by
genevh » Wed Dec 10, 2008 9:27 pm
Arrgh...I just realized I never reset my paging file size after installing more RAM!!
And MS recommends at least 1.5X installed memory for the minimum paging file size. More is OK, but you don't want to eat up too much of your hard drive with it either.
XP recommendations and how to set it are
here.
Vista recommended settings are a bit different. They recommend the minimum page file at RAM + 300 Meg and the max at 3X the installed amount of RAM. So if you have 2G of RAM, your minimum should be set at 2.3G, and the max to 6G. You can find that information
here.
More doesn't hurt, as long as you meet the minimums. Mine wasn't at minimum the last few months!!! It might explain some of the slow downs I've been seeing, but I haven't been getting any memory errors. Just lucky I guess, but when I check how much is actually being used, I rarely see the installed RAM coming close to being exceeded.
MS also recommends keeping the virtual memory on a different HD than the OS is installed.
Another tip: in order to keep your virtual memory space on your HD from becoming fragmented, set your minimum and maximum values the same. That way, that amount of space will always be set aside by your OS instead of growing and shrinking as needed, which can cause the fragmentation.