Re: Creating Partition for virtual memory

Tech-Archive recommends: Fix windows errors by optimizing your registry

From: francis gérard (spam_at_spamcop.net)
Date: 08/14/04 

Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2004 01:11:39 -0400

"Ameer K." <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:5edf01c481ae$46c9f630$a501280a@phx.gbl...
> Hey guys I was reading this "tweaks" page and I read that
> creating a hdd partition specifically reserved for
> virtual memory can improve performance. They said that
> you wont have to worry about defragging your hdd as much,
> because hdd swapping causes alot of fragmentation.
> Anwyays does anyone know if this is a good idea, and how
> many gigabytes should virtual memory be?
> thanks

swap/page file golden rule - the system pagefile should be located on the
most used partition of the least used *physical* drive

creating a separate partition for the pagefile on the *same* physical drive
as Windows is a BAD idea, the drive will be forced to make continual
partition transitions during normal Windows operation, as it alternates
between the Windows drive and the pagefile drive, these transitions are more
costly, in terms of performance, than simply putting the pagefile on the
same drive (partition) as Windows.

however, if you have two or more physical drives in your system, then you
might see better performance by putting the pagefile on a different physical
drive(s). for example, assume you have 3 hard drives in your system (C:,
D:, E:), and Windows is on C:, the pagefile can be moved from C: to either
drive D: or E: OR Windows can also span the pagefile across multiple drives,
so for example, you could have windows create 2 pagefiles on drives D: and
E:, simply select each drive in succession, click the radio button that says
'System Managed Size', press the Set button (for each drive), repeat for
each drive you want Windows to create a new pagefile on. (do NOT create a
separate partition for pagefiles, that will reduce performance, not enhance
it)

pagefiles can only be created on fixed drives, not on removeable or network
drives, so, for example, you cannot create a pagefile on external USB or
Firewire drive(s)

drive partitioning is really old-school thinking these days... it's simply
not necessary anymore, unless you're creating separate primary/bootable
partitions for multi-booting different operating systems, but for simple
data storage, and running programs, it makes more sense to simply create ONE
large partition the entire size of your drive and organize via directories,
not partitions 

--
francis
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