HD though..

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Judas

One HD.... multiple partitions.. BUT.. i set 10gb for my primary for windows/program files (NOT GAMES or Downloads or music/video)

and the 2nd is my 5gb for swap file

The maximum is 4096 on a single partition. If you've 1gb of ram..... i would suggest you set it NO LOWER then 768mb as the initial. And the max and be as much as you'd like.

IMO, after MANY many many machines/formats/partitionings/hardrives and various different system setups..... i've found if you've got 1 HD... i've gotten the most reliable and fastest performance not to mention much more easily maintained if you've got at least 2 partitions, and the 2nd being a dedicated swap file.

In your case though you've got a 2nd HD.. which is even better..

MAKE SURE you setup a partition as the swap file only.. (never being more then 5gb) and make sure it's the FIRST partition as it's the fastest part of the drive.


If you a typical user, playing the occasional game.... with 1gb of ram.. i'd suggest initial be 1024.

Also, if you've got a pile of space.... make a 5gb partition anyways.... set the max 4096... and never look at it again

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temeteus82

What I've heard it's good to keep the pagefile 2.0 to 2.5 times the amount of RAM.
For my self I use 2560 Mb pagefile, I manually set min and max values to that to avoid fragmentation.

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Judas

That rule was long ago used as a "example" in the early windows 3.x days.... or 95..... But it's much different now..

IF you want to gage it..... try this..

Set the initial to say 256mb... and the max beyond 2gb..

While keeping task manager open... load up everything you would use at one time... (even a game at a pretty nasty lvl that you know uses a pile of ram.. so make sure you load a memory intensive game to).... The pf reading in the taskmanager should spit out a variering number.... say for me.... 850+ mb used for PF.....

Now using that as a baseline.... initial pf size should be no smaller then 850 for me.. or windows will have to constantly resize to be able to address the memory requirements.. which.... can causing various performance problems.. not to mention massive fragmenting.

@ 850+... i'd suggest a initial of no less then 950pf.. (just put it to an even 1gb which is 1024mb)

If under load your pf is lower.... say 580 or something...... set your initial to 786
490? 512....... whatever... play around with it... i typically set it to known numbers just to make things look neat and tidy... but i've yet to run into a computer that can run a pf lower then 768 with various progs loaded... (enless you got an old one that's lacking the room/memory already)

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temeteus82

well, I've been happy with this size, where min and max are the same 2560 Mb

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BWX

What about setting more than one pagefile on multiple drives, partitions? I have experimented with that and saw no noticeable performance loss, but what seemed to be snappier response in windows navigation.

I have also read somewhere that setting at least a small pagefile on the same partition as the OS is good because without it windows cannot create error reports (or memory dumps?) in a crash situation.. or something like that..

I'll have to find that article I read to know exactly what was said about that.

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pr0digal jenius

2048MB partition of forced swap space(min/max size of 2048)

keeps defragging nice and easy too

Judas

yes this is true.... but it's not completely nessary enless you run into a crash situation.... (or so my understanding is)..

While doing overclocking or diagnostics.. i set up a 64mb min/max on the primary windows partition for swap and keep my standard 1024-4096 on the dedicated..

Why? so that during crashes it can dump and report better... so i can fully dianose the problem.. although in the end, it's still not entirely useful for me or the typical user. It's more for the software side of debugging.... and occasionally gives info directly related to specific hardware problems..

But by no means.... not having it, is going to cause preformance or stability degradation.

However i could be wrong... PangingJr can explain it alot better then i in the swap file for main partition better. We've both played around with various swap file settings....

Multiple Swap files is helpful only in cases where you have more then on HD or massive raid arrays.... but even then it's still not typically usefull enless your pushing some serious amount of multitasking and massively memory intensive aps..

