Re: What are the benefits of Partitioning HDs and having a dedicated drive partiton for the Swap file?

Courtney wrote:
1. The 4GB limit is sort of a limit of the operating system. Basically, for a 32-bit OS, you have a limit of 4GB. You get up to 16GB or more on a 64-bit OS, such as XP64 (but then you run into other problems).

So (you're thinking), why does XP not recognize that I have 4GB? The problem is that the OS can only address 4GB of memory, regardless of where it is located. And where is there additional memory? Remember that swap file? That is included in the total. Additionally, your motherboard takes a tiny bit of memory for itself.

2 & 3. You could eliminate the swap file, forcing XP to utilize more memory. However, some programs will not run if the swap file is eliminated. Also, XPs own memory optimizer requires a swap file to work. By the way, the swap file works best on the primary partition of the least used drive on a seperate cable. Therefore, if you have a partition that is not on the XP drive, and is not on the same cable as XP, it will improve speed (slightly). Otherwise, don't waste your time.

I have a system similar to yours except I have 8800s and 1.3TB of disk space.

Courtney sends...

<PaceMkrRep@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:01jjn2l4jt8vccnrnph0mi4mlge0gnjgva@xxxxxxxxxx

Hi all,

I recenlty got a new computer with a 300GB RAID 0 (2x 150GB Raptors)
as one drive and a 500GB storage drive as a second drive. I am running
Windows XP Media Center 2005 with a Core 2 Extreme processor and two
GeForce 7950 GX2 video cards set up in a quad SLI config. I also have
4GB of DDR2 800MHz SDRAM.

I'm hoping that I can get help with two questions:

1) I noticed that when I boot the system the memory cycle cout does
count all 4GB of memory, but when I am in Windows and I right click on
My Computer\Properties, it states that I have 2.25GB of memory. Is
this a limitation of the operating system?
Is there a way around this to get the whole 4GB recognized?

2) With that much hard disk space, I am wondering if there is any
performance advantage or disadvantage to setting up multiple
partitions on each of the 2 drives. I was thinking of partitioning the
RAID into a 70GB Partition for just the OS and the remainder for
programs. I was also thinking of partitioning the second 500GB drive
into 3 partitions. Two partitions of approximately 215GB each and a
third of about 20GB for the swap file. Would any of this be of any
benefit?

Finally, if I removed the swap file that Windows Automatically setup
on the C: drive with the OS and put it on the other drive in its own
dedicated partition, would that be a performance booster or not?

Thanks for your advice and help!
Thanks in advance!!!

Regards,

Steve B.




A 32bit OS has a total address space of 2^32 bytes, or 4GB. Some of those
addresses point to memory, and some point to I/O registers; so, you can never
get the entire 4GB of RAM to be addressed. There is a boot-time switch
(/3GB? maybe) that allows more RAM to be addressed by apps; google will
help you find it and an explanation of what it does.

The swapfile is not part of the 4GB. If it were, this PC -- which has a
4GB swapfile -- would not be able to address any RAM.

Moving the swapfile from the boot HD to another HD (not just another part.
on the boot HD) might boost performance, but probably very little on a PC
with >2GB of RAM. After all, WinWhatever does not use the swapfile until
all of RAM is allocated. And it is usually unwise to not have a swapfile,
since that can cause strange crashes & hangs & other fun. As an alternative
to fooling with the swapfile, if you have apps that use temp files, point
those temp files to the non-boot HD; and, spread your data files around; and,
(uninstall then) reinstall your apps on that other HD.
--
Cheers, Bob
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Win XP Pro & Disk Thrashing
    ... No Third Party memory management is in use. ... the file in Windows Explorer and select Send to, ... Drives are fully Defragged. ... I had the swap file set so that Windows ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain)
  • Re: Win XP Pro & Disk Thrashing
    ... Have you installed a third party memory managent utility? ... If you right click on the file in Windows Explorer and select Send to, ... Drives are fully Defragged. ... I had the swap file set so that Windows ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain)
  • Re: Multiple Hard Drive Advice
    ... Putting your applications on another drive or partition doesn't do anything for you. ... Personally I like to make C: just a bootstrap partition and install the OSelsewhere, but that is just me, and if one OS will do for you then unnecessary. ... Since you have more than one drive I would recommend using a dedicated swap file on a drive that does not contain an OS and is otherwise only used occasionally for backup. ... The reduced head movement to access a swap file guarantied to be in a limited area and two drives running in parallel may only speed things up a small amount, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • Re: Multiple Hard Drive Advice
    ... Applications on the same drive and partition as XP Pro? ... Personally I like to make C: just a bootstrap partition and install the ... swap file on a drive that does not contain an OS and is ... disadvantages of any configuration of the hard drives that would be worth ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • Re: 4GB RAM
    ... the graphics program usually creates its own swap file. ... drives to be used as the first swap drive, ... disk to disk? ... from 75% to 80% of the first partition, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support)
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