Unusual Use of External HDD

  • Thread starter Thread starter Al Dubovick
  • Start date Start date
A

Al Dubovick

Would like to use an external HDD to accomodate a dedicated partition
for a WinXP paging file. The purpose of this is two-fold: to improve
performance, and to extend the life of the notoriously short-lived
internal HDD of the laptop computer.

Sounds straight-forward enough, but here's the catch. The external HDD
would be used only *most* of the time; when the system is plugged into
AC and sitting on a tabletop. When the laptop is on battery power, and
is actually resting on my lap, I wish to do without the external HDD.

Is this possible? Will WinXP still be able to boot safely with an
undetected major paging file? Does increasing the amount of RAM to some
critical amount make any difference?

Was wondering if there's a way to do it such that I leave a dedicated
paging partition on one of the laptops *internal* HDD partitions also.
How could WinXP be forced to auto-create a needed paging file on that
partition during bootup when it doesn't detect the missing external
drive's paging partition?

Keep in mind that there could still be a far smaller but significantly
sized paging file on the system partition.

If it can't be done currently, then it certainly would be an extremely
useful new feature to be added to the next WinXP service pack. (Got
that, Microsoft employees out there?) Remember, 2003 is "the year of the
laptop".
 
You will see no performance increase with any type of pagefie tweeking iff you
have 256MB+ RAM. Don't waste your time.

Most people see under 32MB pagfile used. Set your minimum to 2MB and see for
your self. Use "dir/a c:". Add RAM if you see a large pagefile.

| Would like to use an external HDD to accomodate a dedicated partition
| for a WinXP paging file. The purpose of this is two-fold: to improve
| performance, and to extend the life of the notoriously short-lived
| internal HDD of the laptop computer.
|
| Sounds straight-forward enough, but here's the catch. The external HDD
| would be used only *most* of the time; when the system is plugged into
| AC and sitting on a tabletop. When the laptop is on battery power, and
| is actually resting on my lap, I wish to do without the external HDD.
|
| Is this possible? Will WinXP still be able to boot safely with an
| undetected major paging file? Does increasing the amount of RAM to some
| critical amount make any difference?
|
| Was wondering if there's a way to do it such that I leave a dedicated
| paging partition on one of the laptops *internal* HDD partitions also.
| How could WinXP be forced to auto-create a needed paging file on that
| partition during bootup when it doesn't detect the missing external
| drive's paging partition?
|
| Keep in mind that there could still be a far smaller but significantly
| sized paging file on the system partition.
|
| If it can't be done currently, then it certainly would be an extremely
| useful new feature to be added to the next WinXP service pack. (Got
| that, Microsoft employees out there?) Remember, 2003 is "the year of the
| laptop".
|
 
Would like to use an external HDD to accomodate
a dedicated partition for a WinXP paging file.
Click to expand...

Thats a completely mad approach.
The purpose of this is two-fold: to improve performance,
Click to expand...

That approach will make the performance worse.
and to extend the life of the notoriously
short-lived internal HDD of the laptop computer.
Click to expand...

Even madder, use doesnt wear them out.

And the best way to minimise the use of the
drive and to maximise performance is to add
more physical ram so the page file isnt used much.
Sounds straight-forward enough, but here's the catch. The external HDD
would be used only *most* of the time; when the system is plugged into
AC and sitting on a tabletop. When the laptop is on battery power, and
is actually resting on my lap, I wish to do without the external HDD.
Click to expand...
Is this possible?
Click to expand...

Probably not and since its a completely mad approach anyway...
Will WinXP still be able to boot safely
with an undetected major paging file?
Yes.

Does increasing the amount of RAM to
some critical amount make any difference?
Click to expand...

Yes, increasing the amount of physical ram
radically reduces the page file use to close to zero.

How much physical ram you need to achieve that depends
on what you actually do on the laptop, so there isnt any
nice tidy magic number you need to make sure you have.
Was wondering if there's a way to do it such that I leave a dedicated
paging partition on one of the laptops *internal* HDD partitions also.
Click to expand...

Yes, XP can handle multiple page files.
How could WinXP be forced to auto-create a needed
paging file on that partition during bootup when it doesn't
detect the missing external drive's paging partition?
Click to expand...

That will happen auto.
Keep in mind that there could still be a far smaller but
significantly sized paging file on the system partition.
Click to expand...
If it can't be done currently, then it certainly would be an extremely
useful new feature to be added to the next WinXP service pack.
Click to expand...

Nope, makes no sense at all.
(Got that, Microsoft employees out there?)
Click to expand...

Bill just bared his arse at you.
Remember, 2003 is "the year of the laptop".
Click to expand...

And even MS has managed to work out how important
physical ram is in minimising the use of the page file.
 
Rod said:
Thats a completely mad approach.


That approach will make the performance worse.


Even madder, use doesnt wear them out.

And the best way to minimise the use of the
drive and to maximise performance is to add
more physical ram so the page file isnt used much.



Probably not and since its a completely mad approach anyway...


Yes, increasing the amount of physical ram
radically reduces the page file use to close to zero.

How much physical ram you need to achieve that depends
on what you actually do on the laptop, so there isnt any
nice tidy magic number you need to make sure you have.


Yes, XP can handle multiple page files.


That will happen auto.



Nope, makes no sense at all.


Bill just bared his arse at you.


And even MS has managed to work out how important
physical ram is in minimising the use of the page file.
Click to expand...

The laptop would have to be an older model having relatively low memory
capacity (by today's standards) for the use of a 2nd HDD for paging to be an
advantageous way to improve performance. If the 2nd HDD was an *internal*
one (but there aren't too many laptops that have more than 1 internal HDD),
then performance could certainly be improved for huge operations on an old
laptop running WinXP that's already maxed out with only 256MB of RAM.

The problem with *external* HDDs is that they run on slow buses unless
they're SCSI, but SCSI is not available for laptops.
 
"> (Got that, Microsoft employees out there?)

Bill just bared his arse at you."

Rod, we'd all love to hear more from you!
 
| >
| > And even MS has managed to work out how important
| > physical ram is in minimising the use of the page file.
|
| The laptop would have to be an older model having relatively low memory
| capacity (by today's standards) for the use of a 2nd HDD for paging to be an
| advantageous way to improve performance. If the 2nd HDD was an *internal*
| one (but there aren't too many laptops that have more than 1 internal HDD),
| then performance could certainly be improved for huge operations on an old
| laptop running WinXP that's already maxed out with only 256MB of RAM.
|
| The problem with *external* HDDs is that they run on slow buses unless
| they're SCSI, but SCSI is not available for laptops.
|
256MB is fine for Win2k/xp. Just purge bloatware from the system.

Your options for an external bus are UW SCSI, Firewire, USB 2. All are fast by
laptop standards, and 100X faster than pagefile I/O.
 
Al said:
Would like to use an external HDD to accomodate a dedicated partition
for a WinXP paging file. The purpose of this is two-fold: to improve
performance, and to extend the life of the notoriously short-lived
internal HDD of the laptop computer.
Click to expand...

You cannot put a page file on a removable device.

And moving it to a separate partition is not going to give much
performance improvement anyway. In XP with a modern size of RAM the
actual traffic on the file is likely to be quite small, and for what
there is the important thing is to keep seek times down. That is best
done by leaving it near the 'action' on C:, setting it up initially on a
defragmented drive with an initial size that will cover your actual
normal need, and leaving it alone. If you have a second Permanent hard
drive it may be better in a partition of that, but that is as far as I
would go. See www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm, and use the tools linked
from the end of the 'How big a page file' section to find what a
sensible initial size would be in *your* usage
 
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