Windows Page File Optimization

The windows page file stores temporary data for running programs and processes on your hard drive. The hard drive reads and writes are the slowest type of I/O on a computer, so optimizing the hard drive reads and writes is important. If you have a second physical drive, moving the page file to this second physical disk that doesn't have the Windows Operating System can speed up your computer performance.

To move the page file, Right-click on My Computer -> select Properties -> the Advanced tab -> Performance, Settings button -> Advanced tab, Virtual memory, Change button -> choose the drives and size available for page file(s). At this point, you can choose the new location for the page file.

Even if you don't have a second physical drive, it can be worth it to set the page file to a constant size. Most experts recommend 1 to 2 times the amount of RAM you have. This will help keep the page file from becoming fragmented on the disk. If you don't have a lot of memory, you may want to avoid this step or set the page file size to be higher.

One more thing to note is that if you have one of the new SSD hard drives, you should have your page file located on this disk. SSD hard drives are much faster than older hard drives and having the Windows page file on an SSD drive will give the best performance.

Still Slow? You might have to add Memory

Generally speaking, you can only do some much with the page file if you don't have enough memory. If you are still experiencing slowness after optimizing the page file and your computer is low on memory, it is probably worth adding more memory. Depending on your OS, your memory requirements will change. However, you probably don't want to be much lower than 1GB of memory currently. If you have an extra USB drive sitting around and you are running Windows 7 or Vista, you may also be able to improve your performance with the Windows ReadyBoost feature.

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-By Dominic

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