Posted by Unknown | Posted in Windows | Posted on 12:18 PM
Why Not 2.5 x RAM?
Back in the Windows 3.1 days, computers only came with 4MB or 8MB of RAM. 16MB of RAM was considered a luxury in those days. I remember running Windows 3.1 on an Intel i386SX-16 machine with just 4MB of RAM!
Because RAM in those days was horrendously expensive and only a limited amount of it was available in most systems, a relatively large swapfile was needed. A swapfile size of 2.5 times the system RAM wasn't a lot, considering the fact that most systems came with only 4MB or 8MB of RAM. That would only amount to a swapfile size of 10MB to 20MB, which enabled most systems to run Windows 3.1 applications comfortably.
But today, most computers come with at least 512MB of RAM and many have 1GB of RAM! If the 2.5X rule was applied, that would result in "optimal" paging file sizes of 1.28GB to 2.5GB! That doesn't make sense at all.
The purpose of buying more memory is to prevent the system from using the slower virtual memory. The more memory you buy, the less you need to use virtual memory. It doesn't make sense to increase the paging file size every time you increase the amount of RAM in your system!
Imagine if you have follow the rule when you upgrade to 2GB of RAM in the future... You would have to create a 5GB paging file! That's ridiculous.
The amount of hard disk space you dedicate to a paging file should depend on the amount of RAM you need to use, NOT the amount of RAM you have. The 2.5 x system RAM rule was flawed from the beginning and it is certainly not applicable today.
Do not use the 2.5 x system RAM rule to determine the size of your paging file. Instead, you should first gauge how much virtual memory is actually needed by the system during the heaviest memory load. Then use your finding to set the most appropriate paging file size for your system.
But You Require A Huge Paging File For A Memory Dump!
There are people who actually believe in increasing the size of the paging file following an increase in system memory. That certainly goes against what we have been recommending, doesn't it? The reason is simple.
Whenever Windows crashes, it first writes the memory contents to the paging file. After the computer is restarted, Windows will create a memory dump file using the memory contents stored in the paging file. This memory dump file is used to analyze the cause of the crash.
However, for a complete memory dump to created, the paging file size should be large enough to store all the contents of the system memory. That's why the paging file size has to meet this equation :-
Paging file size = Physical memory in the system + 1MB
So, if you have 1024MB of memory, the paging file size should be 1025MB in size for a complete memory dump to be created successfully.
However, this does not mean you should increase the size of your paging file according to the amount of system memory. Why not? Let's find out.
Back in the Windows 3.1 days, computers only came with 4MB or 8MB of RAM. 16MB of RAM was considered a luxury in those days. I remember running Windows 3.1 on an Intel i386SX-16 machine with just 4MB of RAM!
Because RAM in those days was horrendously expensive and only a limited amount of it was available in most systems, a relatively large swapfile was needed. A swapfile size of 2.5 times the system RAM wasn't a lot, considering the fact that most systems came with only 4MB or 8MB of RAM. That would only amount to a swapfile size of 10MB to 20MB, which enabled most systems to run Windows 3.1 applications comfortably.
But today, most computers come with at least 512MB of RAM and many have 1GB of RAM! If the 2.5X rule was applied, that would result in "optimal" paging file sizes of 1.28GB to 2.5GB! That doesn't make sense at all.
The purpose of buying more memory is to prevent the system from using the slower virtual memory. The more memory you buy, the less you need to use virtual memory. It doesn't make sense to increase the paging file size every time you increase the amount of RAM in your system!
Imagine if you have follow the rule when you upgrade to 2GB of RAM in the future... You would have to create a 5GB paging file! That's ridiculous.
The amount of hard disk space you dedicate to a paging file should depend on the amount of RAM you need to use, NOT the amount of RAM you have. The 2.5 x system RAM rule was flawed from the beginning and it is certainly not applicable today.
Do not use the 2.5 x system RAM rule to determine the size of your paging file. Instead, you should first gauge how much virtual memory is actually needed by the system during the heaviest memory load. Then use your finding to set the most appropriate paging file size for your system.
But You Require A Huge Paging File For A Memory Dump!
There are people who actually believe in increasing the size of the paging file following an increase in system memory. That certainly goes against what we have been recommending, doesn't it? The reason is simple.
Whenever Windows crashes, it first writes the memory contents to the paging file. After the computer is restarted, Windows will create a memory dump file using the memory contents stored in the paging file. This memory dump file is used to analyze the cause of the crash.
However, for a complete memory dump to created, the paging file size should be large enough to store all the contents of the system memory. That's why the paging file size has to meet this equation :-
Paging file size = Physical memory in the system + 1MB
So, if you have 1024MB of memory, the paging file size should be 1025MB in size for a complete memory dump to be created successfully.
However, this does not mean you should increase the size of your paging file according to the amount of system memory. Why not? Let's find out.
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