In practice, you never want to use the page file. //

The problem is that the default for automatically allocating the page file hasn't changed since Windows NT Server 3.5. It creates a page file that is 1.5 times the size of physical RAM. A good value when servers had 512 MB of RAM, but extremely wasteful on a server with 16 GB of RAM. That's a 24 GB page file! And did I mention that the default location for the page file is the C drive? With everything else that is vying for space on the C drive, the last thing you need is a gigantic file you never want to use. //

A good value for the page file is between 2 – 4 GB. Resist the temptation to make it any bigger than 4 GB, regardless of what "best practices" say. Remember, you never want to use the page file. And you only ever need one page file. Having multiple page files is even more wasteful than having a extremely large page file. //

Use a custom size for the page file and set the initial and maximum size to the same value. If these values are not the same, then the page file will become fragmented as Windows shrinks and expands the page file. You want to keep disk I/O operations for the page file to an absolute minimum, so let Windows create the page file once and keep it from constantly resizing it.