B
bill
Does that mean he has more than you have?
I'm intrigued by your comment. Why, when he says his system has to use
virtual memory, do you say he's got plenty of RAM?
I'm intrigued by your comment. Why, when he says his system has to use
virtual memory, do you say he's got plenty of RAM?
C
chrisv
And how is that obvious? He claims it's "maxed out", but I don't
believe there's any motherboards or chipsets that have a 384MB limit,
so that means the fool's definition of "maxed out" is that all his
slots are filled.
C
chrisv
Reminds me of the people who buy Intel's fastest CPU, on the basis
that the machine will then "last longer", which they want because they
"can't afford" to upgrade every couple years.
Hmm... Then how can you afford that overpriced high-end CPU?
E
Eric Gisin
|
| >| Hmmm...
| >| Obviously an *old* computer. :-(
| >| I understand your desire to speed things up, but, honestly, with
| >| something that old, you're trying to put fancy rims on a Vega. Nothing
| >| you can do will speed that up to any discernable amount.
| >| Sorry.
| >
| >Stupid Troll. He has plenty of memory.
| >
| Does that mean he has more than you have?
| I'm intrigued by your comment. Why, when he says his system has to use
| virtual memory, do you say he's got plenty of RAM?
Windows 2K/XP always pages out, no matter how much RAM you have. You don't
have a clue, do you?
I doubt the OP has problems with excessive pagefile activity. I don't with
255MB and Win2K, and everything is fast. I even have 140MB available now.
Almost nobody bothers measuring activity with perfmon. It's rarely a problem.
| >| Hmmm...
| >| Obviously an *old* computer. :-(
| >| I understand your desire to speed things up, but, honestly, with
| >| something that old, you're trying to put fancy rims on a Vega. Nothing
| >| you can do will speed that up to any discernable amount.
| >| Sorry.
| >
| >Stupid Troll. He has plenty of memory.
| >
| Does that mean he has more than you have?
| I'm intrigued by your comment. Why, when he says his system has to use
| virtual memory, do you say he's got plenty of RAM?
Windows 2K/XP always pages out, no matter how much RAM you have. You don't
have a clue, do you?
I doubt the OP has problems with excessive pagefile activity. I don't with
255MB and Win2K, and everything is fast. I even have 140MB available now.
Almost nobody bothers measuring activity with perfmon. It's rarely a problem.
T
Timothy Daniels
Everyone needs virtual memory. It's part of the
operating system. It's just that most people leave
the virtual memory on their primary hard drive.
My question has to do with implementing it on
a 2nd hard drive instead of on the primary
hard drive.
And I wish to use the 2nd hard drive because
it is there and it has the space available.
All additional claims are merely trolling.
*TimDaniels*
T
Timothy Daniels
=---chrisv said:
B
bill
While true, not everyone actually *uses* the virtual memory.
And that's been answered.
No problem; xrive on.
The advice to upgrade is hardly trolling.
I think you're being a little too defensive.
B
bill
Yes, I do.
I'm also capable of talking without attacking, something you evidently
can't do.
Now, try this: it's obvious that the OP is using his pagefile because
he doesn't have enough RAM for the work he's doing.
So you know what's going on with the OP's systyem better than he does?
How do you manage that?
T
Timothy Daniels
J.Clarke said:
You're a man of intellect, John. Yes, the slots and
Dell's specifications max the RAM out at 384. At
the time the specs were written and the motherboard
was tested by Dell, 128MB DIMMs were the largest
size available. Now, if I were willing to throw out all
of the old sticks, I could substitute 256MB sticks and
have 768MB available, but I don't want to spend the
money for more RAM since I don't need more than
384MB for what I do, and more RAM would just
increase the time used for bootup. I also intend to
periodically "ghost" the primary drive image to a
removable backup hard drive. I figure I could reduce
the time a little bit if the pagefile area doesn't have to
be copied, and it's possible that de-frags of the primary
drive would take a little less time if there's no pagefile
to work around. And in the unlikely event that the
primary drive starts getting congested, the area normally
taken for the pagefile would be available for storage.
