Page File usage with plenty of RAM to spare
This particular server is running Windows Server 2003. This server is accessed daily by 30 or so users, and is loaded with 6 gigs of RAM. The thing that puzzles me is that the task manager tells me that I have around 3 gigs of physical RAM available, but it still uses the page file, and lots of it. I have the page file set to around 13 gigs, and at times, task manager will say that 4-5 gigs is being used. This concerns me, as I believe it may have a negative effect on the performance of this server. Would it be best to completely eliminate the page file, or is there a misconfigured parameter that tells the machine to access the PF instead of the RAM? Thanks
It's default windows behavior. It always uses the pagefile no matter how much extra RAM there is.
ASKER
Just to clarify, this server is running 2k3 Enterprise, so it should in theory be able to address up to 32 GB of RAM.
Is the high use of the page file detrimental to the performance of this server?
Is the high use of the page file detrimental to the performance of this server?
Also removing the Page file completly will have adverse affects. To be able to do crash dumps requires the page file to exist and be located on the C: drive. Although crash dumps don't work so well when memory goes over 4GB.
Generally M$ tells you to use 1.5*RAM. For the most part that is good, but for systems with LOTS of RAM and applications like SQL that eat RAM and big page file will just look like more RAM for SQL and you start paging. So you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.
Microsofts standard answer, this is by design.
Generally M$ tells you to use 1.5*RAM. For the most part that is good, but for systems with LOTS of RAM and applications like SQL that eat RAM and big page file will just look like more RAM for SQL and you start paging. So you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.
Microsofts standard answer, this is by design.
On C you only need a small pagefile (64MB should be enough as long as you set the system for minidumps and not the full dumps. minidumps are enough). Use another disk for the pagefile. As long as it isn't fragmented paging should not affect system speed.
ASKER
Most of the page file is split between two other hard drives. I believe C is set to have an 8 GB page, so based on what you are saying, this is way too big? For the record, I have 13GB on one drive and 13GB on another.
I try to make the make the page file on C as small as possible. But this is often a personal choice.
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