Pagefile.sys

  • Thread starter Thread starter Don
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Don

I have two hard disks partitioned into multiple partitions on each. I used
to put my swap file on the D: drive for better performance. If I try to do
it now I get some message stating that if I remove it from the C: drive some
logging might not be able to be performed or some future error may occur.
Is this really a problem? BTW, using WinXP Pro SP2 with a gig of memory.
 
As long as you don't care about memory.dmp information in the event of a
blue screen stop then no it is not a problem.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect
 
Placing the page file on a non-Windows partition when the same physical disk
has Windows on it will result in a reduction in performance. The rule of
thumb is:
A) Put it on the same partition as Windows OR
B) Put it on the most used partition on the least used disk if using two or
more physical disks

-Trevor
 
Don said:
I have two hard disks partitioned into multiple partitions on each. I used
to put my swap file on the D: drive for better performance.
Click to expand...


Although you sometimes see advice to do that, it's poor advice, and actually
*decreases* performance instead of improving it. It puts the page file to a
location on the hard drive distant from the other frequently-used data on
the drive. The result is that every time Windows needs to use the page file,
the time to get to it and back from it is increased.


Putting the swap file on a second *physical* drive is a good idea, since it
decreases head movement, but not to a second partition on a single drive. A
good rule of thumb is that the page file should be on the most-used
partition of the least-used physical drive. For almost everyone with a
single drive, that's C:.



If you have enough RAM, the penalty for doing this may be slight, since you
won't use the page file much, but it won't help you.
 
I didn't make it clear enough. I do have two physical disks. I assumed
that everyone would think the first partition on the first hard disk would
be c:, the first partition of the second hard disk would be D: and then the
second partition on the first hard disk would be E: (or higher if one
inserted some reassigned CD drives or such in between at this point) and
then the remaining partitions would be assigned letters from that point and
then when the first hard disk drive partitions were fully assigned the
letters would then carry over to the second hard disk and the second (and
further) partitions. With this setup I believe performance shoujld be
maximized considering the second hard disk is not heavily accessed.

Don
 
I assumed
that everyone would think the first partition on the first hard disk would
be c:, the first partition of the second hard disk would be D:
Click to expand...

That's why others were so specific in their answers. Windows XP letters
drive differently than MS-DOS or Win9x. Take a look at the boot.ini
contents to see an example of how it references drives and partitions.

System Properties> Advanced> Startup and Recovery> Settings: Click Edit
button to view boot.ini contents in a Notepad window. When done looking
around, close file and say no if prompted to save changes.
 
putting the swap file ont he first partitionof the second drive is perfectly acceptable.
and yes the error message occurs.
to satisfy XP, simply place a SMALL 20MB swap file on the XP drive
this would be used for crash dumps.



(e-mail address removed)



I have two hard disks partitioned into multiple partitions on each. I used
to put my swap file on the D: drive for better performance. If I try to do
it now I get some message stating that if I remove it from the C: drive some
logging might not be able to be performed or some future error may occur.
Is this really a problem? BTW, using WinXP Pro SP2 with a gig of memory.
 
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