When you set the paging file size in Windows, that the largest paging file that you can select is 4,095 megabytes (MB) per drive or volume. If extra drives or volumes are not available, you can create multiple paging files on a single drive by placing them in separate folders. The problem comes up if you use the small 1U server with only 2 drives that are usualy configured as raid 1.
To create multiple paging files on one volume to overcome the 4,095-MB limit:
- On the drive or volume you want to hold the paging files, create folders for the number of paging files you want to create on the volume. For example, C:\Pagefile1, C:\Pagefile2, and C:\Pagefile3.
- Using Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe), locate the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\MemoryManagement - Find the Pagingfiles value, and then double-click it to open it.
- Remove any existing values, and add the following values:
c:\pagefile1\pagefile.sys 4000 4000
c:\pagefile2\pagefile.sys 4000 4000
c:\pagefile3\Pagefile.sys 4000 4000 - Click OK and quit Registry Editor. Restart the computer to cause the changes to take effect.
In this example the page will now have the size of 12GB on one volume.
Checkout http://support.microsoft.com/kb/237740/en-us for more information.
On mirrored drives people usually make a separate partition for the pagefile. In order to make the pagefile faster this is NOT the best thing to do. The pagefile should be near the system files if it is located on the same physical disk (Raid 1 set) as the System files. If you place it on a different partition the heads from the HDD will have to move over a empty part of the disk to access or write to the pagefile. If you use the discribed methode by first setting no pagefile then defrag the C: drive and then placing the pagefile on the C: drive all files will be close together and the heads of the disks will not have to move a lot.
As most companies buy servers with 2 disks for their Terminal Servers and most of he time make a mirror set out of these for fault tollerance. Administrators are forgetting that Terminal Servers (and even more with Citrix on them) are fault tollerant because you have a lot of them. The best thing to do in this case is not to configure the disks as a Raid set but as separate disks. On the first disk you place the system, program and profile files. On the second disk you place the pagefile, the spooler directory and all temp files/directories. This could speed up things a bit to a lot depending on programs installed, use of page and temp files and the amount that is printed.
The best thing to do is of course buy a server with 2 x drives in a RAID1 configuration for Operating System & Applications and 2 x drives in a RAID1 configuration for Page File. This is applicable if the server has more than 2 drive bays.