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Moving Page Caching

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I have an Exchange 2003 server. Following the 1.5x memory rule I have allowed 6GB of page caching. However my C drive is only 20GB in size, after time it is now getting full. About 2GB remaining. I want to move the page caching off the C drive. I currently have a single set RAID 5 in three partitions. (C: OS, E: Exchange, S: Support) Currently the caching is all on C: I was thinking of moving 4GB to the support and keeping 2GB on C.

Any thought recommendations as if this should done this way or not?

7 replies

by kenone

I usually try to split everthing as evenly as possible though. I'd leave 3 on "c" and move c to "S". I don't remember why I feel I have to do that but there must be a reason. Be careful with the settings or you'll end up with unusable pagefile space.

by philldmc

If not mistaken, 512k is the min for error reporting..Can you recall why 3GB on C? vs 2GB?

by philldmc

If not mistaken, 512k is the min for error reporting..Can you recall why 3GB on C? vs 2GB? Would it have anything to do with the /3GB switch?

by Member 25348569

Microsoft recommends that you create a paging file for each physical volume on the system. On most systems, multiple paging files can improve the performance of virtual memory. Instead of a single large paging file, it's better to have multiple small ones.

Memory dumps are made to c: drive or system partition. You have too much memory (assuming 32-bit) so you can't have full memory dump on STOP configured. If you do want that on other servers then it is considered a best practice to make the page file on the system partition the minimum size allowed by the OS - usually the exact memory size - then set the maximum size to be equal to the minimum so it doesn't grow. Add a page file to cover the rest of the page file size requirements on the second drive. This will guarantee space is available for the memory dumps during a STOP condition and allow the page file to run amok on a separate partition.

If you cant or don't want a full memory dump on STOP - you can have "Kernel memory dump" or "Small memory dump which is 64K" - you can have a smaller C: drive paging file but still lock the size by making maximum = minimum. Both the small memory dump option or turning off the dump option would let you move the whole paging file off C: if you want but you would lose the performance advantage of your two drives.

Don't put anything on your Exchange data drives, though!

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