So, for a zero cash outlay, I've decided to utilize a small
portion of the 2nd hard drive. All that I've been asking
is how best to do that - and *only* that.
*TimDaniels*
R
Rod Speed
Timothy Daniels said:
You're a wanker, Timmy.
Either the pagefile is being used a lot, in which case
you clearly do need more than 384MB for what you
do, OR the pagefile isnt being used except at boot
time, in which case there isnt any point at all
mindlessly obsessing about how best to organise it.
You cant have it both ways.
Complete and utter drivel.
And a new motherboard, cpu and decent modern DDR ram
will see it boot a lot faster than it currently does anyway.
Ghost doesnt include the pagefile in the image, stupid.
Only anal obsessives mindlessly defrag all the time.
More completely irrelevant waffle.
More fool you if your claim that 384MB is
all the physical ram you need for what you do.
If that is correct, the pagefile wont be used except
at boot time, and so its irrelevant how its organised.
And if you care about how long the boot takes,
tossing that dinosaur in the bin will speed that up FAR
more than any fiddling with its config will ever do.
And everyone has been rubbing your nose in the FACT
that you are asking the WRONG QUESTION, stupid.
J
Jef Norton
| If the OS and data files are in a partition formatted for NTFS,
| is there a recommended format for a partition on another
| hard drive that is dedicated as space for the pagefile? Should
| the pagefile partition be NTFS also, or is there a reason why
| it should be FAT32?
|
|
| *TimDaniels*
Hi Tim -
I've read this entire thread and I wouldn't touch the rest of it with a ten
foot pole. It's gotten quite nasty and totally off the point of your
original inquiry. Best advice I have for you: when you get responses you
totally disagree with, DO NOT REPLY to them -- this avoids most flame wars.
In any event, having a partition at the beginning of your second hard drive,
formatted NTFS, with a default cluster size of 4kb, would be the wisest
choice in order to achieve the best performance gain managing virtual memory
with your current system. I would choose NTFS because it's far less likely
to become corrupted should the system crash.
Personally I would create the partition with a size of probably 1.5
gigabytes and allow the system to manage the page file entirely. I
recommend that amount of space based on the need for the page file to expand
as applications call for additional virtual memory without risking crashing
the computer with a fixed page file that's 1.5 times the amount of physical
memory.
Ideally this new partition should be at the beginning of the drive in order
to minimize head movement as it's accessed.
In order to create a partition at the beginning of the drive, you'll need a
program such as Ghost or Drive Image to create a backup image of the drive.
Then delete the existing partition and create two new partitions with
Windows XP's disk manager. The first partition you create will then need
formatting. Again I recommend NTFS with a 4kb cluster size to match the
memory management code in XP. Then you can create a second partition in the
remaining space. There's no need to format this new partition as Ghost or
Drive Image will format the partition on the fly as your backup image is
restored. You may even be able to use Partition Magic version 7.01 or 8.0
to accomplish this feat, though I have had disasters occur from time to time
when resizing existing partitions and adding a new partitions before those
already on a drive -- a backup in advance is ALWAYS in order.
After you've created the new partitions on your second drive you can then
change the page file structure defined for your system. Windows XP will
perform best if you specify a very small fixed-size page file on your
default drive (I'm not exactly sure of the minimum size at the moment, but I
believe you can allocate 40kb for this purpose). This, of course, will be a
non-movable file. Then you can specify a system managed paging file on your
second drive. Reboot your system and XP should set things up nicely for
you. XP may or may not initially create a page file on your default drive -
but will create one if it is called for.
The above is all from my personal experience on an older Abit KT7
motherboard, which also had 384mb of RAM and two fixed disk drives. I never
benchmarked the performance of the system, but it did "feel" that it ran
more smoothly with the page file at the beginning of the second drive.
Good luck with whatever method you choose to proceed with.
