Are alternate page file locations possible?

[Guest]

I tinkered around today with a laptop to see if I could have alternate
locations for the page file depending on whether the laptop was docked or
undocked. After all, each configuration has its own hardware profile.
Well it didn't work, so I suppose those profiles are just for which
installed hardware is turned on or not.
My interest lies within the theory that if a person is working in the office
and there is an external HDD plugged into the docking station, then I would
like for the page file to be located on the external disk.
Alternately, when the laptop is operating in the field then the page file
would be located on the local disk.
Clearly this is in the interest of maximum performance.
I do not want the mobile users to have to deal with an external HDD when
working in the field.
Does anyone know of a viable option?

Lawson...

 

[Rock]

I tinkered around today with a laptop to see if I could have alternate
locations for the page file depending on whether the laptop was docked or
undocked. After all, each configuration has its own hardware profile.
Well it didn't work, so I suppose those profiles are just for which
installed hardware is turned on or not.
My interest lies within the theory that if a person is working in the office
and there is an external HDD plugged into the docking station, then I would
like for the page file to be located on the external disk.
Alternately, when the laptop is operating in the field then the page file
would be located on the local disk.
Clearly this is in the interest of maximum performance.
I do not want the mobile users to have to deal with an external HDD when
working in the field.
Does anyone know of a viable option?

Lawson...

Page file on an external hard drive should not give you any performance
gains.

 

[Steve N.]

I tinkered around today with a laptop to see if I could have alternate
locations for the page file depending on whether the laptop was docked or
undocked. After all, each configuration has its own hardware profile.
Well it didn't work, so I suppose those profiles are just for which
installed hardware is turned on or not.

Not exactly, they are for hardware that is present or not. The docked
profile utilizes the external devices of the docking station, when the
machine is not docked those devices are not present and the undocked
profile is used.

My interest lies within the theory that if a person is working in the office
and there is an external HDD plugged into the docking station, then I would
like for the page file to be located on the external disk.

Why? there would be no performance gain and possibly a performance loss
depending on the throughput of the drive and interface. External drives
are primairly for data storage, not OS functions.

Alternately, when the laptop is operating in the field then the page file
would be located on the local disk.
Clearly this is in the interest of maximum performance.
I do not want the mobile users to have to deal with an external HDD when
working in the field.
Does anyone know of a viable option?

Lawson...

Yeah, leave it alone. You've already found it can't be done anyway and
you'd get no benefit from it even if it was possible.

Steve

 

[Ron Martell]

I tinkered around today with a laptop to see if I could have alternate
locations for the page file depending on whether the laptop was docked or
undocked. After all, each configuration has its own hardware profile.
Well it didn't work, so I suppose those profiles are just for which
installed hardware is turned on or not.
My interest lies within the theory that if a person is working in the office
and there is an external HDD plugged into the docking station, then I would
like for the page file to be located on the external disk.
Alternately, when the laptop is operating in the field then the page file
would be located on the local disk.
Clearly this is in the interest of maximum performance.
I do not want the mobile users to have to deal with an external HDD when
working in the field.
Does anyone know of a viable option?

Lawson...

If your computers are using the page file so extensively that the
difference in access speeds between 2 hard drives is going to have a
detectable impact on overall performance then what you really need to
do is to increase the RAM so as to eliminate or at least greatly
reduce the need to actually use the page file.

The fact that the page file is actually being used will affect have an
impact on performance that is hundreds of times greater than that of
using a different hard drive.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

In memory of a dear friend Alex Nichol MVP
http://aumha.org/alex.htm