Runing 2 hardrives.. it works nicely to keep a dedicated swap file on one hardrive and another on the other drive at the start... making both load balance across...... It's not exactly nessary, and be somewhat counter productive if say one drive is slower then the other... (raid 0 array vs a single drive)

My server runs a 1.5gb initial to 4096mb dedicated partition on my major Raid 0 array. It's the first partition on the drive putting it at the very front... And my guad, that sucker can write and pull data like crazy...... (as it doesn't have windows/games on that array)... i run another HD which windows/programs/games all load from.... trust me when i say this sucker boots and loads anything you want like i was running 4gb of physical ram

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PangingJr

it's depends... if you want to move or place the system pagefile somewhere out side C drive or default location, then you should atleast check to make sure the drive(or partition) that you want to use its space for paging file is not too busy and is always faster than the C drive. otherwish, just leave the pagefile on the C drive.

set the system pagefile to zero, then after reboot create new pagefiles on every drives and reboot your computer.
and then push your system to use a lot more pagefile than it used to be...
you can try this way, take a sceenshot and save the image as a .bmp, and then resize it like 500 times or more,
after you save the file this time you should get a very big .bmp file.
now, try to edit this image file, and also monitor each pagefile and see how it has been using...

soloz2

I made a 2gb partition on my RAID array. it's the second partition... but being that it is all by itself it should be the same or faster than having it on the C drive w/ everything else.

I have it set to 1024 start and 1.5gb max. It's never had to use more than a gig and it seems to work well.

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silentbob17

Ok, so what's your take on "System managed size"? Is that worse than setting persistent values? My second drive is kinda old actually... I'm not sure how fast it is so would it be a good idea to put another small (or "system managed size") paging file back on my C drive? Also, how do you set a drive (partition) to be "paging file only"?

AND, to put my paging file(s) at the beginning of my drive(s) I would have to re-partition everything, is that worth doing? What's the difference between having at the start or the end?

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zexx11

Set it to 1024 initial/1024 max.It works great for me with 1Gb of mem.

silentbob17

I have 4k of bad sectors on my drive... what should I do? Can I tell partition magic not to use those 4k or what...

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Judas

if you do a thorough scan it see bad sectors... it should already have pulled the information out..

HOWEVER,

Beforwarned.. when a HD starts to produce bad sectors, they tend to gradually get worse and expand... you could see your hardrive space dwindle and corrupt all to hell within months. Possibly..

Check your 2nd hd... see what speeds it's ratting it at and compared to your main HD.... a Slower HD with a lower UDMA could be costing you more on another HD then on the primary.

Also, repartition isn't to difficult.. it would require you to completely repartition you HD .. enless you use a partitioning program to setup otherwise.

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silentbob17

Ok I repartitioned.. there was an error at one point but now after doing a in-windows-format of my storage partition, I have the following:

Segate:
C: Main system

Maxtor
D: Storage (blank)
Z: Paging File on D (blank)

CHKDK finds 8k of bad sectors on D and none on Z. I moved all my data from storage (D) to my main drive as backup before formatting. Now I need to put it back on there cuz I have like 600 megs free on my C drive. But with those bad sectors... am I in danger of losing all my data? Is it safe to put everything back on my storage partition? My DVD drive just died so backup will be difficult but I might be able to on my roomates comp.. would you recommend this with my bad sectors?

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silentbob17

wtf I tried to edit... sorry this is a duplicate of the above with a small change

Ok I repartitioned.. there was an error at one point but now after doing a in-windows-format of my storage partition, I have the following:

Segate 76GB:
C: Main system

Maxtor 76GB:
D: Storage (blank) 75GB
Z: Paging File on D (blank) 1GB

CHKDK finds 8k of bad sectors on D and none on Z. I moved all my data from storage (D) to my main drive as backup before formatting. Now I need to put it back on there cuz I have like 600 megs free on my C drive. But with those bad sectors... am I in danger of losing all my data? Is it safe to put everything back on my storage partition? My DVD drive just died so backup will be difficult but I might be able to on my roomates comp.. would you recommend this with my bad sectors?

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silentbob17

Is there a way to set a primary and secondary paging file? Like tell windows to use one until it's full and then start using the other?

