ramdrive

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Guest

Hello,
can one install a ramdrive when running XP and move the swap file to there
to make windows run a little faster?
 
Toady007 said:
can one install a ramdrive when running XP and move the swap file to
there to make windows run a little faster?
Click to expand...

Not a good idea. BTW, do you put the jerry can into your fuel tank?
 
Toady007 said:
Hello,
can one install a ramdrive when running XP and move the swap file to there
to make windows run a little faster?
Click to expand...

Although quite possible, and at first sight a good idea, in practice it is
not such a good idea. The swap file holds extra data that 'overflows' from
your system RAM. If you put your swap file into ramdisk, this ramdisk has
to come out of your - well - system RAM. Thus your system would run with
the restrictions on useage as if you had no swap file at all, but slower due
to the shuffling between the two divisions of your system RAM.

If you were thinking of adding memory for the swap file space, then the
system will still run faster if you allocate all that memory as system RAM
and put the swap file on the hard disk. If you have multiple disk drives,
the swap file should always be on the fastest drive.

If you are really after the fastest possible system then, in spite if
Microsoft's dire warnings of doom and destruction, use a fixed size swap
file that is the largest size it is likely to be (as a rule of thumb, I
always go for double the RAM size, but others may have their own view).
 
can one install a ramdrive when running XP and move the swap file to there
to make windows run a little faster?
Click to expand...



It would make Windows run *slower*.

Putting the page file on a RAM drive removes some of the memory that
could be used by Windows, and uses it for the RAM drive. It's like
borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. What you save on the one hand you
lose on the other, and in this case when you lose it, you lose it
*plus* the extra overhead of the RAM drive.
 
Although quite possible, and at first sight a good idea, in practice it is
not such a good idea. The swap file holds extra data that 'overflows' from
your system RAM. If you put your swap file into ramdisk, this ramdisk has
to come out of your - well - system RAM. Thus your system would run with
the restrictions on useage as if you had no swap file at all, but slower due
to the shuffling between the two divisions of your system RAM.

If you were thinking of adding memory for the swap file space, then the
system will still run faster if you allocate all that memory as system RAM
and put the swap file on the hard disk.
Click to expand...


I agree with everything you say up to here.

If you have multiple disk drives,
the swap file should always be on the fastest drive.
Click to expand...


Not necessarily. A faster drive is of course better, but it's also
important to realize that the slowest aspect of using the page file is
moving the heads to and from it. For that reason, putting it an the
most-used partition of the least-used physical drive is normally best,
since it minimizes such head movement..

If it were my system and I had multiple physical drives with different
seeds, I'd probably try it both ways, but I'd bet on the least-used
drive giving better performance than the fastest drive..


If you are really after the fastest possible system then, in spite if
Microsoft's dire warnings of doom and destruction, use a fixed size swap
file that is the largest size it is likely to be
Click to expand...



A fixed page file size doesn't hurt, but it wastes disk space. Making
the minimum small and the maximum large is just as good.


(as a rule of thumb, I
always go for double the RAM size, but others may have their own view).
Click to expand...


No multiple of the amount of RAM you have is a good setting. In fact
the more RAM you have, the *less* page file you need.

The best info on the page file is in this article by the late MVP Alex
Nichol: "Virtual Memory in Windows XP"
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php

One remaining point: in these days of low RAM prices, many people have
enough RAM so that page file usage is minimal. For that reason, all
considerations about where to put it, how big to make it, etc. are
much less significant than they used to be.
 
You can disable all swap-file use in Windows XP if you want to eliminate the
overhead of paging to disk but this will cut in half the amount total memory
that will be available to your running programs. When our RescueBoot product
creates a bootable Windows XP CD it disables swap-file use so that XP does
not use one when it is running from the RescueBoot CD.

XP is very good about keeping paging to a minimum so you won't really see
any noticeable improvement in actual system performance when running without
a swap-file. The only reason we do it in RescueBoot is to reduce the amount
of memory we need for our hybrid virtual drive that Windows sees when it's
running from the CD.

If you want to play around with running XP without a swap-file just go into
the virtual memory settings and select the radio button beside "No Paging
File". You'll need to do this for all of the listed hard drives.
 
Ken Blake said:
I agree with everything you say up to here.




Not necessarily. A faster drive is of course better, but it's also
important to realize that the slowest aspect of using the page file is
moving the heads to and from it. For that reason, putting it an the
most-used partition of the least-used physical drive is normally best,
since it minimizes such head movement..

If it were my system and I had multiple physical drives with different
seeds, I'd probably try it both ways, but I'd bet on the least-used
drive giving better performance than the fastest drive..
Click to expand...

I understand what you say, but these days, the time the head takes to move
between files isn't the greatest bottleneck on the disk drive. It becomes
insignificant if the drive is fragmented (particularly the swap file) which
can slow things down.
A fixed page file size doesn't hurt, but it wastes disk space. Making
the minimum small and the maximum large is just as good.
Click to expand...

The issue here is that time is wasted as the fike has to be expanded and
contracted. It can also lead to fragmentation which (as noted) slows things
down.
No multiple of the amount of RAM you have is a good setting. In fact
the more RAM you have, the *less* page file you need.
Click to expand...

I rather depends on what you do and why you have the RAM size you do.
Generally, you go for a larger RAM size because what you do requires it. In
this case you need the larger page file as well.
The best info on the page file is in this article by the late MVP Alex
Nichol: "Virtual Memory in Windows XP"
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php

One remaining point: in these days of low RAM prices, many people have
enough RAM so that page file usage is minimal. For that reason, all
considerations about where to put it, how big to make it, etc. are
much less significant than they used to be.
Click to expand...

I have 2Gb of RAM and I use all of it and quite a bit of page file as well
so it may not be as insignificant as you claim - but then I am editing high
definition video which is particularly greedy. If I wasn't then 2Gb of RAM
would be total overkill.
 
I understand what you say, but these days, the time the head takes to move
between files isn't the greatest bottleneck on the disk drive. It becomes
insignificant if the drive is fragmented (particularly the swap file) which
can slow things down.
Click to expand...



Page file fragmentation is not an issue, since access to the page file
is random anyway. Read Alex Nichol's article cited below.

The issue here is that time is wasted as the fike has to be expanded and
contracted. It can also lead to fragmentation which (as noted) slows things
down.

I rather depends on what you do and why you have the RAM size you do.
Generally, you go for a larger RAM size because what you do requires it. In
this case you need the larger page file as well.


I have 2Gb of RAM and I use all of it and quite a bit of page file as well
so it may not be as insignificant as you claim - but then I am editing high
definition video which is particularly greedy. If I wasn't then 2Gb of RAM
would be total overkill.
Click to expand...



Yes, I said "many people have enough RAM so that page file usage is
minimal." I certainly don't claim that everyone does.
 
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