Is it safe to move the page file?

[craney5]

Hi all,

Im just curious to know if its possible to move the location of the page file. I have heard if indeed its ok to do so that it can improve the performance of gaming etc if its put onto a seperate partiton to the OS.

Im a bit of a novice when it comes to page files but as far as i am aware mine is automatically setup and its roughly around the 8gb mark at the mo. I did notice while looking in the performance monitor tab in task manager that although i was only using 1.5gb of my 4gb RAM my machine was using around 2gb of the 8gb page file, do certain applications require the use of the page file? i just assumed it would be used once there is no more RAM avaliable im sure i wrong tho lol

Hope someone could shed some light on this for me, id be so grateful

Many thanks & merry xmas everyone

 

[mckillwashere]

The page file is were stuff loaded into the ram goes when it is not used for a while... For optimum performance it is recommended to have the page file on another physical disk, not partiton.

 

[craney5]

Thanks for that mate really appreciate it, i do have a spare 320gb hd that i could throw into my rig but to be honest i would not want to use the whole thing for a page file, would putting putting the page file on a partition on a different hd to the os be ok.

Sorry if im sounding a bit dim lol

 

[mckillwashere]

You set the size of the page file to however large you need/or desire it to be. It would not use the whole drive. It would be better for it to be on a seperate drive from the OS. But honestly I have never seen any performance related to the page file .

 

[craney5]

Ok cool cheers matey one last thing tho is there a recomended page file size to go by.

+rep for your help mate im very grateful

 

[mckillwashere]

I would set it between 1gb-4gb

 

[dsperber]

Just one other consideration here...

If you have your power-save settings such that hard drives spin-down after some period (e.g. 15 minutes) of inactivity, placing the PAGEFILE.SYS on another drive will change that drive usage to such that it will NOT spin-down. Or, if you spin it down, it will spin back up.

Even if you think you're not doing anything, and even if you manually spin-down that drive (using some program such as HDDScan) the second "system drive" will just spin right back up again, as the OS accesses the page file occasionally even when you have plenty of RAM and shouldn't be doing any paging.

Just a consideration.

 

[GeneO]

Create two partitions on that other hard drive - one for the pagefile at the "beginiing" of the disk, the other for other uses. Data is read faster and seeks are faster at the beginning of the disk (which is really the outer edge of the disk platter). You will get better performance from the pagefile by assuring it is at the logical beginning of the disk and you can assure that it is by creating a partition for it there.

See the disk benchmarking in these forums:

http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/4269-show-us-your-hard-drive-performance.html

to see how the performance of a disk changes in going across the platter.

Gene

 

[whs]

With 4GB of RAM, the pagefile has practically no function. You can verify that in Resource Monitor > Memory tab, look at the graph on the bootom right. You will find that there are very few page faults, if any. So I think it is counterproductive to move the pagefile. There will be no gain.

 

[DustSailor]

So I think it is counterproductive to move the pagefile. There will be no gain.

I agree. I would myself reduce the size of the pageing file, but I wouldn't move it. set its initial size to 1,000 and maximum size to whatever you want to limit it to, such as somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000.

 

[craney5]

Thanks guys, i had a spare 500gb hd that i just put in my machine, i just created a primary partition of 10gb and have moved the page file to that. I let windows decide how big to make it and its set it at around 4gb at the mo. I see what you are saying with regards to it not really being used as there is 4gb of physical ram installed already it kinda gets made redundent but i always see that windows seems to use a little part of the page file even when the ram is only showing as 1.5gb being used

 

[DustSailor]

You are right, never get rid of the page file. It has also been recommended not to move it completely to another hard drive, as the C: drive needs to have some even if it doesn't use it often. That is why I recommended leaving 1,000 (A very low number and hardly noticeable) and putting the rest on the other drive. Believe me when I say you should keep a small number on C:

 

[craney5]

Cheers for that mate, i will go back into the page file setting and allow 100mb on my c drive just to be safe, can you actually have mulitple page files on every drive if you wanted to? if so im pretty sure it would be practical

 

[DustSailor]

you can, but really there is no benefit from it, other than spreading it out more.

 

[craney5]

I see your point mate even when my machine is at idle its not even using 1gb of physical ram I noticed that there are not actually any files on my page file partition i take it thats normal, i have 400gb of unallocated space on the HD i just put in and i have no idea what to put on it lol

 

[whs]

Cheers for that mate, i will go back into the page file setting and allow 100mb on my c drive just to be safe, can you actually have mulitple page files on every drive if you wanted to? if so im pretty sure it would be practical

I think the minimum setting for the pagefile is 200MB. And yes, some programs produce page faults even if there is a lot of availablee RAM. I noticed e.g. the AV programs doing that. But that is such a low activity that it can be disregarded in performance terms.

 

[DustSailor]

People don't use paging files for performance, as Whs suggests. Ram used to be more rare (1GB was good back in the day) and paging files sometimes were increased to compensate for lack of Ram on some systems. However, it is rare also that any good comes from doing away completely with the paging file. At such a low number, you won't even realize it is there. And like Whs says, 200mb may be the minimum (going off of what he says), but I would still set the maximum at a higher number, just in case the system decides it needs it. Now its entirely up to you what you set it to, and we could recommend different numbers all day. The computer gives a safe recommended number, and it may even be too much for you. Your decison. With so much free space, you might as well increase it, make some backups and restore points, and then add a mess of music and movies lol

and yes it is normal to not see much activity where the paging file is concerned, but it can spike every once in a while, even without notice.

 

[whs]

I was only posting the 200MB minimum because the OP wanted to set it to 100MB. I am not suggesting that 200MB is a good number to pick. I always leave it up to the system to manage.

 

[chrysalis]

2 main tips.

set to static size and when have low used drive so get unfragmented near start of disk.
ideally put on seperate physical hdd again try to have it near start of disk and fixed size.