Page file size for ArcGIS Enterprise

Question

I'm going to install ArcGIS Enterprise 11.3 in VMs with Windows Server 2022.

Are following statements correct?

* Check Page file size across the machines.  Default is system managed which is usually a lot less than best practice.  Consider increasing the page file size to a minimum of 1.5X RAM but close to 3X RAM is best.  This may also require adding additional space to those machines' C drive.
* Check how many cores are on the Portal machine.  The system requirements don’t mention it but Portal will not function on a single-core machine.

Thanks.

Forrest

ForrestLin · Answer

@JoshuaBixby

Thank you for your input!

I received a response from Esri Technical Support:

JoshuaBixby · Answer

Regarding page file size, where did you get or see that statement?  If a server needs a page file 3x the size of its RAM, I can guarantee any applications running on it are performing quite poorly.

If you are not familiar already with the concepts and information in Introduction to the page file - Windows Client | Microsoft Learn and How to determine the appropriate page file size for 64-bit versions of Windows - Windows Client | Microsoft Learn, I encourage you to read both.

A page file serves multiple purposes, and even with a given purpose, the use of a page file can vary greatly.  Most of the rules of thumb were created in the early days of the Windows NT operating system when machines had much smaller amount of physical RAM, and they are far from optimal for modern servers with large quantities of RAM.

In the articles I linked to, Microsoft explains how the "system managed" page file settings generally work.  Unless you want to dive into process performance data to get a better understanding of how your applications are using memory, virtual and physical, it might be best to just let Microsoft manage it.

As an example, the Windows 11 Professional workstation I primary use has 64 GB of RAM and currently the system-managed page file is 3 GB, that is 1/20th the size of physical RAM.  The page file will occasionally grow by tens of GBs when I start pushing RAM consumption, but it seldom goes above 30 GB, which is still 1/2 the physical RAM.  Could I provision a 128 GB or 192 GB page file manually?  Sure, but why waste 128 GB of SSD storage on a page file that isn't used.

ForrestLin · Answer

@JakeSkinner Thanks.