Jef
| is there a recommended format for a partition on another
| hard drive that is dedicated as space for the pagefile? Should
| the pagefile partition be NTFS also, or is there a reason why
| it should be FAT32?
|
|
| *TimDaniels*
Hi Tim -
I've read this entire thread and I wouldn't touch the rest of it with a ten
foot pole. It's gotten quite nasty and totally off the point of your
original inquiry. Best advice I have for you: when you get responses you
totally disagree with, DO NOT REPLY to them -- this avoids most flame wars.
In any event, having a partition at the beginning of your second hard drive,
formatted NTFS, with a default cluster size of 4kb, would be the wisest
choice in order to achieve the best performance gain managing virtual memory
with your current system. I would choose NTFS because it's far less likely
to become corrupted should the system crash.
Personally I would create the partition with a size of probably 1.5
gigabytes and allow the system to manage the page file entirely. I
recommend that amount of space based on the need for the page file to expand
as applications call for additional virtual memory without risking crashing
the computer with a fixed page file that's 1.5 times the amount of physical
memory.
Ideally this new partition should be at the beginning of the drive in order
to minimize head movement as it's accessed.
In order to create a partition at the beginning of the drive, you'll need a
program such as Ghost or Drive Image to create a backup image of the drive.
Then delete the existing partition and create two new partitions with
Windows XP's disk manager. The first partition you create will then need
formatting. Again I recommend NTFS with a 4kb cluster size to match the
memory management code in XP. Then you can create a second partition in the
remaining space. There's no need to format this new partition as Ghost or
Drive Image will format the partition on the fly as your backup image is
restored. You may even be able to use Partition Magic version 7.01 or 8.0
to accomplish this feat, though I have had disasters occur from time to time
when resizing existing partitions and adding a new partitions before those
already on a drive -- a backup in advance is ALWAYS in order.
After you've created the new partitions on your second drive you can then
change the page file structure defined for your system. Windows XP will
perform best if you specify a very small fixed-size page file on your
default drive (I'm not exactly sure of the minimum size at the moment, but I
believe you can allocate 40kb for this purpose). This, of course, will be a
non-movable file. Then you can specify a system managed paging file on your
second drive. Reboot your system and XP should set things up nicely for
you. XP may or may not initially create a page file on your default drive -
but will create one if it is called for.
The above is all from my personal experience on an older Abit KT7
motherboard, which also had 384mb of RAM and two fixed disk drives. I never
benchmarked the performance of the system, but it did "feel" that it ran
more smoothly with the page file at the beginning of the second drive.
Good luck with whatever method you choose to proceed with.
Jef
F
Folkert Rienstra
Probably in the same manner that you did.
R
Rod Speed
Jef Norton said:
Corruption of a pagefile is completely irrelevant,
its recreated on the boot after the crash.
And if he really is short of physical ram, with that producing more
use than is desirable of the pagefile because of that, it makes a
lot more sense to use the file system that the boot drive is using so
you dont lose even more physical ram to support two file systems.
Head movement is irrelevant when the physical
drive being used for the pagefile is basically
only used for the pagefile during normal ops.
What matters is the physical transfer rate possible,
not head movement, and that may well mean that
the partition for the pagefile should be in the area
of the physical hard drive that something like
HDTach shows is the fastest for that particular drive.
Not when he's starting with a physical drive dedicated to the pagefile.
He just needs to partition it correctly when its first installed.
Whether that is best depends on other detail he hasnt supplied.
Particularly how the main boot drive is formatted file system wise.
And all this is a complete waste of time if he really does have enough
physical ram as he claims. And if he doesnt, more physical ram is
the only thing that will make much of a noticeable difference.
And unless you benchmark it, it could well be the placebo effect.
B
bill
I think you're working with some bad assumptions.
Imaging apps and backups don't bother with the pagefile, so that won't
make any difference.
I thought you wanted to speed up the pagefile; that's the only reason
someone would try tweaking with file system and drive placement.
