Should I let Windows to manage the page file size?

[hk10Mbps]

Or set it myself? Why?

 

[Smilin]

Provided you don't have any disk space issues you can manage it yourself. Set the start size and stop size to be the same to reduce fragmentation. It the scheme of things it doesn't matter a whole lot one way or the other. More physical memory is always good

 

[hk10Mbps]

Easy English please, which way is better and why?

 

[LittleAl]

Depends on how much RAM you have in the machine. If you have enough RAM your machine may never page, so it doesn't matter if you let Windows manage it or set it yourself.

If your machine does use the page file, a little trick for increased performance is to set the min / max page file size to the same value. Choose the max value and set it as the min value also. Another little trick, if you have more than one HDD, is to put the page file on a different drive. NOTE: This needs to be a different physical HDD. Placing the page file on a separate partition on the same HDD won't change performance.

In case you don't have enough RAM in your machine, manipulating the page file really won't help too much. Better idea is to get more RAM.

 

[Nothinman]

Generally it's safer to allow Windows to manage it.If you have a decent amount of memory (>256M) you'll rarely page to disk anyway so the initial size Windows sets (equal to the amount of physical memory IIRC) will be more than enough and if it does have to expand the pagefile it's better to wait a few extra seconds for that to happen than to just run out of memory and have the application fail.

 

[brandonm]

If you define a dedicated page file to use only, for example, 512MB, that is better than allowing Windows to manage your page file. By dedicated, I mean setting the minimum size to 512MB and the maximum size to 512MB. If Windows manages your page file, the size of it will vary, depending on how much Windows needs to use. This causes fragmentation on your drive, which tends to slow disk read access for the entire drive.

It is recommended that you at least set the page file to 2.5x the amount of RAM. 128MB RAM x 2.5=320MB page file. But as mentioned above, more doesn't hurt, if you have the disk space available. Don't make it too large though. The more physical RAM you have installed, the less paging is required.

 

[hk10Mbps]

After the explaination of brandonm, I'm now realize that fragmentation will occur if let windows to manage it.

I just read an amazing page about page file, go here

 

[Nothinman]

If Windows manages your page file, the size of it will vary, depending on how much Windows needs to use.

Wrong. The pagefile only shrinks on reboots, it may grow if you need more swap space, but it'll never shrink. And the initial size is either what you set it at (if you set the min/max at different values) or the size of your memory so even then it rarely has to grow unless you're really tight on memory.

 

[brandonm]

Nothinman-That is correct. The file size will not shrink. I guess vary was the wrong term to use. What I meant by vary is that it can only get larger, depending on what Windows needs to use.

JED... is that you????

...nevermind, it has to be you. I checked your rigs. It would have to be one hell of a coincidence there is someone else that uses Nothinman that has an Alpha, a SPARC and a Dell notebook and on top of that posts a link to debian.org.

 

[Nothinman]

I guess vary was the wrong term to use. What I meant by vary is that it can only get larger, depending on what Windows needs to use.

The growing/fragmentation probably won't hurt performance much because you're already doing more disk I/O because you're low on memory and since the pagefile isn't accessed sequentially any fragmentation won't be noticable either.

I personally set my min/max the same because I know about how much memory I'll be using and I usually have more than enough physical memory to handle the load. But if you're unsure, letting Windows manage it is safer because you'd probably rather deal with a little decrease in performance than have the app fail because it can't allocate any more memory because the pagefile is full.

 

[brandonm]

You know what, I don't like your attitude. I rated you a 1...f'in hippie.