Jon said:
Personally, I set the min and max to the same size (1.5 x RAM);
because this keeps it from being fragmented. Remember to go and
change it if you add more memory.
I'd just set it to a gig and leave it at that, regardless of whether you add
more memory down the line. I have 512MB and a 1GB pagefile. If (read:
'when') I add more RAM my pagefile will stay the same size.
It's best to disable vitual memory first, reboot if it tells you to, then
defrag. *Then* set up your pagefile min and max the same. That way, with any
luck, it'll be one contigous file. If you don't do the defrag stage (without
VM enabled) it'll just allocate the space as it finds it, which could be all
over the drive. Also, ideally, this shold be done immediately after initial
install of the OS, before installation of applications, as then the pagefile
will be closer to the beginning of the drive (inside of the platters) and
this is the fastest portion of the drive. However, I'm not sure if you'd
notice the difference, it's the ideal situation and it's the way I do it on
new installs. However, when I 'fine-tune' existing installs I just go ahead
and do what I've listed above.
There is no point on having it on a seperate partition. The only advantage
would be that you could format the pagefile partition using FAT32 as it's
faster than NTFS (I used to do this) but then the HDD heads have to travel
further to get to the pagefile partition (from the OS partition) which
offsets the advantage. I tried making a 1GB Fat 32 partition first
(pre-install) so it was on the fastest part of the drive and more likely to
be close to the OS files once but then XP insisted on calling that C:
partition and the OS went on D: partition. Call me old fashioned but I like
my OS on C:. <g>.
Also, you can't use the whole partition, only about 95% of it. (Don't ask me
why, ask MS). Then, sometimes, XP has the annoying habit of telling you
periodically that the 'drive' (partition) is full and to delete some files
to free up space. PITA.
The ideal situation would be a FAT32 partition on a different physical
drive, of equal or faster speed to the OS drive, on a different IDE channel.
However, I doubt you'd notice the difference to the first described,
simplest method.
As you can tell, I've spent some time trying to optimise some slow machines.
