Ensuring continuous operation of any OpenVMS system depends on having a page file of adequate size. A conservative approach to this issue is to establish a very large page file of 300,000 to 400,000 pages, monitor its use, and reduce it based on empirical evidence. Generally, the page file requires around 100,000 pages or less. Consider the use of secondary page files to balance your disk channel usage. For information on monitoring and managing page faulting, refer to the OpenVMS Performance Management Manual.

For Alpha, the page file should be the physical memory size ((in megabytes) + 8192). Refer to the OpenVMS System Manager manual for more information.

For VAX, the page file should be the size of the average process multiplied by the maximum number of processes. If the VIRTUALPAGECNT system parameter is larger, use that value.