pagefile - does windows choose the best?

[tori]

Hi,

I use:

WINXP SP2

P3 866
1GB SDRAM
20GB ide HD 5400 rpm

Windows choose to make the pagefile 1.5 times the Ram
In my case 1.5GB

I usually use the machine for web browsing and office applications.

My question is whether it is really necessary to use this amount of memory on disk while I see that more of half of the ram is free?

The HD is "lazy" IDE 5400 rpm , doesn't it make the whole system slower because of it?

If I will not use a pagefile or make it much smaller' maybe it spends less time on HD and make the processes on the machine faster?

[Dani]

AFAIK, Windows will use RAM as much as it can before resorting to the pagefile. Shrinking the pagefile won't force it into using more RAM instead. It's just the way Windows works to always use some of the pagefile for I'm not sure what.

[DimaYasny]

1.5 times the RAM is the normal PF size for both windows and *nix. In wondows though, it's not really used-up space on the HD unless the computers runs out of RAM to use. Dynamic allocation's the correct word here. So it is only recommended to keep those 1.5Gb free on your HD, if the computer doesn't use up all RAM, the PF will stay minimal

[tori]

As I understood from your answers :
windows first use the ram only than the pagefile.
But, from the begining the page file is already 1.5GB, althogh thr ram Is 1GB.
How can it be? just uploding windows on the computer without any more applications and alredy so big?
From here I assume that it is starting such big,

[Dani]

I think you're confusing how big the pagefile is with how much space is reserved for it to grow to.

[tori]

ok
so I leave it to the system to choose.

I think It chose 1.5GB to 3GB as default

hope this will be the best way it will not accsess the hard drive very much (because this is a slow HD)

Thanks