Re: Paging File on Second HDD

Gerry, thanks for your involvement in this discussion. I value your comments
highly. At the outset, one of my speculations was that moving the paging file
and personal files/data to a second HDD would improve overall performance by
reducing the number of read ops, write ops, and related seek ops on my
primary drive. The amount of improvement was a complete unknown.

After all the dialog, it appears that accomplishing this is not a trivial
task and a good part of it is beyond my ability. So.... do you think it's
reasonable (also taking into consideration Lil' Dave's post of 2/1/2009) for
me to conclude that the exposure to making a critical mistake is significant
enough that I should just "leave it alone?"

My other point is that even a significant amount of improvement may not
justify the work required. What do you think about that? Perhaps I should
just sit tight and save for a new PC.
--
ReadyFreddie


"Gerry" wrote:

ReadyFreddie

The pagefile suggestions will not make a significance difference to
performance. If you add the second hard drive to increase available disk
space. If you do not need extra disk space then leave the pagefile as it
is.

The suggestions regard disk space should have yielded more than 4 mb.
This suggestion alone "The default allocation to System Restore is 12%
on your C partition which is over generous. I would reduce it to 700
mb." should have provided 4 gb extra free disk space.

What are you doing for housekeeping? This will increase performance.

An alternative to Disk CleanUp is cCleaner (freeware) which does a more
thorough job than Disk CleanUp. Disk CleanUp has to be run for each user
profile, whereas cCleaner only needs to be run once.
http://www.ccleaner.com/ccdownload.asp
http://www.ccleaner.com/

With any cleaner you need to proceed with caution. To be safe you
should create a restore point before using cCleaner. cCleaner also
offers backup before removal.

When using cCleaner think twice before checking Autocomplete Form
History under Internet Explorer. You do get a warning but this one has
irritating consequences. You may need to restore your system's
recollection of passwords after use so keep a record off computer so
that they can easily be re-entered.

Leave the Scan for Issues option alone.

cCleaner does not remove restore points. You need to use Disk CleanUp
for this. Select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk
CleanUp, More Options, System Restore and remove all but the latest
System Restore point. Run Disk Defragmenter.

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ReadyFreddie wrote:
Wow, this certainly has stirred up a lot of dialog.

As you mention in a subsequent reply to SC Tom, there aren't a lot of
folks around with the depth of knowledge to carry off all these
changes. I did decrease the default allocations for the things you
mentioned and did the other stuff. I may see a slight improvement,
but it isn't much (didn't expect anything to knock my socks off).

I started this on the premise that if I decreased the load on my
primary HDD by moving the paging file to a second drive, I might see
a performance increase. After digesting all the comments, it appears
that what I see is probably all I'm going to get - unless I add RAM,
replace the processor/MB, etc. That's what I wanted to avoid.

I was looking for a quick way to get a little more oomph. I think
that's what I got, thanks to your suggestions Gerry. I increased my
primary drive's free space by about 4MB - not bad at all. It appears
that all your suggestions focus on freeing up space on my primary
drive, right? From a novice's perspective, I don't understand why
that might improve performance. Can you elaborate on your
recommendations?

Because I don't install HDDs, define partitions, or move data around
every day, I don't really understand completely the things you
suggest in your second paragraph or have a feel for the degree of
performance gain I might see, so I really don't feel comfy trying
them. Too much exposure to mistakes for a novice like me. But thanks
for your recommendations.

I freed up a lot of space on my primary drive. Guess I'll have to
wait until my budget permits me to get a new PC. I think that even
though I surf the Web, use email, and do word processing, I'll opt
for a gaming-oriented PC with a powerful graphics card and plenty of
memory. Hopefully, the other apps will be happy.
So Thanks!

ReadyFreddie

Are the read / write speeds for each drive the same?

It would best if you partitioned the second drive. Create two
partitions. The first say 1.5 gb to take your page file and the
second should take up the remainder of the drive. You should retain
a fixed 50 mb min = max pagefile on the first hard drive. You should
not put any other files in the dedicated pagefile partition and I
would make it a
1.4 gb min = max pagefile. Doing it the way I have suggested should
ensure both pagefiles are contiguous and they will be maintenance
free.

Leave the Windows and programme files on the first drive. Apart from
these you can move as many of the other files as you want to the
second drive. Your objective you be to ensure that you have always a
minimum of 20 / 25% free disk space on each drive.

There are many other options for increasing free disk space on a
Windows partition if you have another partition / drive.

The default allocation to System Restore is 12% on your C partition
which is over generous. I would reduce it to 700 mb. Right click
your My Computer icon on the Desktop and select System Restore.
Place the cursor on your C drive select Settings but this time find
the slider and drag it to the left until it reads 700 mb and
exit. When you get to the Settings screen click on Apply and OK and
exit.

Another default setting which could be wasteful is that for temporary
internet files, especially if you do not store offline copies on
disk. The default allocation is 3% of drive. Depending on your
attitude to offline copies you could reduce this to 1% or 2%. In
Internet Explorer select Tools, Internet Options, General, Temporary
Internet Files, Settings to make the change. At the same time look
at the number of days history is held.

The default allocation for the Recycle Bin is 10 % of drive. Change
to 5%, which should be sufficient. In Windows Explorer place the
cursor
on your Recycle Bin, right click and select Properties, Global and
move the slider from 10% to 5%. However, try to avoid letting it get
too full as if it is full and you delete a file by mistake it will
bypass the Recycle Bin and be gone for ever.

Select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp
to Empty your Recycle Bin and Remove Temporary Internet Files. Also
select Start, All Programs, accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp,
More Options, System Restore and remove all but the latest System
Restore point. Run Disk Defragmenter.

Select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System
Information, Tools, Dr Watson and verify that the box before "Append
to existing log" is NOT checked. This means the next time the log is
written it will overwrite rather than add to the existing file.

The default maximum size setting for Event Viewer logs is too large.
Reset the maximum for each log from 512 kb to 128 kb and set it to
overwrite.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427/en-us

You can generate more space in the system partition by relocation of
folders.

For Temporary Internet Files select Start, Control Panel, Internet
Options, Temporary Internet Files. Settings, Move Folder.

To move the Outlook Express Store Folder select in Outlook Express
Tools, Options, Maintenance, Store Folder, Change.
http://www.tomsterdam.com/insideoe/files/store.htm

How to Change the Default Location of the My Documents Folder:
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=310147

You may also need to change Default File locations in the Microsoft
Office programmes you choose to move the My Documents folder. For
Word go to Tools, Options, File Locations, highlight Documents,
click on Modify and change file path. For Excel go to Tools,
Options, General and change default file path.

My Documents is one of a number of system created Special Folders
including My Pictures and My Music. These can more easily be
relocated using Tweak Ui. Download TweakUI, one of the MS powertoys,
from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp

In TweakUi select My Computer, Special Folders. You can scroll down
to see the full list of Special Folders to the left of the Change
Location button.

You can move programmes but to do this you have to uninstall and
reinstall.

--
Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



ReadyFreddie wrote:
Because of the economy, I'm forced to keep using a vintage PC -
1.8GHz P4, 512MB RAM, 40GB HDD, and Windows XP Home Edition. The HDD
is only about half full.

It is an old workhorse and I'd like to try improving its performance
a bit if possible. Would I gain anything at all by installing a
second hard drive (surplus from another PC) and moving the paging
file from the C: drive to the second one? If yes, would it be best
to I let Windows continue to manage virtual memory, or could I
specify a paging file size myself and squeeze a little more out of
this poor old nag?

Is there anything else I could move to the second drive to get even
a smidgen improvement in performance? -Thanks!



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