Server 2003 Pagefile Size

[Ivan_Gluscic]

Hi folks,

I know this question may be a bit simple but I can't seem to find an authoritative answer. When creating a Server 2003 pagefile, some of my colleagues aim to improve performance by moving it to a different "drive", which in reality is just another array on the same Smart Array controller. I thought moving the pagefile to another drive was a throwback to PCs where IDE0 and IDE1 had their own drive controllers... or should we just be letting the system manage the pagefile itself?

Thoughts and comments would be greatly appreciated.

[Roger Faucher]

Hi Ivan:

Here's a starting point:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/197379

If the paging file is not on its own dedicated volume, I like to set MIN and MAX to the same value to minimize fragmentation.

Make a great day!

Roger

[Roger Faucher]

Ivan:

For 64-bit, things get more complicated. This should give you some ideas:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/889654/en-us

Roger

[Jon Finley · Accepted solution]

It really comes down to how to reduce IO on a single disk.

If you can move the IO to another disk away from the disk already receiving most of the IO, you will have better preformance.

If your disk aray is hardware striped, it won't matter where you move it to, the IO will be spread across all of the disks.

If you are set up with sepperate physical disks (example system disk and a data disk, and the server is running Oracle/SQL, etc.) then place the fixed sized swap file (Roger got that one) on the disk with the lighter load.

I'm using swap/pagefile as the same thing here. Pagefile size should be 1.5-2 times physical memory depending on your applications.

Jon

[ChuckB]

This might be simple to answer or advise. I have a 64bit Exchange server running 2003SVR R2 SP2. I have a Mirror array for the O/S and Raid 5 for Exchange DB's. What would be recommened to enhance performance?

I feel I am excessivly paging. When I check task monitor PF Usage is sometimes over 6GB, currently at 3.77GB is that high for only 4GB of RAM. I am pretty novice with Page Files. Thanks much!!

[Jon Finley]

Exchange is more specialized in nature, and requires a higher level of understanding to approach performance tuning properly. That said, here's some sites that should help.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124129(EXCHG.65).aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb125079.aspx

http://searchexchange.techtarget.com/generic/0,295582,sid43_gci1107302,00.html

Jon

[ChuckB]

Thanks I will surely check out those links. I wish I could just know if that PF usage is normal to be that high. On my other two servers it's no where near that high of use, but then again they are only 32bit so not sure if that makes a difference. Thanks for the linke!

[Jon Finley]

This link "should" address your question more directly, on WHAT is an accepable level.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/889654

Jon

[Roger Faucher]

On a 32-bit Windows Server 2003 system with 4GB of RAM, I routinely set the swap/paging file to 8GB (8192MB).

Make a great day!

Roger