Manage Computer Memory

To Manage Computer Memory

When your computer is running low on RAM and more is needed immediately, Windows useshard drive space to simulate system RAM. This is known as virtual memory, and is oftencalled the paging file. This is similar to the UNIX swapfile. The default size of thevirtual memory paging file (named pagefile.sys) created during installation is 1.5 times the amount of RAM on your computer.

You can optimize virtual memory use by dividing the space between multiple drives andremoving it from slow or heavily accessed drives. To best optimize your virtual memoryspace, divide it among as many physical hard drives as possible. When you select drives,keep the following guidelines in mind:

Try to avoid having a paging file on the same drive as the system files.

Avoid putting a paging file on a fault-tolerant drive, such as a mirrored volume or aRAID-5 volume. Paging files do not need fault-tolerance, and some fault-tolerant systems suffer from slow data writes because they write data to multiple locations. Do not place multiple paging files on different partitions on the same physical disk drive.

To Change the Size of the Virtual Memory Paging File

You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the Administrators group inorder to complete this procedure. If your computer is connected to a network, network policy settings may also prevent you from completing this procedure.

• Click Start, click Control Panel, click Performance and Maintenance, and then click System.
• Click the Advanced tab, and then click Settings under Performance.
• Click the Advanced tab, and then click Change under Virtual memory.
• Under Drive [Volume Label], click the drive that contains the paging file you want to change.

Under Paging file size for selected drive, click Custom size, type a new paging file size in megabytes (MB) in the Initial size (MB) or Maximum size (MB) box, and then click Set.

If you decrease the size of either the initial or maximum paging file settings, you must restart your computer to see the effects of those changes. When you increase the paging file size, you typically do not need to restart your computer.

To have Windows choose the best paging file size, click System managed size. The recommended minimum size is equivalent to 1.5 times the amount of RAM on your system, and 3 times that figure for the maximum size. Example, if you have 256 MB of RAM, the minimum size would be 384; the maximum size would be 1152.

For best performance, do not set the initial size to less than the minimum recommended size under Total paging file size for all drives. The recommended size is equivalent to 1.5 times the amount of RAM on your system. Usually, you should leave the paging file at its recommended size, although you might increase its size if you routinely use programs that require a lot of memory.

To delete a paging file:

· Set both initial size and maximum size to zero, or click No paging file. Microsoft strongly recommends that you do not disable or delete the paging file.