Maximum pagefile size? Separate partition?

[imported_Driller]

Building a new rig largely based on advice from the motherboard forum here.
includes K8N Neo Plat. mobo, 1gB (for now, may go to 2gB) pc3200 ddr400 mem, two large HDD, eide, WDD
Aimed towards normal household computing, some engineering apps, and espeically
to do alot of scanning and editing of large scanned files.. photos and old documents
Using Adobe Photshop (memory hog).

I understand to put the pagefile.sys on the non-OS HDD gets better performance
and most advise to set it amnually to the same min and max size to avoid fragmentation.
but I have the folowing questions:

1. MS miniumum is 1.5 x installed memory. But is there an MS ceiling limit? (For example XP is limited to 2gB per processor, so is the pagefile limited as well?)
2. If there is no XP restriction, there a practical or useful limit to the size?
3. Does it help to put the pagefile into a separate, dedicated partion? If so can it big as big as the whole partition?
4. Do I handle the hiberfil.sys the same way? Is there a place within XP systemmangement to address hiberfil.sys issues?

 

[Nothinman]

If you're hitting the pagefile a lot you want it on a drive that isn't where the data being manipulated is. Unless you do something like put everything on the desktop, that probably means the system drive is the best place for it. And let the OS manage it, chances are the MS VM designers are smarter than you with reguards to VM management.

1. I believe there's a 4G per pagefile limit, might be 2G but I can't rememeber, so if you want more pagefile space you'll need more pagefiles.
2. The usefull limit depends on your workload and amount of memory you have. Seriously, if you have 2G of pagefile space used and 1G memory you either have a big problem or you obviously need more memory.
3. Putting it on a dedicated disk may help, but putting it on another partition on the same disk as anything else is stupid because everytime the pagefile needs accessed it'll cause huge delays from all the extra seeking you caused by putting it there.
4. You can't do anything about hiberfil.sys, it has to remain on the system drive and it has to be the same size as the amount of physical memory. All you can do is disable it if you don't want to hibernate.

 

[imported_Driller]

Thnx for the info.
Kinda missed it there with a partition on the same disk instead of a separat physical drive.
Thnx for keeping me straight. Ja Vel.
Can't tell too easily on my old rig..only 512mB mem and the system sets the pagefile max at 785mB

But when scanning a photo or a difficult document at even a medium resolution, I get an "out of memory" or "insufficient memory" message, and have to resort to only the lowest resolutions which doesn't always get the job done.

SO I scan at like 320x420 or at the very best 800x600. These photos are old relics of bygone days, some back into the 1800's and the documents likewise. Higher resolution would be welcome incapturing all the available details.

Hope the new rig solves this. I'll probably keep the pagefile on the system disk, then and store the scann files on the other larger drive. Probably set it at 1536mB min (required by XP) and allow growth dynamically managed by the OS up to 4096mB max which I see depicted in a few Microsoft examples.

Sound about right?

 

[Nothinman]

That should work fine. But remember that going over 2G would be a waste since that's the most any one process can address on a 32-bit system unless it's setup to use tricks like PAE and I'm not sure if PS does that. Well waste may be a bit harsh, the OS would still be able to use all the memory, but each process would be limited to 2G no matter how much is available.