Pagefile Sys Placement

[Murkey]

I have two internal hard drives. I've placed the pagefile (swapfile) on the
second hard drive. I did a check disk and defragmented the second hard
drive this morning. I noticed the page file sitting right in the middle of the
drive with files on both sides.
Is there a way to move the pagefile to the end of the hard drive ??
TIA

 

[JS]

The best location for the pagefile on your second drive is at the front
(top) of the drive and not at the end.

JS

 

[Gerry]

Murkey

No is the answer to your question.

When you put a pagefile on the second drive it is recommended that you
place it in it's own partition at the beginning of the drive. You should
also keep a small pagefile of 50 mb in the system partition (where
windows is located) normally C.
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm
http://aumha.org/a/parts.htm

By placing the pagefile in it's own partition you are able to maintain a
contiguous file, thereby avoiding fragmenting free space and as a result
slowing down file fragmentation. If it is not in it's own partition you
may be able to create and maintain a contiguous pagefile by setting the
minimum and the maximum at the largest figure you think you will need
and erring on the generous side. This runs contrary to the generally
accepted advice to let Windows manage the pagefile. In my opinion this
is better than having a non-contiguous pagefile fragmenting the free
space as the drive capacity is filled.

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Murkey]

Murkey

No is the answer to your question.

When you put a pagefile on the second drive it is recommended that you
place it in it's own partition at the beginning of the drive. You should
also keep a small pagefile of 50 mb in the system partition (where
windows is located) normally C.
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm
http://aumha.org/a/parts.htm

By placing the pagefile in it's own partition you are able to maintain a
contiguous file, thereby avoiding fragmenting free space and as a result
slowing down file fragmentation. If it is not in it's own partition you
may be able to create and maintain a contiguous pagefile by setting the
minimum and the maximum at the largest figure you think you will need
and erring on the generous side. This runs contrary to the generally
accepted advice to let Windows manage the pagefile. In my opinion this
is better than having a non-contiguous pagefile fragmenting the free
space as the drive capacity is filled.

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

 

[Sam Hobbs]

Probably the middle is a good place for performance because then the heads
never need to move far. It seems to me that head movement is the biggest
performance determination. The beginning is a good place if the heads are
positioned for something near the beginning and the end is a good place if
the heads are positioned for something near the end. The middle might be
considered to be optimum, but I don't know if it is. I am just suggesting
that that might be the justification for putting it in the middle.

 

[Allan]

Probably the middle is a good place for performance because then the heads
never need to move far. It seems to me that head movement is the biggest
performance determination. The beginning is a good place if the heads are
positioned for something near the beginning and the end is a good place if
the heads are positioned for something near the end. The middle might be
considered to be optimum, but I don't know if it is. I am just suggesting
that that might be the justification for putting it in the middle.

It is recommended to place the pagefile on the second drive in a dedicated
partition. If using XP this could be 4GB Fat32. If you want your pagefile at
the end of the drive then allocate the partition at the end of the drive.
Needless to say you need third-party partitioning software to accomplish
this unless you want to format the drive again. The reason given for the
dedicated partition is to avoid fragmentation problems with the pagefile. I
am not sure why you care where the pagefile is located on the second drive.
You still need a small pagefile on your system drive of about 215MB if you
want to create a kernel dump in case of a BSOD crash.

 

[Sam Hobbs]

It is recommended to place the pagefile on the second drive in a dedicated
partition. If using XP this could be 4GB Fat32. If you want your pagefile
at the end of the drive then allocate the partition at the end of the
drive. Needless to say you need third-party partitioning software to
accomplish this unless you want to format the drive again. The reason
given for the dedicated partition is to avoid fragmentation problems with
the pagefile. I am not sure why you care where the pagefile is located on
the second drive. You still need a small pagefile on your system drive of
about 215MB if you want to create a kernel dump in case of a BSOD crash.

Nothing that I said is incompatible with that.

 

[Gordon]

It is recommended to place the pagefile on the second

little-used or faster

drive in a dedicated partition.

if the second drive is normally used for data then there's no advantage in
moving it....

 

[Gerry]

Gordon

Provided the pagefile is contiguous or in a dedicated partition you're
not correct. The recommendation generally is that the dedicated
partition should be at the beginning of the second drive. If the
pagefile fluctuates in size as the free space on a disk reduces it will
become increasingly difficult to keep it contiguous so a dedicated
partition is a far better option.

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Gordon]

Gordon

Provided the pagefile is contiguous or in a dedicated partition you're not
correct.

And if the second drive is being accessed constantly because the user's data
is kept there, then the heads will be constantly moving. And therefore there
is NO advantage in putting the pagefile on the second drive!

 

[Allan]

little-used or faster


if the second drive is normally used for data then there's no advantage in
moving it....

There are hardly any systems where all data is kept on only a single drive.
On Windows XP the D&S folder is by default installed on the same partition
as Windows XP, therefore on the primary drive. At least some user data is
therefore not on the second drive. In the case of more than two drives I
agree that it would be ideal to place the pagefile on the drive that is
least likely to be accessed most of the time. However this is a solid
performance improvement suggestion for many if not the majority of Windows
XP/Server systems with more than one drive installed. It certainly has
benefited my HP Pavilion Desktop; by the way I do not have a dedicated
partition and I just let Windows manage the pagefile on the second drive.