Pagefile over 2 physical disks.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sin Jeong-hun
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Sin Jeong-hun

Suppose you have two hard disks, A and B.
A has 30MB/s transfer speed, and B has 20MB/s.

Option one is to place the only pagefile on drive A.
Option two is to place a pagefile on drive A and the other pagefile on
drive B (two page files on physically different disks).

Which do you think is better for the overall system performance? Thanks.
 
It's best to have lots of RAM - the more RAM, the less need to page out to
file. That said, pagefile performance increases slightly if you put the
pagefile on a second speedy harddrive. If you decide on more than one
pagefile, only use one per harddrive if possible; in other words, not on two
partitions on the same harddrive. Windows has algorithms to handle multiple
pagefiles - if you want to know the performance of these you might contact
Microsoft directly or strike up a conversation with Mark Minasi:

http://www.minasi.com/
 
Sin said:
Suppose you have two hard disks, A and B.
A has 30MB/s transfer speed, and B has 20MB/s.

Option one is to place the only pagefile on drive A.
Option two is to place a pagefile on drive A and the other pagefile on
drive B (two page files on physically different disks).

Which do you think is better for the overall system performance?
Click to expand...


First of all, if you have sufficient RAM, you will page very little, and it
doesn't matter much where the page file is. Many modern machines have enough
RAM, so the issue of where to put the page file is not as important as it
used to be.

Second, assuming significant page file use, the single biggest factor in
slowing down page file use is head movement to and from the page file. As a
general rule, anything you do to minimize that head movement will almost
always override factors like transfer rates. So the best thing you can do is
put the page page on a drive other than the one Windows is installed on (a
physical drive, not a different partition; putting it on a second partition
on your onlyphysical drive *increases* head movement). However be sure to
also put at least a small page file on the drive/partition with Windows. A
good rule of thumb is that the main portion of the page file should be on
the most-used partition of the least-used physical drive.

Despite what I say above, it's easy enough to change page file settings, and
there's nothing wrong with trying it both ways to see what works best in
your situation.

For more information, read this article by the late MVP Alex Nichol:
"Virtual Memory in Windows XP" at http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm
 
Sin Jeong-hun said:
Suppose you have two hard disks, A and B.
A has 30MB/s transfer speed, and B has 20MB/s.

Option one is to place the only pagefile on drive A.
Option two is to place a pagefile on drive A and the other pagefile on
drive B (two page files on physically different disks).

Which do you think is better for the overall system performance? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Pagefiles on both physical hard drives will provide some performance
advantages over a single pagfile on either drive, although it may take
a series of precisely timed benchmark tests in order to detect this
difference.

Where there are multiple pagefiles Windows will always use the one
that is optimal for each specific paging operation.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."
 
Sin said:
Suppose you have two hard disks, A and B.
A has 30MB/s transfer speed, and B has 20MB/s.

Option one is to place the only pagefile on drive A.
Option two is to place a pagefile on drive A and the other pagefile on
drive B (two page files on physically different disks).

Which do you think is better for the overall system performance? Thanks.
Click to expand...


Option B, provided that the second HDD is as faster (or faster than)
the HDD holding the OS.


Planning Your Partitions
http://www.aumha.org/a/parts.htm


--

Bruce Chambers

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