With 4GB of RAM what difference what u expect if u disabled the paging file.

Question

Also I have a spare partition and I was thinking of setting the page file to a minimum in the OS partition and then making a much higher "page file" setting on an otherwise free partition..

Answer 1

some programs will go berserk. I did that once and my Windows media player misbehave .

I think it will make difference if you put your pagefile in a second hard drive . not in the same hard drive as your WIndows installation folder.

Answer 2

I think this Microsoft Article answers your question

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314482

Disabling Paging Files is ok unless you want to examine kernel dumps when system Crash

When you have sufficient RAM and no system errors paging file is not utiltised

Answer 3

First off... 32 bit versions of Windows only address 3.2 gb of RAM. Some BIOS have patches that allow upto 4 gb.   XP would rarely need more than 1 gb of RAM.  Vista runs well with 2 gb.  RAM is cheap so 1-3 gb of RAM is all you'll need.  If your applications require more, use a 64 bit OS where you can actually address more than 3.2 gb.

Second,  paging is part of the OS.  IT NEEDS THE PAGEFILE TO RUN MULTIPLE APPLICATIONS/PROCESSES.

The way it works is a user receives a working set of pages. Those working set pages are filled with active process pages.  The CPU ONLY USES RAM because it is fast enough to keep up with the processor.  IT DOES NOT USE THE PAGEFILE while processing.  As a process enters the CPU, the process in the CPU has its pages SWAPPED to the pagefile.sys for temp storage and quick retrieval when that process needs to re-enter the CPU.  If you don't use a pagefile the load time per process is significantly increase as you would have to reload every time it enters the CPU from somewhere other than where you left off. The new process in the CPU has it pages loaded from the working set or from the pagefile.sys depending on whether it had already been in the CPU.

A process uses the CPU until it reaches its quota or until there is an interrupt such as I/O.  Upon quota reached or Interrupt, the process in the CPU has it's pages swapped and the next process loads it's pages and runs to quota or interrupt.

Disabling the pagefile disables the OS's ability to handle multiple applications.  

If you have pagefile thrashing where the disk drive is constantly in use from the pagefile, its because the applications are too large for the amount of RAM you have and your hard drive is too slow.

If you don't have thrashing, you don't have a RAM size problem.

Answer 4

If you have too few space on your system partition, you can just disable the paging file there and configure it on another partition. Generally the 1.5 * RAM size is a good value.

It is recommended to put the paging file on a physically different harddrive other than the one with the system, so if you do have one (internal or external one which you don't unplug and use on other computer. Consider it an internal drive) you should use it.

You can run Windows without any paging file at all but rather sooner than later when the memory runs out it's not uncommon that programs go weird.

Answer 5

I wouldn't recommend disabling the paging file even with 4Gb - you will almost certainly still need a swap file.

Answer 6

Programs will run faster, definitely.

Normally, 2GB would be sufficient.

Paging File is actually part of the HardDiskDrive, and is basically for low RAM computer. Paging File, though, is unlimited.

But considering that the HardDisk is the slowest part of the computer, with 4GB of RAM you would be advised to disable the paging file.