Disable low disk space notification

[Pablo Montilla]

The page file should either be left where it is on the boot partition,
OR on another installed PHYSICAL drive.. one should not create a special
partition for it..

OK, now that you've shown me my error, another question I have is this:
would it be better to have a pagefile in an external Firewire400 disk? Or
is the FW communications overhead much worse than any IO contention the
system HD may have...?

Thanks,
Pablo
--


1. That's the way we've always done it around here.
2. I'm so busy, I just forgot.
3. It didn't appear that important.
4. That's someone else's job, not mine.
5. No one gave me the go-ahead.
6. I just work here, I'm not paid to make decisions.
7. I didn't realize you were in a hurry for it.
8. I've got better things to do with my time.
9. That's not part of my department.
10. You'll have to ask the boss.
11. I didn't think it would make any difference.
12. Let someone else do the dirty work.
-- Standard List Of Multi-Purpose Excuses
-- This is just a partial list, we're sure you can add a few more.

Pablo Montilla
www.odyssey.com.uy

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I'm curious because I'm planning to add a second drive to and was planning
on having a small 1st partion for the pagefile and the rest for data files.
The thinking being: 1) performance boost of having swap on a different SATA
drive than system, 2) don't have to back up pagefile.sys in image backups,
and 3) a bit of control over where pagefile.sys lands on the 2nd drive, my
understanding being that the 1st partitions accessed faster than the other
edge of the disk.

Unless someone tells me this is also a bad idea I figured I'd at least try
to learn from your issue and size the partion and swapfile large enough so
as to avoid the warning.

That's also a bad idea. the main performance issue wit the page file
is minimizing head movement to and from it. Putting it on a second
physical drive is good, but still not on a separate partition.

A good rule of thumb is that it should be on the most-used partition
of the least-used physical drive. That's minimizes head movement.

 

[MICHAEL]

Some interesting reading.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314482/

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/expert/tulloch_partition.mspx
Mitch Tulloch is a consultant, trainer, and author based in Winnipeg, Canada. He has written
over a dozen books including the Microsoft Encyclopedia of Networking (2nd edition, Microsoft
Press, 2002) and the Microsoft Encyclopedia of Security (Microsoft Press, 2003). Mitch
frequently writes on topics like Windows optimization and troubleshooting, network
troubleshooting, and security and is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) in the area
of Windows Server Setup/Deployment.

http://www.windowsdevcenter.com/pub/a/windows/2005/02/08/NTFS_Hacks.html


* Pablo Montilla:

 

[MICHAEL]

Some interesting reading.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314482/

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/expert/tulloch_partition.mspx
Mitch Tulloch is a consultant, trainer, and author based in Winnipeg, Canada. He has written
over a dozen books including the Microsoft Encyclopedia of Networking (2nd edition, Microsoft
Press, 2002) and the Microsoft Encyclopedia of Security (Microsoft Press, 2003). Mitch
frequently writes on topics like Windows optimization and troubleshooting, network
troubleshooting, and security and is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) in the area
of Windows Server Setup/Deployment.

http://www.windowsdevcenter.com/pub/a/windows/2005/02/08/NTFS_Hacks.html


* Sam:

 

[Sam]

Some interesting reading.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314482/

From the article...

"The optimal solution is to create one paging file that is stored on the
boot partition, and then create one paging file on another partition that is
less frequently accessed on a different physical hard disk if a different
physical hard disk is available. Additionally, it is optimal to create the
second paging file so that it exists on its own partition, with no data or
operating-system-specific files."

"When you put a paging file on its own partition, the paging file does not
become fragmented, and this counts as another definite advantage. If a
paging file resides on a partition that contains other data, it may
experience fragmentation as it expands to satisfy the extra virtual memory
that is required. An unfragmented paging file leads to faster virtual memory
access and to a greater chance of a dump-file capture that is free of
significant errors."

