What is the Page File for anyway?

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What is the Page File for anyway?

Carpe Diem: Flaphead.com @ Home — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 12:58:25 GMT

Every day is a school day, and this make some light reading for a Monday Morning. Time to start up perfmon

re: What is the Page File for anyway?

Ben — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 19:01:37 GMT

Can you explain the difference between 'VM Size' and 'Mem Usage' as it is displayed in Windows 2003 Task Manager (Processes Tab)?

re: What is the Page File for anyway?

Glenn Berry — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 20:05:05 GMT

Nice, informative post. Keep up the good work!

re: What is the Page File for anyway?

andlommy — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 12:42:34 GMT

Great post. Can we have a "part 2" of this with more on "when can we disable page file", "is it used by kernel...ever?", "why do we need page file to create a crash dump", "Why C drive? or why not?"

Thanks :)

re: What is the Page File for anyway?

Ivan Petrov — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 01:38:38 GMT

Hi,

How many page files we must have to be sure that we have the best possible performance?:

I mean, for example, if we have 2 Hard Disk Drive, does that mean that we must have 2 page files on each drive, and where we must put them? - on the first partition or near it on every HDD or where, to achieve best performance?

Thank you in advance!

With best regards,

Ivan Petrov.

re: What is the Page File for anyway?

Bob — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:05:20 GMT

A very good post. Something I've searched for a long time.

I would also like to see a PART 2 story. I could use some more background info on large files on x86 PAE systems.

re: What is the Page File for anyway?

Nicolaj Rasmussen — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:46:14 GMT

Thanks for a informative post. During a case we had with Microsoft Product Support about W2K3 terminal server performance, we was told that they recommended to use System Managed Size (we was running with a fixed pagefile on 1.5 x 8gb RAM = 12 gb pagefile).

Does this only apply to terminal servers - or do you not agree with what we was told then?

Thanks,

Nicolaj

re: What is the Page File for anyway?

CC Hameed — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:21:29 GMT

Nicolaj -

I would disagree with leaving a dynamically sizing page file on the servers as the effects of the page file constantly growing / shrinking could cause adverse affects due to file / disk fragmentation.

In the post, we provided a means to figure out how to size your pagefile - if you are not planning to increase server load in the short-term, I would strongly recommend getting some performance monitoring data set up to determine what the page file should be set at. The guideline we provided indicates that you should start with 1.5x RAM and then use the Perfmon data to determine the correct sizing.

Ultimately, as the administrator, you will understand your server roles / load the best. Performance monitoring and tuning is an ongoing activity - especially as the role of the server changes, new applications are added, new users etc.

Hope this helps!

- CC Hameed

re: What is the Page File for anyway?

Jim — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 23:24:47 GMT

This helped out tremendously! I now understand what that darn file is used for. On top of that, I also found out Disk Keeper's defrag program is a piece of junk. I have 40% total fragmentation and 75% of that being files.

Disk Fragmentation and System Performance

Microsoft Product's — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 22:38:50 GMT

When addressing system performance issues, a key element that is often overlooked is Disk Fragmentation

re: What is the Page File for anyway?

Stephen Dambra — Mon, 19 May 2008 18:45:25 GMT

Defrag, Defrag, Defrag!

You missed the most important thing about Defrag.

Startup in SAFE MODE!

Less VXD's and Less O/S files opened = fewer im-moveable files.

Gives you a more contigious data arrangement and more contigious fee space or available space for PAGEFILE.SYS

re: What is the Page File for anyway?

Daniel Ogden — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 01:34:21 GMT

The way to avoid fragmentation is to use a separate partition that only has the page file on it. If you really want to increase your page file speed, create use a striped partition on two or more separate disks.

re: What is the Page File for anyway?

Jim Lawhon — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:15:51 GMT

How would you size a page-file for this?

DL785, 128GB ram, 4 procs, 16 cores.

SQL 2005 (reporting server)

Clustered with an identical system in an active/active cluster.

re: What is the Page File for anyway?

Jim Lawhon — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:28:21 GMT

Left this out... 2 instances, performing ETL/DW type functions. OS is x64, Enterprise...

re: What is the Page File for anyway?

carol goodman — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 19:40:05 GMT

i have a windows 2000 and my virtual memory is too low, and can not figure how to fix it by what i have read. please help, someone.

re: What is the Page File for anyway?

Rimjhim — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:16:04 GMT

Very good and informative article... i have read a lot of articles but none as clear on page files as this... Thanks

re: What is the Page File for anyway?

Tim Walsh — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:17:01 GMT

Good post, one of the areas I've heard argued over the years is where the page file should be stored and why. The first arguement is that the page file should be on a different hard drive or spindle from the OS for best performance of both, and the second is that the page file, at least 1.5 system memory should be on the boot drive with the OS to ensure that on a system crash a valid dump file can be obtained. What's the current thinking and is it different depending on the OS?

re: What is the Page File for anyway?

timothyn — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:19:22 GMT

Responding to Tim Walsh, the answser is: it depends. Placing a pagefile (or pagefiles) on a separate physical disk (or disks) from the OS potentially can yield better performance, but that really depends on what the disks do. We have seen plenty of cases where having the pagefile on C: contributed to OS performance issues of one kind or another, especially in a case where the pagefile was having to grow while the system was under load. Conversely, you are right on your second point also. In order to catch a full memory dump in the event of a bugcheck does require you have a pagefile on C: that is at least as large as your physical RAM amount. However, you can get by with a much smaller pagefile on C: under most circumstances, since in most bugcheck scenarios a simple kernel dump is sufficient to debug the issue and a full dump is not generally needed.

re: What is the Page File for anyway?

Dennis — Wed, 27 May 2009 02:18:44 GMT

Hi I try to run disk fragmenter and when I do either the analyzer or fragmenter it just says Disk fragmenter could not start. Any help .

den4444@embarqmail.com