Admin Tips
- Windows Server 2008/2003/2000/XP/NT Administrator Knowledge Base
  - Windows 2000
    - Admin Tips
      - Miscellaneous
        Use a Larger Pagefile for Better Performance

Section(s): Admin , Miscellaneous, Miscellaneous
Published on Mar 24, 2005.
Last Modified on Mar 24, 2005.
Last Modified by Mitch Tulloch.
Rated 3.3 out of 5 based on 10 votes.

The default pagefile size isn't always enough for best performance, especially when you're running memory-hungry server apps.

While the default setting of 1.5 x RAM is sufficient for pagefile size for some server roles, if your machine is running disk- and memory-intensive applications like Exchange or SQL Server then you may want to increase the initial pagefile size to 2 x RAM or even larger. Microsoft doesn't recommend increasing the pagefile to more than 3 x RAM, however, and the maximum allowed size for any one instance of pagefile.sys on a machine is limited to 4GB. So, if you have a powerful machine with 4GB of RAM then you have to split the pagefile to overcome this limit. This splitting can be done in two ways: create separate pagefiles on different volumes (done in the usual way) or create multiple pagefiles on a single volume. (See KB 237740 for how to do this.) On a more modest machine with 1GB of RAM though, you would probably be best served to set the initial pagefile size to 2GB (2 x RAM) and the maximum pagefile size to 3GB (3 x RAM).

About Mitch Tulloch

Mitch Tulloch was lead author for the Windows Vista Resource Kit from Microsoft Press, which is the book for IT pros who want to deploy, maintain and support Windows Vista in mid- and large-sized network environments. Mitch was also the author of Introducing Windows Server 2008 and technical project lead for the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Resource Kit, both books also from Microsoft Press. For more information on these and other books by Mitch, see www.mtit.com .