Virtual Memory [Resolved]

[RobDog888]

Its been a while since I set up the VM size and I need to know what should I set mine to. I have 2 80 Gig drives.
The C drive should probably be set to something like 10 Gigs I was told.
The D drive will hold Exchange and SQL server.

I just finished re-installing Server 2003 on C and the VM is currently set at 1152 min and 2304 max. I have 768 Mbs of RDRAM.

Thanks.

[penagate]

The general rule of thumb for VM size seems to be 1.5-2x RAM size minimum.

I have 512MB RAM and my pagefile is set to 2GB minumum, 4GB maximum. That sort of size would probably be fine for you.

I'd recommend watching your average PF usage for a week or so or normal usage and see how it is. If it is over about 50% then you should increase it.

Here's a good link on these sort of things.

Also, you should take advantage of the fact that you have 2 drives by making two pagefiles, that way the disk access bottleneck will be (hopefully) slightly reduced by being able to access 2 pagefiles simultaneously.

[RobDog888]

Ok, but I was told that if I make it large then it will have the reserve disk space and wouldnt get fragmented or compete with system files for space.
Both drives are on the same controller though. Having two PFs sounds like it may help.

[visualAd]

MS recommends that you set the page file to 1.5 x system RAM as a minimum and 3 x system RAM as a maximum. However, as mentioned ealier when Windows increases the size of the page file it can become fragmented:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d...d_tro_ldtg.asp

[RobDog888]

Thanks for the info and the link. I didnt know you could do a kind of defrag on it.

Thanks 's

[RobDog888]

Just wanted to add that under Server 2003 it only allows 4096 MBs max of VM.

Unless after a Windows Update it hopefully will be increased?

[penagate]

I've got all the updates to XP and that only allows 4 gigs max too. I think it is possibly an address limitation, or something like that.

[RobDog888]

I increased the min and max so they are the same - 4096. This should help with fragmentation and competition with other files
for diskspace.

Would it be advisable to add a pagefile for my other drive as well? I have a C drive or 80 gigs and a second physical drive partitioned into
two 40 gig drives D and E.

[Andy]

Here is a really good article on PageFiles...it tells how to defrag it too:

http://www.theeldergeek.com/paging_file.htm

[RobDog888]

The last couple of pages were good. Although I have alread defragmentated my pagefile I still want to know if having a
separate pagefile for each drive is a positive or negative issue?

[Andy]

To be honest, I've never heard of more than one pagefile. As a matter of fact, you can only set ONE per machine, right?

[RobDog888]

Nope, you can have one per partition. During the defraging I created another 4 gig pagefile on my D drive. After I recreated
the C drive's 4 gig pagefile I was wondering if having both would create a negative drain on my system from having an 8 gig pagefile in total?