Where to put swapper file ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter flahmeshess
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flahmeshess

I have 2 disk.

HDD1 has
- C: OS
- D: applications
- E: data
- X: temp data
HDD2 has
- not use
- F: data
- Y: temp data

I created a X: drive which is at the end of 1 HDD to put but I wonder
if that is the optimal place to put it. Should I put it in Y: drive
which is separate from my OS ? Or should I put it in C: ?

My problem now is that since I've added the HDD2 (which is 500GB), my
system hangs when going to standby. I don't know if it's due to HDD2.

Thanks.
 
flahmeshess said:
I have 2 disk.

HDD1 has
- C: OS
- D: applications
- E: data
- X: temp data
HDD2 has
- not use
- F: data
- Y: temp data

I created a X: drive which is at the end of 1 HDD to put but I wonder
if that is the optimal place to put it. Should I put it in Y: drive
which is separate from my OS ? Or should I put it in C: ?

My problem now is that since I've added the HDD2 (which is 500GB), my
system hangs when going to standby. I don't know if it's due to HDD2.
Click to expand...


Normally you'd put the page file on the *primary* partition of your fastest
drive.

Have a look...you might have two page files... Try putting it on your C:
drive only and see what happens
 
Partition type doesn't matter. It could be on an extended partition.

For a server you would move the pagefile to the 2nd hard drive. This way
disk io access isn't be competed for by system and pagefile operations.
Optimally drive2 is on the second ide channel.

Some MS articles would suggest you leave a small pagefile on c: for if there
is a crash dump [debug info]. My response is to ask the question when was
the last time you fixed a problem from reading a crash dump? If your answer
is like mine: NEVER then I say 0 out the file on c: and only have the
pagefile on the 2nd drive.

There are two more aspects of optimizing the pagefile
1. set the min and max values the same so you don't waste cpu cycles
dynamically expanding and contracting the pagefile.
2. right sizing the pagefile. Nothing replaces having sufficent RAM. You
do not want to oversize your pagefile. Its a waste of disk space and doesn't
add any speed to your system. It can actually slow your system down if
heavily utilized since it is a million times slower than RAM. You should
start with 1.5x your ram and with performance monitor monitor it. Odds are
you can shrink it. I have one old server that has run flawlessly for 7 years
and only has a 200meg pagefile.
 
Joshua said:
Partition type doesn't matter. It could be on an extended partition.


For a server you would move the pagefile to the 2nd hard drive. This
way disk io access isn't be competed for by system and pagefile
operations. Optimally drive2 is on the second ide channel.
Click to expand...
However by doing that you end up competing with application data IO. For
instance if you have a database on the second drive it would NOT be a
good idea to put the pagefile there.
Some MS articles would suggest you leave a small pagefile on c: for
if there is a crash dump [debug info]. My response is to ask the
question when was the last time you fixed a problem from reading a
crash dump? If your answer is like mine: NEVER then I say 0 out the
file on c: and only have the pagefile on the 2nd drive.

There are two more aspects of optimizing the pagefile 1. set the min
and max values the same so you don't waste cpu cycles dynamically
expanding and contracting the pagefile.
Click to expand...
That happens very rarely anyway.
2. right sizing the pagefile. Nothing replaces having sufficent RAM.
You do not want to oversize your pagefile. Its a waste of disk space
and doesn't add any speed to your system.
Click to expand...
Disk space is cheap, and the swapfile is never going to be more than a
GB or so,
It can actually slow your system down if heavily utilized since it is
a million times slower than RAM.
Click to expand...
This is not true. You will only swap significantly if you don't have
enough RAM. Only if the system is swapping consistently will the speed
of RAM versus the speed of disk IO be relevant, and then you need more
RAM. Nothing to do with the size of the swapfile. If you DO need to swap
you need at least enough swapfile space to contain as many pages as are
swapped out. If you have a large *underused* swapfile that is fragmented
you might see a bit of a slowdown.
You should start with 1.5x your ram and with performance monitor
monitor it. Odds are you can shrink it. I have one old server that
has run flawlessly for 7 years and only has a 200meg pagefile.
Click to expand...
This is true, so far as it goes. But if you have a small amount of RAM
(eg 1 - 2 GB) then this only uses 3GB of disk space, which is not worth
worrying about. If you have a large amount of RAM (16GB+) you would
likely be using only 2 - 3 GB of swap space anyway - assuming you don't
run something like an Oracle database. But these are only rules of
thumb. Your 200MB swapfile server works for whatever app you run on
there, but that configuration would not work in other situations.

Cheers,

Cliff
 
Joshua said:
Some MS articles would suggest you leave a small pagefile on c: for if there
is a crash dump [debug info]. My response is to ask the question when was
the last time you fixed a problem from reading a crash dump? If your answer
is like mine: NEVER then I say 0 out the file on c: and only have the
pagefile on the 2nd drive.
Click to expand...

.... just make sure that in any subsequent system changes (partition
changes, hard-drive swaps etc) the partition letter that you allocated
the swap file to, is actually available. Else you may not be able to boot.

That "small pagefile on c:" is a good safety measure.
 
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