The article states the disadvatage of moving swap off boot is that Windows
won't be able to create a dump file. Most users will proably never find
themselves in a situation of having to try and machine debug why windows
crashed and could live without that.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/expert/tulloch_partition.mspx

From the article...

"Install a second hard disk on your computer and create at least two
partitions on it, one for your paging file..."

"A well-known method for improving performance on a Windows-based computer
is to move the paging file (pagefile.sys) from its usual location on drive C
to its own separate partition on a separate physical drive."

It even suggests formating the swap partition as FAT32 as the performance is
faster with small volumes.

http://www.windowsdevcenter.com/pub/a/windows/2005/02/08/NTFS_Hacks.html

Tip 10 suggests pagefile.sys as FAT32 and 3x RAM on a second drive
exclusively for paging.

Ideal of course, but not usually practical. Something to consider however
if you have an extra drive laying around that's at least as fast as boot.

Following the rest of the recommendations this suggests having a pagefile on
a seperate FAT32 partition on a second drive. Having it as the 1st
partition places it on the outer tracks where xfer times are fastest and
immediatly adjacent to the 2nd partition Taking the fragmentation issue
into account and adding what we know from Pablos experience would suggest
the pagefile should be set to a static size and the partition sized such
that there remains at least 30% free space to avoid the low space warning.
This leaves the access time to the pagefile on the second drive as an issue.
Considering the potential read/write contention on boot between swap and
system files vs the potential read/write contention on a second drive
between swap and data, the likelyhood is the second configuation would
result in less contention. (This presumably would be even more beneficial
since Superfetch likes to load up swap with system and program data.)
Additionally, if performing backups of the entire boot partition this means
pagefile.sys doesn't have to be backed up saving time and backup space.

 

[...winston]

To follow up on one of your earlier bulleted item concerns.
" 2) don't have to back up pagefile.sys in image backups"

The predominant imaging programs(Ghost 12 and Acronis True Image) do not backup the pagefile.sys when creating images since Windows will create a new one on first subsequent o/s boot to the Windows GUI.

...winston


: news:%[email protected]...

 

[MICHAEL]

That's right, Winston. I know that Acronis and Paragon do not
include the pagefile when making an image. I'm quite sure
CompletePC doesn't, either.

-Michael

* ...winston:

 

[Pablo Montilla]

Now I'm confounded...shall I reformat my partition to FAT32 and get better
performance than putting the pagefile in the boot partition as Steve and
Mike have told me to do?

Does anyone have hard numbers? Which tool can be used to meausure pagefile
performance?

Regards,
Pablo

--


I am 86 of Borg: You will be... wait, my shoe is ringing.

Pablo Montilla
www.odyssey.com.uy

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

Pablo

Unless you put the page file in it's own partition on a PHYSICAL drive other
than the one with the OS installed on it, or just on another physical drive,
you will not get the best from the page file..

If you are so averse to placing the page file back in C, then manually
resize the page file where it is to within 75-80% of the partition size..
this will stop the low disk space warning..

Also, do NOT buy a 2-3gb HDD specifically to use for the page file, as the
performance of old drives will negate the effect of having the page file
installed on another drive other than the boot drive..

Re FAT32 format.. unless you are dual booting with an OS that only reads
FAT32, all partitions on an XP or Vista system benefit from being formatted
NTFS..

Now I'm confounded...shall I reformat my partition to FAT32 and get better
performance than putting the pagefile in the boot partition as Steve and
Mike have told me to do?

Does anyone have hard numbers? Which tool can be used to meausure pagefile
performance?

Regards,
Pablo

--


I am 86 of Borg: You will be... wait, my shoe is ringing.

Pablo Montilla
www.odyssey.com.uy

--


Mike Hall
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/

 

[kns98]

I cannot believe there is a chance of losing all data. If this is so,
NTFS is badly written. I've had UNIX partitions fill up with no ill
effect. Instead of blasting Pablo, why not admit it is aVista issue?

 

[Guest]

Could you please give a REAL answer to the FIRST question:
How to disable low disk space notification?

Thank you

El Polo