Multiple page files?

[Vistrix]

I have a few partitions but only 1 pagefile on C:/

Would it be beneficial to have another page file on a separate partition? (also a seperate hard drive).

[Big B-man]

Depends. If another drive is faster than your current one, having part of the page file on it wouldn't hurt. However, I don't recall there being benefits to having it on another partition on the same hard drive.

[oralpain]

Zero benifit form having more than one on the same drive. In fact it would probably slow things down a bit.

Spreading your pagefile across multiple fast drives can give a slight improvement, it's like RAID 0 for the pagefile.

[Mjölnir]

Windows uses the paging file on the partition with the least activity. Having a paging file on another partition on the same hard drive as Windows would slow it down unless that partition was a dedicated paging file partition at the front of the drive. Adding a paging file to another partition on a different hard drive is likely to deliver slightly better performance on the proviso that the other hard drive(s) are the same speed as, or faster than the Windows drive.

One of MS's recommended setups is having paging files on multiple drives (one per drive).

[Pilfer69]

Yep, I have one on each drive as well.

[Vistrix]

Ok so I have 2 drives. I use to have 1 page file on the Windows drive (4096mb).

Ive just split it so that its 2048mb on 1 drive, and 2048mb on the other.

Does that sound right?

[BWM]

Ok so I have 2 drives. I use to have 1 page file on the Windows drive (4096mb).

Ive just split it so that its 2048mb on 1 drive, and 2048mb on the other.

Does that sound right?

You can't split the page file between two drives. But you can make windows maintain the same page file on two separate drives. Windoze will then use the one on whichever drive is the least busy.

[Vistrix]

You can't split the page file between two drives. But you can make windows maintain the same page file on two separate drives. Windoze will then use the one on whichever drive is the least busy.

That would be 2 seperate page files though wouldnt it?

[BWM]

Correct.

[RatboyX]

That would be 2 seperate page files though wouldnt it?

Yes but the difference is that windows will use one or the other not both. So if you cut the size in half instead of using the same size on both you may have hurt your performance more than helped it.

[Mjölnir]

Cutting the size of the paging file won't affect Windows' dependence on it. Increasing System RAM or reducing the number of processes that consume RAM will.

Depending on hard drive activity, Windows will use the one on whichever partition has the least activity, so if your Windows partition is busy, it'll use a paging file on a different partition. If that partition is busier than the one on the Windows partition, it'll use the Windows partition paging file. So it may well use both. The idea is to distribute the load.

That said, it's unlikely that you'll need more than 2GB per paging file, so what you have set up at the moment should be fine, provided that they are on seperate physical drives and the second drive is as fast or faster than the drive that Windows is on.