Partitioning for Swap file efficiency

[ShaggyDogg]

I have 2 hard drives, a 7200 rpm 45 gig Maxtor and an older 10 Gig WD Caviar 5400 rpm. Where would be the best place to put my swap file, the faster drive? My 10 gig is used primarily for backup and storage of files. All of my programs and OS (Windows ME) are on the 7200rpm Maxtor. Currently I am running only one partition on each. Please give your reasons for your preference. thanks! BTW I have 640M of Ram if that makes any difference. See my rig for the rest of the specs if you need them.

 

[cbuchach]

You need to put the swap file on the faster 7200 RPM drive for sure. Set the swapfile to a specified size to prevent Windows from resizing it. You do have quite a bit of RAM so further swapfile optimization beyond this really isn't necessary.

 

[VBboy]

With that much RAM, you should almost be able to turn the Swap file off. I would put it on the fastest drive, and set tis size to a fixed 256 MB or so.

 

[ShaggyDogg]

So I just set the minimum and maximum file to the same size to get a "fixed" value then? How big a partition do you recommend I make for it. The swap file is all I was ever going to put in the partition.

 

[ShaggyDogg]

Back to the front page for you!!!

 

[cbuchach]

It really is not necessary to make a separate partition for the swap file. I used to run my system like that but noticed little performance increase.

Yes, set Min and Max page file settingsd to the same value for a fixed size swap file. For the swap file size I would set it around 200 megs.

 

[SUOrangeman]

Doesn't the RojakPot site (on again, off again lately) have an optimization guide for this?

With two drives, you should see pretty good performance by separating the OS/apps and swap on different *drives*. It is possible that this config would be faster than having the OS/apps and the swap on the same drive. It really depends on what you do ... and how you do it.

I currently have two drives, but I put swap and OS on the same drive. This gives me the flexibility to take out the second drive as needed (it's removable) and I still have a perfectly bootable system.

-SUO

 

[Atheras]

From what I've read in the past, you shouldn't partition a drive you want to put the swap file on. The reason for this is that you can't control where in the drive a partition begins and ends. So if create a fixed swapfile, but put it on a partitiont that just happens to have started in the slowest part of the drive...you're going to be defeating the purpose.

As for which drive, definately the fastest, but then again that might also depend on your setup. You didn't say which IDE channels you had each HD setup on.....and that can make a difference. With the way that IDE works (unless it's changed....god I've been out of this for too long) you can't read and/or write to two different devices on the same channel (IE: If the Maxtor is IDE1rimary, and the WD is IDE1:Secondary, you won't be able to read/write to them simultaneously). This can make a difference when you're using a program on the Maxtor drive that suddenly needs use of the swapfile on the WD drive (or vice versa), because you won't be able to read the swapfile and the program at the same time.

My suggestion for both the swapfile, and IDE setup of your configuration would be:
IDE1: Primary - Maxtor 7200RPM
IDE1: Secondary - WD Caviar 5400RPM
IDE2: Primary - CDRom/DVD Drive
IDE2: Secondary - CDRecorder (if you have it)

Then put the swapfile on the faster Maxtor drive, and continue to use the WD as backup as you said that you do.

With the amount of memory that you have, the need for a swapfile is minimum....but I'd make it anywhere from 100-150megs. You don't want to make it too big, because then the unneeded space of the swapfile will take up room on the faster part of your HD. Space that could be used for other things, such as Windows files and whatnot that could also affect performance.

Futher reasons for the above setup:
Having your CDRom and HD on two seperate channels will increase performance, as both channels can be accessed at the same time. In the above configuration, however, if you make CD-to-CD copies, you'd be better off copying the one CD to your primary HD first (since both the CD and CDR would be on the same channel, and would have to alternate reads and writes).

Whew....hope that came out clear and understandable....heh, been wayyyyy too long.

Edit
Just thought of this, I figure it's common knowledge but thought I'd throw it out there. After making the swapfile fixed (setting both the min and max to the same size) you want to defragment your harddrive so that the swapfile is moved to the fastest part of the harddrive. I'm not sure if the standard windows defragger will do this......Norton's SpeedDisk does, as well as probably any other retail Defragger out there.

 

[cuteybunny]

no need to defrag your harddrive it not going to help much thought because you harddrive are so fast these day that is isn't neccesarily so all you need is to scandisk it and fix all errors.
i have mine set to 1gig of swapfile btw with 512meg of ram. windows is still using all of my available ram down to 0 even with 256meg of swap that it set itself but you know how windows do thing, sloppy messy and inefficient.

 

[ShaggyDogg]

My current setup is:
IDE 1 Primary: Maxtor 45 gig 7200 rpm
IDE 1 Secondary: Plextor CDRW
IDE 2 Primary: WD 10 Gig 5400rpm
IDE 2 Secondary: CDROM

I put the cd's on seperate channels so that I could burn on the fly faster. However, my cdrom has such a slow digital read that I now never do that. It is much faster to burn from the Plexy to the HD then back to Plexy.

So what does everyone else think, Given that I never burn on the fly, should I change my setup on IDE channels to that suggested by Atheras?

 

[ShaggyDogg]

Just noticed that I mis-spelled efficiency in the title to this post....Doh! ....but i just learned I could edit it and correct it

 

[Deanodarlo]

Just get the utility cacheman and set conservative swap file to on.

You can also do this manually by adding conservativeswapfileusage=1 in the system.ini file under 386enh. Make these changes by typing "msconfig" in the run box on the start menu and selecting the system.ini tab.

With that much ram and Win ME, you'll hardly every create a swap file on the hard drive, therefore you don't have to worry about it. You'll also be using your RAM much more efficiently.

As an example I have 256Mb RAM and use this setting. I never have a swap file because this forces the computer to use all available ram before starting to swap. As a bonus, you get much less hard drive access and no swap file when defragging.

 

[ThatDumbGuy]

I would definitely go with the setup Atharus described. I have the same setup myself. For me, copying to the hard drive and then back to the burner is much faster, also, with this setup, burning to and from iso's won't take quite as long as it does now for you.

 

[ShaggyDogg]

Thanks for the advice, I'll give it a try and let you know how it goes.

 

[SUOrangeman]

Atheras is knocking on the door. However, the opening statement:

"From what I've read in the past, you shouldn't partition a drive you want to put the swap file on. The reason for this is that you can't control where in the drive a partition begins and ends."

Umm, most, if not all partitioning tools give you PRECISE control over where a partition begin and ends. The only thing that may not tell you is DOS's FDISK.

So, basing everything else that is said on that first assumption seems kinda screwy to me.

Everything else with Ath's comments seem on point.

-SUO