Well, apparently someone has done it on a Win7 machine. See post by bbearren Unmoveable System Files other than pagefile and hiberfil?
Also note that it is supposed to be FAT32, not FAT as I originally stated, due to the size of the pagefile.
16MB is correct for the minimum.I couldn't remember off the top of my head but most mini-dumps are less than 2MB. Sorry for the error. But yes, Windows will use all that you assign and try to swap real memory to virtual memory at every chance. It can be used as file storage too (buffer) so Windows will try to keep it full based on programs or services running. Windows assigns a Page Pool to every process running. Take a look at the paging faults before you decide. These aren't really errors. It's the number of times Windows didn't find the data it needs in real memory and an IO was required from either the page file or from the disk file. Page faults happen a lot for programs that are random IO dependent. The problem is that filling the page file takes a read and a write to the HDD. The larger the page file, the more time spent reading and writing to the page file and another read to retrieve it. A large page file on HDDs is counter productive in my belief. Since you have 16GB of RAM, I would go with the minimum. Windows will let you know if you're running short and you can increase it without restarting. Or you can monitor page faults in real time through Task Manager and watch your production or gaming processes. But unless the file being accessed fits entirely into real memory, you really don't gain anything by having a large page file. Processes that are IO bound will remain so in most cases.
a similar post you may find interesting (and perhaps helpful in some way): Random Page File Errors
I stand corrected about not moving a paging file off of your main hard drive (you can): Learn Best Practices for Optimizing the Virtual Memory Configuration
^ very good read
+1
I don't know anything about the above but a while ago I read something that said Windows would use the pagefile on the disk with the least activity.Using multiple page files split over two or more physical disks is an even better idea, because your disk controller can process multiple requests to read or write data concurrently.
As for a dedicated partition I don't think thats necessary, don't quote me on this but I believe WinXP actually reserved the space for the page file on the disk, don't know about Windows 7. It does create a file equal to your set size but I guess if Windows enlarges it then it may become spread over different regions of the disk.
I have a system with 4GB of ram and I have a fixed pagefile of the same size on the first partition of my second drive - both drives are 7200 rpm drives. The partition is 6Gb and the file is located in the middle for some reason. I have used Fat32 for the partition but now use NTFS as there appears to be no difference. I probably am a light user as the pagefile rarely gets used - I can hear the drive starting up. With your amount of ram I would probably do similar but with less than 8GB pagefile although only use would determine if this would be adequate. I don't seem to have any problems with not having a pagefile on C:
I used much the same on my XP system for many years and didn't have problems there either.
:)
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