Physically Setting the Page File Size

Once the optimal page file settings have been determined, setting them is easily accomplished via the Virtual Memory property sheet shown below, opened as follows:

[Start] right click [My Computer] click [Properties]
Click [Advanced] tab then click [Settings] in the [Performance] section
Click the [Advanced] tab and then click [Change] under the [Virtual Memory] section

This computer contains four hard drives C,D,F,G with E being a partition on drive D and a custom size page file with an initial size of 1152MB and a maximum size of 2304MB on drive D. The operating system is located on the C drive. As discussed previously, if drives D,F, and G weren't present the paging file would be located on drive C; the XP default during the installation process. This machine has 756MB of RAM installed, so 1.5 times the 756 is 1152MB or approximately what is shown as the recommended size for the paging file. Rather than just shifting the entire paging file to drive D as I did here, it could have been evenly distributed across drives D,F,and G. But drives F and G contain files that are accessed and updated frequently while D is only used for archiving, so I opted for placing the paging file on D. Each situation is different and you'll have to analyze your hardware and usage patterns to determine the best solution. Once you've determined the most efficient usage solution, enter the values for each drive, clicking [Set] after each drive is configured followed by [OK] and a reboot to activate the changes.

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