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Would having page files on multiple different drives act similarly to dual channel ram?

Anonymous
2023-01-27T00:30:52+00:00

by acting like dual channel ram i purely mean in the sense of improving performance over just one page file.

ive got an old mid range laptop from around 2016 with soldered memory and two m.2 slots that i think are far enough apart to have seperate controllers.

just wondering if i could improve performance on it by giving it two ssds and putting a page file on both.

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Performance and system failures

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  1. Igor Leyko 110.6K Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2023-01-28T21:22:09+00:00

    just wondering if i could improve performance on it by giving it two ssds and putting a page file on both.

    When you have page files on the several drives, Windows will use the less active drive for swapping. So, if your system drive is loaded heavily, you may gain some performance boost. Please check drive load value and response time at the Performance tab of Task manager.

    Please note, installing 32-bit version will decrease the RAM size used, maybe to 2 GB, so please check your hardware before doing this. In most cases 64-bit version is preferrable with 4 GB RAM.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-01-27T01:44:06+00:00

    i knew that, which is why i said "similarly" and specified that i meant in the sense of two sticks being better than one.

    would two page files be better than one page file if they are on completely different drives?

    the system in question has 4gb of ddr3 ram going at 1600MHz in dual channel mode if i recall correctly.

    it could use every little boost in performance it can get.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-01-27T01:06:20+00:00

    Hi, I’m Nicole, I’ll be happy to help you out today.

    No, having page files on multiple different drives would not act similarly to dual-channel RAM.

    A page file, also known as a swap file, is a space on a hard drive that the operating system uses as virtual memory. When the system runs out of physical memory (RAM), it moves some of the data from the RAM to the page file. Having the page file on multiple different drives can help increase the performance if one of the drives is faster than the other.

    Dual channel RAM, on the other hand, is a type of computer memory configuration in which two or more memory modules are installed in pairs on a motherboard, allowing the memory controller to access two memory modules at once. This can increase the memory bandwidth and performance of the system.

    In short, a page file is used for virtual memory, it is for when your RAM is full and your system needs more memory space. Dual channel RAM is a way to increase the speed and bandwidth of the system memory. They are different things and work differently.

    Thank you.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-01-27T01:53:31+00:00

    Having two page files won't boost the performance of the system. The other SSD will just act as a storage device and will not have an effect on the performance of the OS.

    Most users with 4 GB of RAM install a 32-bit version of Windows since it is lighter and you can maximize the performance of the old device compared to installing a 64-bit version of Windows.

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