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Judas

it usually goes in order of the drives.. i'm not completely sure..

Bad sectors = usually a drive gradually falling apart.. i've yet to have a hd with bad sectors not fail or not have corrupted files galore..

You may want to do a few checks and see if the drive is still under warranty.... and if so... try and RMA it to the manufacturer ASAP!..

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silentbob17

Jeesus, that's kinda freakin me out. I'm sure the warrantee is done on it. I don't have any cash to spend on a new drive atm but hopefully I will next month... I'll just have to burn everything and hope it holds out till I can get a new one.

Here's my new setup, tell me if you think there's something wrong with it:


Drive---------Lable--------------Size-------Size of Paging File-----Bad sectors
Segate-------C(Main)-----------75---------none---------------------0k
Segate-------Y(Paging File)-----1-----------800-950----------------0k
Maxtor-------D(Storage)--------75---------none--------------------8k
Maxtor-------Z(Paging File)-----1-----------800-950----------------0k


The Segate is a little faster than my Maxtor, like 4% or something, and both paging file partitions are before the other partition on the drive.

Also, I have the indexing service enabled on all my drives, should I have this enabled or disabled? Does it make a difference on the paging file partitions?

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Judas

keep it enabled..

You shouldn't freak out.. no worries.. just keep a damn good eye on it.... Due to the way windows XP Pro works (i'm guessing you have this right? and that all the partitions of NTFS?)..... you shouldn't run into to much troubles just as long as you do at least a monthly THOROUGH scan disk check on that particular drive. There is a very small chance that it may last years yet with just 8k bad sectors... possible..... Just make you keep and eye. Initially when i had an HD produce bad sectors.. i only had 4k bad sectors.... but about 2-3 months later.. it was around 16k which still didn't mean much.... another few months and i started having weird errors and data loss in some places.. (missing files)... rechecked and i had nearly 128k bad sectors.. no more then a week later it was increaseing to the point i couldn't scan fast enough to keep ahead of it.... at which point, shortly after, the sucker wouldn't work at all.. a low level format didn't solve the problem either.... nothing would write or read on the HD at all without some weird corruption.

4% fast HD shouldn't matter

If you say the partitions are @ the start of the drive, it looks good.

Run a few tests and see if the there is any difference in preformance.. if there is none.... that's not an issue either.. because keeping the swap file on it's own partition will keep fragmentation of your other files completely free....

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PangingJr

Judas, i was using linux in the last few days and don't have a chance to check the pagefile settings again.
anyway, i reset the settings and add another pagefile on secondary hard drive and take some screenshots below.

i used to set page files on every hard drives when i used the PATA interface drives,
i saw the system paged out to each pagefile equally. this because all of the drives are identical.

now in my case i don't set multiple page files any more but use only the one on default location, and this because the Windows partition is the fastest partition on the system. at most time the pagefile in this partition will quickly be used by the system


C= Windows partition.
E= First partition of the secondary hard drive.

during this test there was no disk read/write on the secondary hard drive but the paging,
but the Windows partition is quite busy, the running programs are installed in the partition.
all drives/partitions and page files have been defragted before running the test.

have a look at the number of "Current Usage" and "Peak Usage" of each pagefile...

at first boot...



2 or 3 minutes later...


resize an image to 17920 x 14336 x 24bpp (735 MB in size)...


edit the colors of the image...



please note that the Task Manager's use for the pagefile is misleading. if you're really want to check for the pagefile numbers (and for a more in depth understanding of all the number that shows in the Task Manager) use the Windows Performance tool.

