On 22 Jan 2005 13:20:24 -0500, (e-mail address removed) (Al Dykes) wrote:
| Wrong information. If you have only one disk don't partition it just
| for the swap file. If you think you need to partition the disk for
| some other reason then the right answer is (a) that the swap file
| should be in the most-used partition and (b) that unless you measure
| your system's page rate and find it's slowing you down it doesn't make
| any diff. Putting the sawpfile in C is the best option unless you do
| your own tests and if you find that you are reading the pagefile often
| then adding more RAM is a better option, if your system can take it.
Here's what Microsoft has to say about it:
To enhance performance, it is good practice to put the paging file on
a different partition and on a different physical hard disk drive.
That way, Windows can handle multiple I/O requests more quickly. When
the paging file is on the boot partition, Windows must perform disk
reading and writing requests on both the system folder and the paging
file. When the paging file is moved to a different partition, there
is less competition between reading and writing requests.
Here's the reference page:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314482
Larc
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I read the KB article. That's the Here's what another paragraph in the
same article. The emphis is in a paging on a second spindle, which
does not contradict what I wrote.
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. By design, Windows uses the paging
file on the less frequently accessed partition over the paging file
on the more heavily accessed boot partition. An internal algorithm
is used to determine which paging file to use for virtual memory
management.
IMO before your do _anything_ beyond vanilla setup; pagefile on C
drive, you need to use perfmon to measure the _rate_ of paging (not
the size of the pagefile), if the paging rate is more than a few pages
per second in your application [1] then consider more memory because
eliminating a pagefile I/O op is even better than making it faster,
and only then look at partitions or spindles for swapfile.
The consensus is that a pagefile in a second partition forces two long seeks,
slowing the swap operation even more. MS says that part of the pagefile
in C, and this may be the fastest access, becasue of the short seek.
Everything MS, you, and I write is generalizations. Computer performance
tuning can only be done on a real computer running a specific application.
[1] You tune a system by measuring what it is doing in the moments you wish
it were faster. Overall averages don't mean much.