If you're not actually using the pagefile, then you don't need to mess
with it at all; you've got a whole other drive (for free!) to relieve
any crowding on the C: drive.
J
J.Clarke
Whoa, back up. You're trying to tweak the page file to get better
performance but you claim that you don't need more than 384 meg to do
what you do? I'm sorry, but that doesn't make any sense. If you're not
normally using up that 384 meg then what do you expect to gain by
tweaking the page file? And if you are using up that 384 meg and a
significant amount of the page file, and if you're suffering a
perfomance penalty as a result, then you are going to gain far more
performance by increasing the RAM than you are by tweaking the page
file.
I'm sorry, I still don't understand why it's an issue then. If you
aren't using the page file for anything except because Windows isn't
happy without one then just stick it wherever you want to and don't
worry about it. If you don't want to include it in backups then just
put it on its own small partition anywhere that you have some space
free. It's not one of those issues that requires a great deal of
analysis. Just figure out how big the page file needs to be, make a
partition a little bigger, format it using whatever file system you feel
like, and tell Windows to put the page file on that partition and you're
done. No need to agonize over NTFS vs FAT vs FAT32 or cluster size or
any of that stuff--those will have a very tiny effect on system
performance if the page file is heavily utilized--if it's not then they
aren't going to make one iota of practical difference.
E
Eric Gisin
|
| >| >|
| >| >| Hmmm...
| >| >| Obviously an *old* computer. :-(
| >| >| I understand your desire to speed things up, but, honestly, with
| >| >| something that old, you're trying to put fancy rims on a Vega. Nothing
| >| >| you can do will speed that up to any discernable amount.
| >| >| Sorry.
| >| >
| >| >Stupid Troll. He has plenty of memory.
| >| >
| >| Does that mean he has more than you have?
| >| I'm intrigued by your comment. Why, when he says his system has to use
| >| virtual memory, do you say he's got plenty of RAM?
| >
| >Windows 2K/XP always pages out, no matter how much RAM you have. You don't
| >have a clue, do you?
|
| Yes, I do.
| I'm also capable of talking without attacking, something you evidently
| can't do.
You've demonstrated you are a troll. I am pointing out the obvious.
| Now, try this: it's obvious that the OP is using his pagefile because
| he doesn't have enough RAM for the work he's doing.
| >
And your point is? Enabling the pagefile improves performance unless you are
really short of RAM.
| >I doubt the OP has problems with excessive pagefile activity. I don't with
| >255MB and Win2K, and everything is fast. I even have 140MB available now.
| >
| >Almost nobody bothers measuring activity with perfmon. It's rarely a
problem.
|
| So you know what's going on with the OP's systyem better than he does?
| How do you manage that?
|
Years of experience. What I observe on my system applies to the majority of
others.
| >| >|
| >| >| Hmmm...
| >| >| Obviously an *old* computer. :-(
| >| >| I understand your desire to speed things up, but, honestly, with
| >| >| something that old, you're trying to put fancy rims on a Vega. Nothing
| >| >| you can do will speed that up to any discernable amount.
| >| >| Sorry.
| >| >
| >| >Stupid Troll. He has plenty of memory.
| >| >
| >| Does that mean he has more than you have?
| >| I'm intrigued by your comment. Why, when he says his system has to use
| >| virtual memory, do you say he's got plenty of RAM?
| >
| >Windows 2K/XP always pages out, no matter how much RAM you have. You don't
| >have a clue, do you?
|
| Yes, I do.
| I'm also capable of talking without attacking, something you evidently
| can't do.
You've demonstrated you are a troll. I am pointing out the obvious.
| Now, try this: it's obvious that the OP is using his pagefile because
| he doesn't have enough RAM for the work he's doing.
| >
And your point is? Enabling the pagefile improves performance unless you are
really short of RAM.
| >I doubt the OP has problems with excessive pagefile activity. I don't with
| >255MB and Win2K, and everything is fast. I even have 140MB available now.
| >
| >Almost nobody bothers measuring activity with perfmon. It's rarely a
problem.
|
| So you know what's going on with the OP's systyem better than he does?
| How do you manage that?
|
Years of experience. What I observe on my system applies to the majority of
others.
