Page file set up?

Udidwht · 18 Sep 2011

I'm running Windows 7 Ult SP1 64bit (clean install) and would like to know what's the best way to set up the page given I have (2) HDD's? The drives are currently installed as follows:

1TB SATA-3 (6.0Gbit/s) Seagate 32mb cache - C: - OS

1TB SATA-2 (3.0Gbit/s) Hitachi 32mb cache - D: Game drive (currently empty)

System specs:
Rosewill Challenger case
Core i5 2500K
Windows 7 64bit SP1
Gigagbyte GA-Z68XP-UD3
G-Skill Ripjaws DDR3 1600 8G RAM
XFX HD Radeon 6870 1 GB 256bit PCI-e 2.1
Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme gamer
LG Blue Ray writer SATA
Antec 650 watt PSU

I currently am still in the process of installing my programs on C: drive. All my games will go onto (D:. Some of the games I'll install are FSX w/Acceleration including add-ons, COD 4 MW, Battlefield 2 BC, IL2 Sturmovik 1946, DCS Blackshark, Lock-On Flaming Cliffs 2, DCS A-10 Warthog etc..

I was told/read that placing a small page file on the OS drive (C: such as 300mb min-300 mb max) and a second page file of 3072 mb min-3072 mb max) on (D: would be most optimal in terms of performance. My main concern is PEAK performance.

karlsnooks · 18 Sep 2011

Just leave the paging file sizes alone!!

You will get all kinds of wild advice and answers out there. Much thought and testing went into the default settings which Win 7 uses. Now if you were a networked server, you would want to change some of these.

I don't have the references handy but you can google Mark Russonivich(?) and Paging File or if you have a WinInternals book that is also a good reference.

Many people never graduated from eXPired thinking where the advice was different. This is Win 7. Leave the paging file alone.

I know that many of the junior, wet-behind-the-ears users will say much differently but I listen to the true experts and those from Microsoft who have written on the whys and wherefores of paging file sizes.

Tews · 18 Sep 2011

^^ What karlsnooks said!!! Leave it alone ... you have way more than enough memory, that your page file size shouldn't even be a consideration!

Layback Bear · 18 Sep 2011

Windows 7 page filing works great just the way it is.

pparks1 · 18 Sep 2011

As far as the size, just leave it alone. Windows 7 does a good job and with 8GB of RAM, you won't hardly touch your page file..if at all.

For peak performance, but it on the 2nd drive. It probably won't amount to much, but the advice has always been to put the page file on a second physical disk if you have one.

whs · 18 Sep 2011

With your system, the pagefile will only be very rarely used. You can check the pagefile activity on Resource Monitor > Memory tab > graph on the bottom right.

If you are worried about disk space (e.g. on an SSD) you can reduce the pagefile to 1GB - but else I would leave it alone. Better still, get rid of the hiberfile. The command is powercfg -h off