Swap File location when considering hard drive speed

[Guest]

Hello Everyone,

I'm running Windows XP Pro, and I have 512 MB of RAM. I find that my swap
file size is usually about 500MB, which I find big. The problem i find is the
following:

How can I make it so that all my ram is used up before the swap file starts
bring used up. And secondly, should I keep my swap file on my C: drive, which
is a 7200RPM SATA drive, or should I put it on a 5400RPM drive, which has
barely any activity to it? I just don't see which one would have more of an
advantage. If someone could help me out with this I would really appreciate.
Thanks.

 

[David Candy]

It doesn't matter.

 

[Guest]

So then are you saying that the lack of RPM is equal to having the swap file
on the system drive?

Also, if someone know how to use all the RAM before swap space, I would like
to know. Thanks.

Luc

 

[Shenan Stanley]

So then are you saying that the lack of RPM is equal to having the
swap file on the system drive?

Also, if someone know how to use all the RAM before swap space, I
would like to know. Thanks.

It does that..
Unused applications and/or when application(s) use more RAM than you have
get put into the "swap space".
500MB is not unusually large for a swap file. Especially for someone with
only 512MB of RAM.

 

[David Candy]

I doubt yopu are using 500MB of pagefile. As it is virtually unused it doesn't matter.

 

[Guest]

Alright,

what are your thoughts about the different hard drive and swap file
configurations?

 

[Guest]

well,

http://www.bercell.com/PF.jpg

It's using even more right now...

Luc

 

[David Candy]

That's irrelevent. Don't worry about things above you. My TM shows 182 MB but I'm really using 29 MB. It not for you to think about. Use your computer and stop thinking.
PageFile: \??\C:\pagefile.sys
Current Size: 4193280 kb Total Used: 28956 kb Peak Used 37660 kb

 

[Ron Martell]

Hello Everyone,

I'm running Windows XP Pro, and I have 512 MB of RAM. I find that my swap
file size is usually about 500MB, which I find big. The problem i find is the
following:

How can I make it so that all my ram is used up before the swap file starts
bring used up. And secondly, should I keep my swap file on my C: drive, which
is a 7200RPM SATA drive, or should I put it on a 5400RPM drive, which has
barely any activity to it? I just don't see which one would have more of an
advantage. If someone could help me out with this I would really appreciate.
Thanks.

Use both drives by configuring a page file on each. Windows will use
whichever of the two is most efficient for any given paging operation.

The ultimate answer to all performance related issues regarding the
page file in Windows is to have sufficient RAM so as to eliminate the
need to actually use it, that is the need to relocate active memory
content frpm RAM to the page file so as to allow that RAM to be used
for other, currently more important tasks.

Unfortunately there is no ready way of determing actual paging file
usage provided with Windows XP - it does not have an equivalent to the
'Memory Manager - Swap File In Use" reporting provided by the System
Monitor utility in Windows 95/98/Me.

There is a free utility that you can download and run which will
provide this information for you. It was written by MVP Bill James and
you can get if from
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm or from
http://billsway.com/notes_public/WinXP_Tweaks/

If that utility shows actual page file usage of 50 mb or more on a
regular basis then that is indicative of fairly significant paging
file activity. Adding more RAM will reduce or even eliminate entirely
this activity thereby improving performance.


Note that Windows XP also uses the page file for additional purposes
as well, the most important of which is to provide memory address
space for the unused portions of memory allocation requests.

See the article by the late Alex Nichol MVP on virtual memory
management in Windows XP at http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

Good luck


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

In memory of a dear friend Alex Nichol MVP
http://aumha.org/alex.htm