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Pagefile on ramdisk is smaller than specified

Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2012 11:54 pm
by SlimShaggy
I have a 32-bit Windows XP and 4 GB of RAM, so I decided to use Primo Ramdisk to put the paging file into 764 MB of invisible memory. However, even though I specify 757-762 MB as the pagefile size, the pagefile created after reboot is 730 MB only. If I use the same settings for a pagefile located on a physical disk rather than a RAM disk, a 757 MB pagefile is created as expected. I tried both DirectIO and SCSI ramdisk modes, it makes no difference.

Pagefile on ramdisk is smaller than specified

Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2012 4:02 pm
by SlimShaggy
I noticed one more problem in this configuration: when the system is running out of virtual memory, Windows displays a warning baloon that it will increase it, but the pagefile on the ramdisk is never increased from 730 MB, although applications begin to crash due to low memory.

Re: Pagefile on ramdisk is smaller than specified

Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2012 2:33 am
by Support
Hi SlimShaggy,

This is because the ramdisk size is too small. You may try to increase the ramdisk size.

PS. If you still want another pagefile on C drive, you shall set it at least 20MB instead of 2MB. Although Windows says the minimum value is 2MB, but Windows cannot create it if you specify 2MB. You'll not see the pagefile on C drive. And that's why you still got application crash due to low memory.

Here're some posts for your reference.
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=549&hilit=pagefile&start=10
viewtopic.php?f=22&t=594&hilit=pagefile

Re: Pagefile on ramdisk is smaller than specified

Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2012 8:50 pm
by SlimShaggy
SlimShaggy wrote:However, even though I specify 757-762 MB as the pagefile size, the pagefile created after reboot is 730 MB only. If I use the same settings for a pagefile located on a physical disk rather than a RAM disk, a 757 MB pagefile is created as expected.
I think I have found the answer to this. I created a small 759 MB partition on the HDD and put a 754 MB paging file there. After reboot it was still 754 MB, so I booted from a DOS bootdisk and formatted the small partition. When I booted to Windows once again, I found out that the pagefile was now 727 MB only. Obviously, if a paging file gets deleted while Windows is not running, it recreates it, leaving at least 32 MB of free disk space. The same happens to the pagefile on the ramdisk, which is reformatted on every boot.
support wrote:If you still want another pagefile on C drive, you shall set it at least 20MB instead of 2MB. Although Windows says the minimum value is 2MB, but Windows cannot create it if you specify 2MB.
I have discovered through some experimenting that the minimum pagefile size that works is 16 MB.