Page file size for systems with lots of RAM?

[Stug]

Hi

I'm working on a 64-bit computer with 2 quad-core Xeons and 16gigs of RAM running 64-bit Windows XP (it's a lab computer used to run simulations). I was looking at the system settings and noticed that the page file size was manually set to 2046-4092 megs. This is a dell computer that has recently been reformatted, so this is apparently some sort of factory setting, I'm thinking. Is that adequate? I've seen people claiming that 1.5 to 2.5 times the physical memory size is ideal, but that seems like WAY too much given there's already 16gigs of RAM. If I let windows set it by itself, it allocates 16 gigs to paging. Should I use the factory setting or windows' automatic setting?

As a secondary question, I noticed about a month ago that the computer was going through short bursts (20 seconds or so) of disk access about every 10 minutes while sitting idle, so I'm wondering if this is related to paging? I don't think it was doing this previously.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[bsobel]

You most likely wont be paging, however if you want to be able to create full memory dumps you'll need the page file th same size as your memory. I just leave it system managed (I have 32gig on this box).

As for the IO, that shouldn't be paging activity, again my page file is here in case I need to do a full memory dump my system isn't going to be paging with this much free memory.

 

[kedlav]

For systems with larger amount of RAM, set the pagefile to be equal in size to the amount of RAM. For systems with less than 8 GB of RAM, 1.5x or more is usually standard.

 

[Stug]

Aha. Thanks for the insight.

 

[Nothinman]

For systems with larger amount of RAM, set the pagefile to be equal in size to the amount of RAM. For systems with less than 8 GB of RAM, 1.5x or more is usually standard.

Just leave it system managed, there's no reason to tweak it.