swap file

[CocaCola5]

I have win2k running on a duron 700@850 and MSI Pro2a with 512mb ram(2*256). My hdd layout is this: 1.5G ide on primary ide controller by itself. The drive has my c: which is my boot up partition(no windows), and a 100mb swap file(virtual memory) partition. 1G scsi drive on UW scsi card, has a 100mb swap file partition. 40G ata100 drive on Promise ata100 pci card, 100mb partition for swap file, 10G partition for my win2k system. 1G ide on the same Promise card above, 100mb partition for swap as well. All drives are operating in DMA mode. So far the system is running pretty smoothly. I want to know if spreading my swap files across four drives hurt my overall performance through increased drive access time.

 

[danielshoes]

Good idea and good question. I also want to know it.

 

[Bozo]

Win2k has the capability to manage the Page File accross multiple hard drives. This usually increases performance. But the best would be identical drives. With your setup, each drive has different access times and transfer rates. This might slow things down a bit.

You might try having the Page File on the SCSI drive only. This would allow you to take advantge of SCSIs faster access times, without waiting for the IDE drives to catch up.

Bozo