Hairsplitting partition questions

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Sorry if this is a repeat. I suspect I sent the earlier query not to
the Newsgroup but to Ken Blake by mistake.
Ken Blake's excellent reply is of use to me also.

Glad to have helped.

I have an additional
query, please. I remember to have read somewhere that keeping the page
file on a *physical* drive different from the one on which the OS is
installed will improve performance. Is that correct? Thanks in advance.

Yes. In general, for best performance the page file should be on the
most-used partition of the least-used physical drive.

However, bear in mind that these days many people have enough RAM and
the page file is hardly used at all. If you fall into that category,
it hardly matters where you put it, from a performance standpoint.

 

[Poprivet`]

Glad to have helped.





Yes. In general, for best performance the page file should be on the
most-used partition of the least-used physical drive.

However, bear in mind that these days many people have enough RAM and
the page file is hardly used at all. If you fall into that category,
it hardly matters where you put it, from a performance standpoint.

Sort of adding on:

"Enough RAM" being more than 512, usually 1 Gig up to 3 Gig. Even with 512,
it depends on what you do with the computer whether you'll notice any
results or not. The occasional user who does email, surfs, runs an Office
app or two usually won't but a heavy user is almost certain to notice it.

HTH

Pop`

 

[Lil' Dave]

Well said - you put it much better than I did. One query though:
What difference does it make whether the OP keeps his data on
a second primary partition or on a logical drive? I would have
said "none whatsoever".

There is a minute difference. The extended partition contains record of
locations of the logical drives. One more thing that can break. Therefore,
there is no sense in making a 2nd partition logical in a 2 partition scheme
on one hard drive.

I've used the 3 primary and 1 extended partition method when using
multi-boot system with 3rd party boot manager. All OSes can access the data
on the logical drives within the extended partition. Msdos based windows
hierarchy automatically sets up the partition letters in a method I'm used
to and comfortable with. Whereas, you have to at least change the CD drive
letter (designated at installation time) to get this scheme in XP.