Judas

so it looks like it load balances somewhat... 100mb or so.... more .. will reside on the primary windows partition

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PangingJr

not quite true about what you were thinking JD, it actually seemed to be that the load balance was not so bad but not good enough. i've checked the settings before, then i've decided that i will not need to change the default pagefile settings. the checking was done when i first installed the new Seagate Barracuda SATA II 160 GB drive on the system, this is to replace an old SATA I drive.
i created only one Windows partition and size it around 50 GB and left the rest of hard drive space unpartitioned. and then install the Windows XP into the 50 GB partition. so basiclly this drive which will be using as main hard drive (my meaning of main hard drive is the operating system is installed on this hard drive) had nothing on it but the Windows partition and only one drive letter has been assigned and used by the system. it was drive letter C.

the data and partition on the old SATA I drive had been cleared out, then i created a new 2 GB partition on the drive, it was the first logical drive on the extended partition of this hard drive, and was only partition that had been created the rest of the hard drive space were free. this new logical drive was using drive letter D. as you can see i was planing on using multiple paging files again at the time.

now, have a look at this below pic, i could not locate it earlier. and see how the load balance were poor.
i kept this pic as for my own reference as i forget thing easily as times goes by, especially things like these. so some of these pics will help me, it help telling me what it was...




and, as i told you before that i used to use PATA interface drives which they are identical, same model and everything. i set multiple paging files before and they looked completely diferrent, the system were paged out to each one of them as equal from one to another on both the peak and current pagefile usages. and as said it's all depend, really. the right rules of using an custom pagefile settings will be you much check your pagefile configuration and be sure to place it at the right spot, or otherwise use the system default setting.

BWX

Something interesting...

http://www.petri.co.il/pagefile_optimization.htm
Where I highlighted red- I have seen a large pagefile.sys on my c drive before for some reason I did not know.. that is probably what happened when a game crashed or some other bad shutdown. It was a long time ago the last time that happened, but I do remember seeing that before. I imagine that was the reason.


edit- also a good tip:

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Judas

so apparently it kinda picks and chooses when to load balance.... still unreliable to startup multiple pagefiles i guess.

So in the case of keeping everything in a flawless running order... would we agree that leaving at least 64mb of swap file max or initial on the boot partition for windows.... and then setting either another patition with the swap file or another drive with the first partition as the swap file be probably the best solution aside from just letting windows manage it?

BTW.. BWX... i still find it quite incorrect to set the initial to a x value of physical ram. It's counter productive and pointless.. as some people have 128mb of ram yet... and other well over 2gb.. so any value they put for x times the size of physical ram... is wrong....

128mb of ram, times 1.5 is still only 192mb of physical memory... that's just not right nor will it work very well.

I think the more ram you have.. the lower VM should be set depending on the system usage.... BUT in general cases, do a simple test that pangingJr mentioned above for finding what initial size of a paging file will be required.

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PangingJr

if disk read/write rate of each drives and/or partition are the same then using multiple page files is always better.

as my simple test... JD you may want to see the different of these two tests again.
the system were working on the pagefile in the bigger partition better than smaller partition.

create a small partition just for the pagefile is not always best pagefile settings.

for the first test (on the last pic) the settings was 768/1536 MB on both the 50 GB Windows partition and on the 2 GB partiiton of the secondary drive.

on the secound test the settings was 1536/3xxx... on both the Windows partition and the first partiiton of the secondary drive. But, this time the Windows partition is now has 25 GB and the partiiton on the secondary drive is now 50 GB.

BWX

Yeah it depends on how much ram a person has... I always set min and max the same.. Seems to work for me anyway..



^ That makes sense though, of course I have not tested it to see for myself.

What seems to work best for me is just to put one PF on a separate partition of a HD different from the C drive.. as long as it is as fast or faster than C...
-----------
------------
----------------
I just started using a min of 2mb and max of 64mb PF on the C drive.. seems to work ok. I wonder if maybe making it a min and max of 64MB on C would be better though to avoid windows from constantly resizing it all the time? I'll have to test it out with that pagefile monitor program.

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gadabout

Well, as you can see on my sig. I have multiple HD's on my system. So what I have done is made 3 swap files of 350MB each on 3 different HD's equaling to 1,050MB. Even though they’re different speeds and sizes I seem to get better speeds this way. Anyway that’s my take on it.

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