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    Help needed with Pagefile and 2 HD's

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by Tecktonik, Aug 20, 2009.

  1. Tecktonik

    Tecktonik Notebook Guru

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    hello all!

    i have 2 physical hard drives of the same speed in my pc. i heard something about moving the page file to the second hard drive to make your pc faster. is this true? and how do you do this? im running a vista home x64.

    thanks for the help. really appreciate it :)
     
    Tecktonik, Aug 20, 2009
    #1
  2. qhn

    qhn Notebook User

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    Taking that the main OS is running on one drive, you can open up Control Panel->System->Advanced System Settings->Performance Settings->Advanced (in Performance Options)

    There you can change where the virtual memory resides.

    cheers ...
     
    qhn, Aug 21, 2009
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  3. Tecktonik

    Tecktonik Notebook Guru

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    correct. my vista is only on the c partition, the other physical disk is just miscellaeous stuff like movies and media.

    i found what you are talking about but have no clue what to change the numbers n stuff too. help me? :)

    i have 4 gb of ram

    [​IMG]

    I think i am going to need a step by step. i cancel page file on C drive? then enable on D drive? keep number same or diff?
     
    Tecktonik, Aug 21, 2009
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  4. Lanaya

    Lanaya Templar Assassin

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    Change the Paging file on drive C:\ to No Paging file (option near the bottom) click the next drive, click Custom Paging file, and use 1024 to 2048. Click set, and then ok Apply those changes. iirc, 64bit OS won't require a reboot to apply the changes, I could be wrong though.
     
    Lanaya, Aug 21, 2009
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  5. qhn

    qhn Notebook User

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    as EIment mentioned, you can also just let the system determines the size of the page file for you, instead of customizing it.

    cheers ...
     
    qhn, Aug 21, 2009
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  6. Tecktonik

    Tecktonik Notebook Guru

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    ok thank you guys i did it, however i do not notice any improvement at all
     
    Tecktonik, Aug 22, 2009
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  7. gerryf19

    gerryf19 I am the walrus

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    ....and you won't, not really.

    Moving the pagefile to the second drive benefits you because it helps ensure the pagefile does not become fragmented.

    Since you have 4gbs of RAM, it is unlikely you are swaping pages (of memory) out to the pagefile most of the time anyway.

    FWIW, always let Windows manage the pagefile size...there is no magic formula and 98.6 percent of the time Windows will do it better than you do.
     
    gerryf19, Aug 22, 2009
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  8. jackluo923

    jackluo923 Notebook Virtuoso

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    Yup, but there's an even faster option.

    Create page file on both drives. Windows will page to whichever hdd that is less stressed thus improving the performance.
     
    jackluo923, Aug 22, 2009
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  9. qhn

    qhn Notebook User

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    Nope - this would only save the system a few millisecond for the hardware controller to jump back and forth in a presence of multiple drives, it has nothing to do with Windows is smart enough to "know" which drive is not being stressed out!

    The traditional of putting a page-file on a non-OS drive is still hold true in many OS versions.

    cheers ...
     
    qhn, Aug 23, 2009
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  10. Jasp

    Jasp Notebook Evangelist

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    I also run two pagefiles, both set to four gig, personally not noticed any difference at all lol.
     
    Jasp, Aug 23, 2009
    #10