Page file
- Thread starter dave1701
- Start date
I can't say I've specifically seen a speed increase, but I stuck my paging file for my desktop on a secondary hard drive for supposed better results and more space on C:\
TrainTrackHack
VIP Member
It depends. Since the primary drive is usually more actively used, it does make sense, but it really wouldn't make any difference unless your primary drive is heavily used AND you're constantly swapping stuff in and out, but at that point the performance is going to be very close to (if not) unacceptable anyway and you'd be in a dire need of more memory. However, it isn't hard to do and if your other drive is used mainly for storage, you could give it a go.
I have a small 3 gig Partition on the front of a second Hard Drive for the page file. I have been doing this for the last 11 to 12 years, but can't say there is a noticeable difference.
One thing though I have never had a Defrag get hung up because of the Page file being on the Windows Drive.
One thing though I have never had a Defrag get hung up because of the Page file being on the Windows Drive.
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It's largely theoretical.
In order to realize any speed gain, you would have to put the swap drive (that's what the page file actually is) on the second IDE channel. I have done this before, but I have not measured performance.
That is, if you are using IDE drives. Since SATA channels come one device per channel, it wouldn't really matter which channel the swap drive went on.
In order to realize any speed gain, you would have to put the swap drive (that's what the page file actually is) on the second IDE channel. I have done this before, but I have not measured performance.
That is, if you are using IDE drives. Since SATA channels come one device per channel, it wouldn't really matter which channel the swap drive went on.
S.T.A.R.S.
banned
No matter how much PF you use,it will NEVER be fast as real RAM chip(s) (hardware).Not even close.PF is simply used to enable your programs to just RUN so they do not crash in the case if they run out of system REAL RAM memory.
Unless Microsoft has made a significant change in Win 7, the page file is still a necessary evil-- no matter how much RAM you have, Win will still be moving data in and out of swap. Of course, if you have too little RAM, then your system will be slow as hell swapping data back and forth all the time, but even with plenty of empty space, you'll find Win is still accessing the Page File.
S.T.A.R.S.
banned
Yea that's true.They probably made it that way so that those things which are almost never used go to the PF in order to leave more free REAL RAM memory for the things users do/use in order for that to work faster.
By the way PF usage on my 15 years old PC is almost always 1 GB minimum lol.Still I can't complain since everything works great and stable.
I'll tell you one thing.I would NEVER give/trade or sale that old PC to anyone even for 10000 dollars.
Cheers!
Yea that's true.They probably made it that way so that those things which are almost never used go to the PF in order to leave more free REAL RAM memory for the things users do/use in order for that to work faster.
By the way PF usage on my 15 years old PC is almost always 1 GB minimum lol.Still I can't complain since everything works great and stable.
I'll tell you one thing.I would NEVER give/trade or sale that old PC to anyone even for 10000 dollars.
Cheers!
Of course, if you had a small SSD on a SATA channel for a swap drive, things would be somewhat faster... that would be an interesting experiment to see just exactly how long an SSD could last, no?
If you find it evil then you can just disable it. Windows doesn't require it to be enabled.
S.T.A.R.S.
banned
TrainTrackHack
VIP Member
It should be enabled, though. Applications commonly allocate themselves more memory than they will actually use, and Windows always commits the memory that applications allocate, so you might end up running out of memory even though not all of the memory is even used.
You go ahead and try... let me know how it works out for you. If you try to turn off Page File or set its size to zero in XP, the OS has a conniption.
If you disable it, you will just end up with a lower commit limit. The OS will continue to run just fine, as long you are not running out of memory.
S.T.A.R.S.
banned
LoL only a fool would completely disable PF 
I always set mine to 4096 MB,but I guess that's just me lol
I always set mine to 4096 MB,but I guess that's just me lol
S.T.A.R.S.
banned
Yea that's true and I agree.If you have a lot of RAM,but use the computer to just perform these simple tasks then PF is not neccessary.
But I know some people who have less than 1 GB of RAM (usually 512 MB),they disable PF because they think it will work faster and they play games like nuts and after a minute their entire system crashes.No wonder when they have tons of programs running and play games which require more than 1 GB of RAM to work lol.
wolfeking
banned
yea, I .see a need for it in a case like that. I have a 2GB or bigger pagefile on my business lappy that only has 768 MB of DDR, and it works fine. But in a case where you have enough RAM to run everything, then it is faster to use RAM than to rely on pagefile on a 5400 RPM HDD.
On a SATA 3 SSD, the difference would probably be minimal though, but those computers are DDR3, so it would be a lot faster than the DDR2-667 that I am using here and the difference is probably noticeable then.
On a SATA 3 SSD, the difference would probably be minimal though, but those computers are DDR3, so it would be a lot faster than the DDR2-667 that I am using here and the difference is probably noticeable then.
