Windows uses a portion of the hard disk as RAM, constantly swapping data between RAM and hard disk as required. The speed of your hard disk is in the order of 1000 times slower than that of your main memory. Inefficient use of the swap file could considerable slow down your system to a very great extent. One of the best ways to speed up the swap file usage is to create a permanent swap file. In a permanent swap file, the file used for swapping information has a fixed size and location on your hard disk. When a temporary swap file is used, the location and size of the file is determined by application being used and is not predictable. Also, since a temporary swap file is constantly written to and is not fixed in size, it would be highly fragmented across the partition that holds it. A better option is to create the swap file on a dedicated partition on your hard disk. By doing this, the swap file will never be fragmented since that partition is only being utilized by the swap file itself. You can configure the swap file size and location from Control Panel > System > Performance > Virtual Memory. The size of the swap file should be around 2.5 times the amount of RAM on the system.
This how you modify your swap file properties:
Right click on my computer and select properties the go to
advanced tab>performance settings>advanced tab> virtual memory >change
Tip: If your RAM is more than 1GB and you dont use applications which require huge ram like photoshop, maya, or any games then you can disable the swap file( paging file) for better performance.
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This article contains some very common misconceptions about the pagefile. Unless the system is under heavy memory pressure there will be no constant swapping to the pagefile. The virtual memory system uses many files on the harddisk, the pagefile being only one of them. The majority of this so called swapping (more properly called paging) does not involve the pagefile at all. There is nothing in Task Manager or Performance Monitor that will tell you this.
If your system has a reasonable amount of RAM use of the pagefile will be relatively small and have little impact on performance.
The use of a fixed pagefile is neither necessary nor desirable for optimum performance. All modern versions of Windows use what is known as a semi-fixed pagefile. The initial size is by default 1.5 time physical RAM and the maximum twice this value. If the initial size is adequate (highly probable) the pagefile will NEVER be resized and there will be NO fragmentation. If this initial portion was once free of fragmentation it will remain that way. If resizing is necessary only the extended portion MAY become fragmented. This resizing is done intelligently and normally imposes little impact on performance. In any event the pagefile will revert to it’s initial size after a reboot. The pagefile does not become fragmented over time.
A fixed pagefile offers little real benefit and a potentially serious problem. If the fixed size is adequate all will be well. However, if you have quessed too small you risk severe performance problems or application failures.
Recommendations:
Unless you have a very specific problem, leave the pagefile settings on default. With relatively rare exceptions these will be optimum or as near to optimum as to make no difference.
Windows designers know more about memory management and the pagefile than you do. If a fixed pagefile was superior it would be that way by default.
All of the above has been confirmed by experience on my own systems as well as others.
Larry Miller
Microsoft MCSA