Hello. I'm running Windows server 2003, with Exchange on the same server,
for a relatively small company (18 users) that the company I work for just
acquired. I know that is not an ideal situation, but it's what I've
inherited to deal with.

Does it seem "normal" that I have a 2 GB pagefile.sys file? Or, does that
seem like something is wrong?

Thank You,
J

Your pagefile is relative to how much physical memory you have. How much RAM
do you have?


"J" <J@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:63030EC2-E7C4-4955-82E8-95EDECBBEE57@microsoft.com...

Allen,
I have 2 GB of RAM.
Thanks,
J

"Allen" wrote:

The pagefile.sys and your physical memory combined makes up the virtual
memory that can be used by your system. Now I'm sure you are going to get
different opinions on how large the pagefile.sys file should be. Most people
go with the physical RAM as the minimum and set the maximum to 1.5 to 2
times the physical. So yes you are ok. You can grow the maximum to the 2
times if you feel it is necessary. Do a Google on pagefile.sys and you will
see quite a few recommendations.


"J" <J@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:825F8315-091B-45D2-8240-E75F82B17F4E@microsoft.com...

Allen,
This is very helpful info. Thank you for your prompt reply.
Sincerely,
J

"Allen" wrote:

Your welocmed. Glad to be of assistance.

"J" <J@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:9FCD06A9-6C9A-4B68-85EC-2FEABB1652F0@microsoft.com...

Well I disagree on this fully.

If you already have 2GB of RAM, why do you need to create another 2 x 1.5 =
3GB of Virtual memory? This means you will have a total of 5GB of available
RAM for usage.

On deciding the amount of virual memory, you should consider what the server
will be doing. Will it be using tons of memory for its work?

If you create the virtual memory too large, the hard disk performance will
slow down and caching of the files to the virual memory to and back the
physical memory will also slow down, thus decreasing performance hugely.

Usually there's no point in creating a large VM if you have big physical
memory.

--
Jabez Gan [MVP]
Microsoft MVP: Windows Server
http://www.blizhosting.com
MSBLOG: http://msblog.resdev.net


"Allen" <allen.miyake@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:eHxjLkHTGHA.4608@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...

Nobody "told" her to increase her pagefile.sys to 1.5 to 2 times. It was an
explaination to shed some light on how the pagefile can be configured and
how it works combined with the physical memory in relating to how virtual
memory works. Please reread my posting before jumping the gun that I suggest
she do this.


"Jabez Gan [MVP]" <mingteikg@blizNOSPAMhosting.com> wrote in message
news:ugA$fhKTGHA.4752@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...

1.5 - 2x RAM is a standard pagefile allocation. It is a bad idea to have a
smaller pagefile than you installed RAM.

Other pagefile best practices:

1. If possible, move the pagefile off the OS partition to another physical
disk. If you have one physical disk with C and D partitions, for example,
then you won't gain any performance benefit from moving the pagefile to D
because you are on the same platters. However, you might want to move it to
D anyway, since you'll likely have more free space there.

2. If you have fast disk, like a RAID-10 or RAID 0 volume, make sure the
pagefile is on the fast disk.

3. Personal recommendation - not necessarily universally accepted, is to
make the size of the pagefile fixed. In other words, don't specify a
minimum and maximum size, set both values the same, and make sure you
allocate enough pagefile to start with. This prevents Windows from
dynamically expanding the pagefile, which is a performance hindrance.
"Jabez Gan [MVP]" <mingteikg@blizNOSPAMhosting.com> wrote in message
news:ugA$fhKTGHA.4752@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...