Move Page File to a different disk

[Dan-Baer]

I know that I can improve performance by moving my pagefile to a different disk. How do I do that?
My OS is on my RAID-0 C drive (2 Raptors) and I am thinking about moving it to my main storage drive (a WD .75 TB AAKS) or to my picture storage drive (an older 35 BG Raptor).
Is this suggested and how to do it?
Thanks.

[DBoone]

No swap?

see post #7

[Dan-Baer]

Thanks for the link. I am not thinking of having no swap/pagefile, just moving it to a different drive. That thread seems to say to just set up an additional pagefile on a different drive, therefore I would have two, one on my C drive and one on my J (in this case) drive.
Correct?

[DBoone]

Yes, the OS needs one on the boot drive to be able to create a dump file for debugging purposes but the second paging file on the additional partition/drive is used as the swap file.

[SRTDodge05]

Control panel, system, advanaced system settings, then settings under performance, then under performance settings click on change under virtual memory.

[SRTDodge05]

I would put page fill on your storage raptor since its a real fast drive.

[Dan-Baer]

What I have done is reduce the size of the pagefile on C: from 3,069 down to 1,536 and I have created a page/swap file on drive L: of 3,069. Total pagefile size, all drives is now 4,605. I always keep my pagefile sizes at the same min and max size.
All is running well but then, it was all running well before I did this :-)

[SRTDodge05]

I always disable page file on my c drive and put it on my d or even my e drive.

[Dan-Baer]

I was considering disabling the pagefile on C: but that leavs no place for a dmp file if one is ever created. THat is why I just reduced the size. My goal is maximum performance with out reducing stability which is why I am only OCed to 2.99 on my CPU.

[SRTDodge05]

By removing page file off the c drive will help speed things up.

[3 of 7]

A good side benefit of getting rid of the page file on the c: drive is a smaller backup image..

Move your docs and games off of the C: drive and you can keep your image under 3g in XP

[Drufuss]

I have the size of pagefile reduced to zero on drive C: and i had a 4 GB pagefile on F: for some time, but i did set the pagefile on all drives to zero, 3Dmark2001 suddenly nearly doubled in score.

Greetings

Dru

[chuckbam]

Originally Posted by SRTDodge05

I always disable page file on my c drive and put it on my d or even my e drive.

I am thinking about getting a drive for my Page File. Is that all I will need to do is just move it to the new location. Now, if I have a 80 GB dedicated Page File drive. What size should I make the page file? Or would I be better off getting a large flash drive,

I started reading about page files and I realize I don't know anything about them except what they do. And, they don't do often on my computer. But, it sounds cool to have a separate drive and reduce defagmation.

I was reading that you need a small page file on C. So, I guess you can have more that one page file?

[chuckbam]

I found this on the Microsoft page:

________________________

By default, Windows Puts the paging file on the boot partition where the operating system is installed and creates a default size of the paging file that is 1.5 times the physical RAM, up to a maximum of 4095 MB. However, placing the paging filefile on the boot partition does not optimize performance because Windows has to perform disk I/O on both the system directory and the paging file. Therefore, it is recommended that you place the paging file on a different partition and different physical hard disk drive so that Windows can handle multiple I/O requests more quickly.

However, completely removing the paging file from the boot partition does not allow Windows to create a crash dump file (Memory.dmp) should a kernel mode STOP error occur. Not having this crash dump file could lead to extended server downtime should the STOP require a debug to be performed.

The optimal solution, other than the solution of adding more physical memory, is to do the following: 1. Create one paging file on the boot partition by using the default settings.
2. Create another paging file on a less frequently used partition on a separate physical disk or RAID volume.
You can create additional paging files for each separate physical disk or RAID volume.

Windows will use the paging file on the less frequently used partition over the paging file on the heavily used boot partition. Windows uses an internal algorithm to determine which page file to use for virtual memory management. In the above scenario, the following goals of the page file would be served: • The system will be properly configured to capture a Memory.dmp file should the computer experience a kernel mode STOP error.
• The page file on the less frequently used partition will be used the majority of the time because it is not on a busy partition.

________________________________________

Now for Vista 64, I think you use a larger page file size. I am still looking. I am going to setup this thing in a few hours. If anyone is around with any imput, please let me know.

I just delete Memory.dmp files, but, I will set it up this way anyhow.

[shaihulud]

Moving the page file to another drive is on the basis of IRQ’s and the drive being faster than the volume it resides on. The ultimate rule of the page file is that it should be on the fastest drive in the installed system-period. If the fastest drive is the system volume, then it should reside there and nowhere else. This means all rules pertaining to a hard drive's speed will affect the page file performance.

This concept has been taken out of context for a long time. This was actually meant for SCSI. Since each HBA (Host Bus Adapter) can have an IRQ, it was optimum to place multiple page files per hard interrupt. What this amount to is being able to concurrently access the drives in a read and a write. Therefore doubling the page file’s utility.

With PATA this can be done too using IRQ’s 14 and 15, but at a minor cost due to termination of the transfer before the next transaction. On a PATA transaction, the transaction has to end before the next can start. SCSI does not suffer this penalty and can have multiple transactions in queue concurrently in motion to multiple drives connected to the HBA. This is the minor difference really and is a very minor penalty with modern drives now. Since SATA is the same ATA commands it is under the same roof. However, other abilities have been added to SATA to handle this differently and that is NCQ. It is still not the same as SCSI and is still in a first in first out kind of motion.

Some of the SATA controllers are under one IRQ now, and do not have the concurrent benefit as SCSI does. Newer ones will be multiplexed, and I am unsure how this will affect multiple page files and a different location. However, what is most overlooked is the fact that the two concerning factors are installed RAM and speed of the volume containing the page file.