T
Timothy Daniels
Jef Norton said:
Posting here does at times seem like barge-poling
through a water treatment pond. The trick is to
handle only the dry part of the pole.
I think I'll also use NTFS on the pagefile partition -
if just to keep the system simple.
And, assuming that the "beginning of the drive" is
what the system considers the "first" partition on
the drive, that's where the pagefile partition will go.
The 2nd drive hasn't been formatted, yet, so it
should be pretty easy with MaxBlast or Partition
Magic.
Would the fixed-size file on the default drive be
the same as the 126MB file mentioned in the link
provided by "Frank" in Tampa Bay:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307886 ?
Are there any user inputs necessary to tell WinXP to
make the pagefile on the 2nd hard drive system-managed?
Thanks for your help, Jef.
*TimDaniels*
T
Timothy Daniels
Eric Gisin said:
My OS is WinXP Pro. Does that behave like Win2K with
regards to the pagefile? Of concern is that the reference
supplied by "Frank" pertains specifically to WinXP/WinXP Pro.
*TimDaniels*
J
Jef Norton
Hi Tim -
Comments in line:
|
| "Jef Norton" wrote:
| > "Timothy Daniels" wrote:
| > I've read this entire thread and I wouldn't touch
| > the rest of it with a ten foot pole....
|
|
| Posting here does at times seem like barge-poling
| through a water treatment pond. The trick is to
| handle only the dry part of the pole.
|
| I think I'll also use NTFS on the pagefile partition -
| if just to keep the system simple.
|
| And, assuming that the "beginning of the drive" is
| what the system considers the "first" partition on
| the drive, that's where the pagefile partition will go.
It's been my understanding that partitions are allocated based on relative
sector number from the beginning of the drive. The first partition starts
at sector number zero and ends at sector number "x". The second partition
starts at sector number "x + 1", etc.
| The 2nd drive hasn't been formatted, yet, so it
| should be pretty easy with MaxBlast or Partition
| Magic.
Sounds like you're already 99% there. If it's not currently formatted, you
could even use Windows XP's disk management tool.
|
|
| > After you've created the new partitions on your
| > second drive you can then change the page file
| > structure defined for your system. Windows XP
| > will perform best if you specify a very small
| > fixed-size page file on your default drive (I'm not
| > exactly sure of the minimum size at the moment,
| > but I believe you can allocate 40kb for this purpose).
| > This, of course, will be a non-movable file.
|
|
| Would the fixed-size file on the default drive be
| the same as the 126MB file mentioned in the link
| provided by "Frank" in Tampa Bay:
| http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307886 ?
|
I think I came up with the 40kb number as a minimum from somewhere (though I
cannot say where). If you're concerned about being able to create system
dump information, 126kb (or maybe even 128kb, so you end up with a nice
clean binary boundary) wouldn't be too much of an overhead on your system.
On my old KT7, Windows never even created the paging file on my default
drive, even though I had a small file specified for the drive - it was (and
still is... my retired dad still uses it) a very reliable system, even
though it only had a 100 MHz front side bus and, as you say, I had it "maxed
out" at 384 MB of SDRAM (why bother replacing my 128 MB sticks with 256 MB
sticks when I knew my next system would be using DDR SDRAM?).
|
| > Then you can specify a system managed paging file on
| > your second drive.
|
|
| Are there any user inputs necessary to tell WinXP to
| make the pagefile on the 2nd hard drive system-managed?
|
For the small paging file on your default drive, you click the "Custom Size"
radio button and specify the same value for the Initial and Maximum size
fields. For the paging file on your slave drive, you click on the "System
Managed Size" radio button and let Windows do the rest.
|
| > Reboot your system and XP should set things up nicely
| > for you. XP may or may not initially create a page file
| > on your default drive - but will create one if it is called for.
|
|
| Thanks for your help, Jef.
|
|
| *TimDaniels*
|
Happy to help. Good luck with your project!
