swap file priority

[Techno Mage]

Does Vista prioritize the swap files to use the one on the fastest drive first?
I am asking this because i am thinking of getting a gigabyte ramdisk, but it
only holds 4GB, and i only have one pci slot, so i cant buy another one.
187.5 MB/s is faster than my HDD speed of 50MB/s.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Does Vista prioritize the swap files to use the one on the fastest drive first?
No.


I am asking this because i am thinking of getting a gigabyte ramdisk, but it
only holds 4GB, and i only have one pci slot, so i cant buy another one.
187.5 MB/s is faster than my HDD speed of 50MB/s.

First, how much RAM do you have and how much is your system paging? If
you have enough RAM so that you page very little, nothing you can to
the page file will make any performance difference at all. On the
other hand, if you don't have enough RAM, and are therefore paging a
significant amount, and you are willing to spend money to fix that
situation, clearly the best thing to do is to buy more RAM.

In other words, it's better to avoid paging than to speed up paging.
The solution to the problem (if there is one) is more RAM, not a
faster paging device.

 

[Techno Mage]

I am maxed out at 4GB of ram.
Vista is currently using 1.5GB of the paging file

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> Techno

I am maxed out at 4GB of ram.
Vista is currently using 1.5GB of the paging file

If you don't mind me asking, how are you measuring that you're using
1.5GB of your paging file?

No offense intended, but many people look at the wrong stats...

 

[Techno Mage]

Task Manager > Performance Tab
A box called system
text that says Page File 2406M / 6844M

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

Keep in mind that many programs reserve pagefile space without actually
using it as a normal part of their runtime (one reason why it should never
be disabled regardless of the amount of ram installed). Unless the system is
actively paging, and with 4GB installed that is unlikely unless you are
doing some heavy duty video editing, you are likely to see little benefit
from speeding up the access time.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> Techno

Task Manager > Performance Tab
A box called system
text that says Page File 2406M / 6844M

That indicates how much virtual memory has been allocated, not how much
is actually being used...

This value does not necessarily indicate how much paging is actually
happening.

 

[Techno Mage]

Thanks everyone for your input, i got me ramdisk with 4GB, and are now using
it as the only swap disk, system performance, has increased, noticeably
(especially in certain games).

The only problem i have now, is every time i boot up, windows complains,
about there not being any free space on that drive

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> Techno

The only problem i have now, is every time i boot up, windows complains,
about there not being any free space on that drive

http://www.lockergnome.com/windows/2007/11/02/disable-the-low-disk-space-warning-in-vista/