Server 2012R2 paging file size?

Question

What would the appropriate paging file size be for Windows Server Workgroup 2012 R2 64 bit with 32GB of RAM and a AMD FX6350 6-core, 3.9ghz CPU?

Answer 1

That article is a little dated - meant for 64-bit 2003.  Microsoft has made a lot of changes since then.
The first thing you should consider is to leave it alone.  As I just stated, Microsoft has been tuning its algorithms for determining the proper size.  In many cases, it works just fine at the default, as the operating system will monitor and adjust.
However, it does not always work, or rather it may create a larger page than is really needed.  In a system with the appropriate amount of memory, you can get by with a minimal (2-4 GB) page file.  The operating system does use the page file for
some of the things it does, so it does not pay to try to eliminate it entirely.  But memory is so inexpensive today, that if you find that your system is not performing because it is executing a lot of hard page faults during times of system load, get
a little more memory and add it to your system.
If you expect to have the system crashing a lot, and you want to capture the full memory dump, then you will need a larger page file.  However, I've been working with Windows server since its beginning, and only once have I seen someone capture the
full amount of memory on a 64-bit system.  Even then, Microsoft had identified the problem with a smaller page file, but the customer insisted on getting all the memory in dump.  So we configured the system to capture the full 64 GB of memory and
Microsoft showed the exact same place in the dump which was causing the problem (user code).  The majority of the time, the cause of a crash can be determined from mini-dump that is captured in a smaller page file.  If it becomes critical, and you
have to have a full dump, it is pretty simple to reconfigure to capture the larger dump by creating a larger page file.
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