Mike said:
Gerry and the OP
When a computer starts, the heads move from the parked position and
pick up Windows. In use, the heads are not parked. They pick up
programs and files from all over the disk. If the pagefile is
positioned centrally, the heads will only ever have to traverse half
way across to drop or pick up from the pagefile.
Pagefiles rarely position exactly central, but it is better than
having the pagefile at one end. However, this only applies to a
pagefile on the system drive.
Windows prefers at least part of the pagefile on C, and it is best to
set it to system managed. Space is not wasted, and Windows determines
the size depending upon the range of tasks being undertaken.
The only time that a pagefile should ever be set to a limit is in
situations where a computer is doing the same task over and over, and
the reason that system admins do this is purely to maximize the space
available for programs and files without prejudicing performance.
A pagefile placed on a second physical drive ,which for the most part
only contains data, does not have to be in a separate partition. If
it is, odds are that the partition will be too small which would slow
everything down, or too large which wastes space. System managed is
the name of the game again.
Just to add another 2 ¢ to that:
No one has mentioned what this machine is being used for I don't think,
which has a bearing on whether even bothering with moving the pf
(pagefile) is of any benefit anyway.
With 4 Gig of RAM, it would take some intensive operations on large
data before the pf were even used, let alone used very much, for data
switching. If the pf is seldom or never used, then leaving everything
at default is sensible and provides a tiny decrease in the opportunity
for things to go wrong. In my situation, I consider anything under 500
Meg pf not used as I never see any noticeable delays occur. Much beyond
that though and i can start to notice pauses and occasional slowdowns,
especially if it reaches a Gig or more. That would be when I'm doing
video work. Those number of course are likely to vary by each case.
I don't believe in a separate partition for the pf either for the
reasons Mike gave, plus it guarantees the heads will never be in the pf
region when it's needed. The pf located on the most used area of the
drive is usually the best place for it, so that the heads will normally
likely be closer to it. It causes zero problems here, and I have a
non-System Managed pf on each drive; 150 Meg min/max on the boot drive
for dumps, and System Managed on my other physical hard drive. I"ve
read that if you don't limit the pf on the boot drive, that the other pf
may never be used until it becomes full & needs more room; haven't
verified that though it makes sense. My monitor shows that pf at a
fairly steady 150 to 167 Meg size.
I did note substantial increases in efficiency when I move my pg to a
second hard drive. For video rendering it was in the order or 33% to
almost 50%. Rendering is extremely disk/pf intensive.
Also, very large pagefiles occurring do and will impact other
programs that are running, especially if it reaches or surpasses say a
Gig in size and consisting of large buffers being stored in it. If a
person is reaching those proportions, then the opposite of not needing
to move the pf happens: the pf may be doing all it can do. Further
effors may be required in faster spinning drives, faster graphics cards,
faster RAM, faster cpu, etc. etc. etc.. In other words, you can only go
so far with the pf. There IS a point of diminishing returns after which
it won't be providing any further advantages.
One more thing to consider when you're envisioning your disk drive and
the data on it: Most programs have to show it in 2D as though it were
one big, vinyl record with all the data on its surface. But remember,
the disk is actually made up of several platters, or sub-disks, and
heads for each platter. Thus, what looks to be to the right of one
sector on a screen representation might actually be on a platter under
or over that sector. It depends on how it's structured.
Going there is really splitting hairs, but it helps when one comes
across some of the seeming inconsistancies on screen representations.
HTH,
Twayne`