Jef
Comments in line:
|
| "Jef Norton" wrote:
| > "Timothy Daniels" wrote:
| > I've read this entire thread and I wouldn't touch
| > the rest of it with a ten foot pole....
|
|
| Posting here does at times seem like barge-poling
| through a water treatment pond. The trick is to
| handle only the dry part of the pole.
|
| I think I'll also use NTFS on the pagefile partition -
| if just to keep the system simple.
|
| And, assuming that the "beginning of the drive" is
| what the system considers the "first" partition on
| the drive, that's where the pagefile partition will go.
It's been my understanding that partitions are allocated based on relative
sector number from the beginning of the drive. The first partition starts
at sector number zero and ends at sector number "x". The second partition
starts at sector number "x + 1", etc.
| The 2nd drive hasn't been formatted, yet, so it
| should be pretty easy with MaxBlast or Partition
| Magic.
Sounds like you're already 99% there. If it's not currently formatted, you
could even use Windows XP's disk management tool.
|
|
| > After you've created the new partitions on your
| > second drive you can then change the page file
| > structure defined for your system. Windows XP
| > will perform best if you specify a very small
| > fixed-size page file on your default drive (I'm not
| > exactly sure of the minimum size at the moment,
| > but I believe you can allocate 40kb for this purpose).
| > This, of course, will be a non-movable file.
|
|
| Would the fixed-size file on the default drive be
| the same as the 126MB file mentioned in the link
| provided by "Frank" in Tampa Bay:
| http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307886 ?
|
I think I came up with the 40kb number as a minimum from somewhere (though I
cannot say where). If you're concerned about being able to create system
dump information, 126kb (or maybe even 128kb, so you end up with a nice
clean binary boundary) wouldn't be too much of an overhead on your system.
On my old KT7, Windows never even created the paging file on my default
drive, even though I had a small file specified for the drive - it was (and
still is... my retired dad still uses it) a very reliable system, even
though it only had a 100 MHz front side bus and, as you say, I had it "maxed
out" at 384 MB of SDRAM (why bother replacing my 128 MB sticks with 256 MB
sticks when I knew my next system would be using DDR SDRAM?).
|
| > Then you can specify a system managed paging file on
| > your second drive.
|
|
| Are there any user inputs necessary to tell WinXP to
| make the pagefile on the 2nd hard drive system-managed?
|
For the small paging file on your default drive, you click the "Custom Size"
radio button and specify the same value for the Initial and Maximum size
fields. For the paging file on your slave drive, you click on the "System
Managed Size" radio button and let Windows do the rest.
|
| > Reboot your system and XP should set things up nicely
| > for you. XP may or may not initially create a page file
| > on your default drive - but will create one if it is called for.
|
|
| Thanks for your help, Jef.
|
|
| *TimDaniels*
|
Happy to help. Good luck with your project!
Jef
T
Timothy Daniels
<This is getting comical.> More RAM is not an option. I
am a student and I can't afford to spend $250 for 784MB
of new RAM. I also have available (at no extra cost) a fast
2nd hard drive, and I have available (at no extra cost) an
unused ATA/133 channel. The only time I push the system
is doing Java/C# compilations and testing software that
uses runtime services. I'm assuming the compilations make
use of the pagefile space. I also assume defragging uses the
pagefile space to reassemble and reorder blocks of files.
Since I have the 2nd hard drive and the 2nd ATA/133 channel,
why not use them? They're free!
Who needs a practical difference? Who's agonizing?
I've asked some simple questions in the interest of
understanding and utilizing my system better without
spending a bunch of money, and everyone starts making
value judgements about what *else* I should do instead
of just answering the simple questions. Must I first justify
my intentions before anyone will proffer some simple
answers? If those questions had simply been answered,
this thread would have been 2 postings long.
*TimDaniels*