Which drive for pagefile?

Discussion in 'Computer Forum' started by Ayeshaa, Jul 4, 2006.

  1. Ayeshaa

    Ayeshaa New Member

    I have a 16 year old friend whose pretty opinionated. She insists that the pagefile should be on her C drive because it is the the system drive and some "TECHNICIAN" told her so :S. Drive C (just 4GB) contains her Windows XP and it's running out of space so I told her to move the pagefile to her second drive. She did so but apparently during heavy usage of Paint Shop Pro got a warning about low virtual memory.

    So she has put the pagefile back on drive C and won't move it now. I'm going insane trying to convince her so please help me out here. What do you guys think? Is there any truth to the optimum performance claims of placing the pagefile on the same drive as Windows XP? Please post lots of replies so she can see that I'm not the only one who thinks this is absurd.

    Also, I told her she won't get out of virtual memory warnings if she upgrades to 3GB ram and turns off her pagefile. Correct? She's just a home user.
     
  2. alpha1

    alpha1 I BLUES!

    Page file can be any drive.
    It doesnt make any difference.
     
  3. Ayeshaa

    Ayeshaa New Member

    She has 512MB ram. I told her to set the initial and max sizes to 768MB. After she told me about the virtual memory warnings, I told her to let Windows manage the pagefile on the larger drive but she's adamant that putting it on the smaller system drive will fix her problem.
     
  4. alpha1

    alpha1 I BLUES!

    Let her.

    "A person in dark will shy away from light" or so they say.
     
  5. notty_lad

    notty_lad sudo undress

    Did ya check the page settings ?
     
  6. g0g0l

    g0g0l ! SpAm

    I agree with him...
     
  7. death_metal_fan

    death_metal_fan oh goody, it's a woody!

    Let's be clear on certain terms. There is a difference between a physical drive and a logical drive. A physical drive refers to a hard disk. A logical drive refers to a system partition (C, D, E etc.)

    Now, putting the file on a seperate partition will result in little to no improvement in performance. However, putting the file on a seperate physical drive may result in performance improvement.

    More info on virtual memory in Windows: https://www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php
     
  8. alpha1

    alpha1 I BLUES!

    Yeah, usually all the partitions are only logical drives mounted on same physical drive.
     
  9. Johny Bravo

    Johny Bravo The Boy Genius!

    WTF???? Why doesn't she get another 512MB chip, and spend the rest on another SATA II 80GB HDD instead spending the lump on the RAM only??????? This way she can have a page file of 10GB if she wants, and still have abt 60GBs to spare.

    And all that for a home user??????? Ur confusing me lady...

    And for ur friend to read for the 10th time, it doesn't matter which partition has the page file, as long as that drive is connected to her PC. and death metal fan's idea is also good to put the page file on the slave HDD. This way, u have theoretcally double data accessing speed. Set up a RAID if possible. Helps out sometimes...
     
  10. zoomingrocket

    zoomingrocket TeChNiCaL AdMiNiStRaToR

    I agree with DMF...
    You need a separate HardDrive to improve performance from Paging!
    Else...it doesnt matter...where you keep the file on your Logical Drives from Performance point of view...
    My personal experience says that...moving the page file out of System Drive to other logical partitions...slows down XP Considerably..
    So, if you dont have a separate HDD...keep the file on the System Drive...

    Also, the page file size should be 1.5 times of the system RAM...

    REgards,
    Zooom..!!
     
  11. Ayeshaa

    Ayeshaa New Member

    She's not that technically inclined. She actually has an 80GB hard drive. She used the recovery CD that came with her pc and that CD made her boot partition just 4GB, and left out the rest. She suffered for like a whole year with just 4GB.

    Then she met me I told her how to create a new partition to claim the rest of her hard drive's space. But I don't think she can reinstall Windows to the 2nd partition and free all of the first partition's space. I know her only from MSN so going to her place and doing it for her is out of the question. At the moment, all she wants to know is if she can move the pagefile to the 2nd drive without any problem.

    Since she won't listen to me, I told her I could get people on this forum to echo my suggestion which is that she should create the pagefile on the larger 76GB drive with the setting "System managed size". If you agree with this suggestion, please quote this post and just say "Yes, I agree" or post a better suggestion. That's all she needs to see.

    And yes, I did tell her to get a new HDD ASAP..but...

    You generally want to put the pagefile on the drive that gets the least usage; and that's almost certainly not going to be the boot drive, especially if it only has 4 gigs, so therefore she would place it on the F drive right?

    Urgh, whatever I'm puzzled now..hehe :(
     
  12. alpha1

    alpha1 I BLUES!

    ^ LOL
    K.

    My response: ...
     
  13. Ayeshaa

    Ayeshaa New Member

    .............?
     
  14. notty_lad

    notty_lad sudo undress

    What?


    It should rather be approx 1.5 times the system RAM !

    By the way it shows a recommended initial size of pagefile in XP (advanced performance settings in system window) and maximum size should be set to double the initial size ..
     
  15. zoomingrocket

    zoomingrocket TeChNiCaL AdMiNiStRaToR

    My mistake bro!
    Was thinking to write in different way...n wrote in different way ;) :p:
    Anyways..its rectified...n updated...
    Thanks for the headsup :)
     
  16. notty_lad

    notty_lad sudo undress

    ^I know which way you wanted to write ---> 3/2 the RAM size .. (Da Fraction Way) :p:

    Cheers bro!
     

Share This Page