question: swap in ram?

[ChillyPenguin]

I was reading about setting up a ramdisk and placing the swap file in it and wondering how much faster it could make the computer, and how big it would need to be?

bumps are good...

 

[CTho9305]

the idea of swap is a place to put stuff when you run out of ram. putting the swapfile in ram defeats the whole purpose

 

[Nothinman]

Putting the page file on a ramdisk is an extremely bad idea. The reason the page file gets used is because the system is low on memory, making it use more memory every time it expects to swap to disk will only cause problems.

If you page to disk a lot buy more memory, don't try to cheat the system with bad tweaks.

 

[Smilin]

You'll find most modern desktop operating systems (Linux 2.x, NT/2000/XP) have outstanding memory management. Most attempts to "get clever" will only interfere and degrade performance.

Let the OS handle it.

 

[Locutus4657]

Assmuing by RAMdisk you mean a SCSI Hard Drive made not of cylinders, but memory... Then yes, it would be much faster and yes it is (or has been) done. This is a very expensive solution though.



<< I was reading about setting up a ramdisk and placing the swap file in it and wondering how much faster it could make the computer, and how big it would need to be?

bumps are good... >>

 

[ChillyPenguin]

thanks for the info

 

[Elledan]

<< the idea of swap is a place to put stuff when you run out of ram. putting the swapfile in ram defeats the whole purpose >>


I somewhat disagree.

OSs like Windows use the swap file before the RAM is totally used. There are also some programs which insist on a swap file being present.

If you've got enough RAM (512-1024 MB or more), it might be worth it to put (part of) the swap file in a RAM-disk.

On the other side, OSs like Linux use all available RAM before using the swap file, in which case it [swap file in RAM-disk] would be a mere exercise in futility

 

[hoihtah]

there are softwares to make this happen.
but unless you have 1 gb of ram, i dont' think it's all that useful.

i personally wouldn't do it, 'cause i notice a difference between 256mb ram and 512mb ram in my computer.
using 1024mb, i can use 512mb for ramdisk.
while 512mb isn't enough to put all my applications on, it's enough to put one or two apps that i use the most... or that require hd reading and writing the most... to speed up the process.

before when 256mb stix costed $30 or less, this was a good option to upgrade,
but now that they go closer to 100, it's not all that viable option to speed up your machine.

i'd say if you have more than 256mb ram in your computer, put that extra money into scsi or WD's 120gb 8mb cache HD. you'll see more benefit that way.

 

[davesaudio]

edit-these comments are more generic , not specific to the win swapfile , can't you just turn off the swapfile if you have lots of ram?

depends entirely on the application being used.
historically it has worked extremely well for me.
where an application might keep the database or module on the hd
and it can now fit on a ramdisk you can see great improvements
the slower the HD the bigger the improvement

 

[Mark R]

Windows actually has very good memory management - most 'tweaks' actually end up reducing performance.

There is a very good reason why Windows uses the pagefile, even though it has memory available - it unloads rarely used parts of the OS, into the swap file to free up RAM for applications, more frequently used parts of the OS, and the disk cache. Disabling the page file will actually degrade performance, because unnecessary data is held in RAM reducing available memory for disk caches.

Some programs require a page file as well - this is due to the way in which Windows shares memory between applications - Each application runs in a totally seperate memory space - however, applications can apply for 'shared memory' to which they all have direct access - To circumvent the rules that prevent applications for interfering with each other, the shared memory has to be backed by a file on a drive - this is almost always the page file.

There is also relatively little need for a RAMdisk, because the dynamic caches offered by modern OSs, offer most of the performance benefit with an altogether more flexible package.