Best use of 3 drives

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Hi all, I have a WD 80GB 8MB cache drive but would like to upgrade to 2
Raptors. What would be the best solution for speed? I'm thinking of a
RAID-0 with the old drive as backup (and music files, etc). I seem to
recall that it's best to have the swap file on a separate partition at
least, preferably on a separate drive. However, I would have thought having
it on the dual Raptors would be faster...

What say you, good ppl?

Jat

 

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

In article <Y2pzc.887$fE6.676@newsfe6-win>,
J A Temple <taligent999@yahoooo.co.uk> wrote:
>Hi all, I have a WD 80GB 8MB cache drive but would like to upgrade to 2
>Raptors. What would be the best solution for speed? I'm thinking of a
>RAID-0 with the old drive as backup (and music files, etc). I seem to
>recall that it's best to have the swap file on a separate partition at
>least, preferably on a separate drive. However, I would have thought having
>it on the dual Raptors would be faster...
>
>What say you, good ppl?

It's really impossible to say what's the best use of 3 disks without
measuring your machine while it's running whatever software you want
to run faster. Money spent on one of those disks may be better spent
on memory, if you're short. perfom.exe is the tool that measures these
things.

raid0 (mirroring) will speed up disk I/O but unless it's your
bottleneck now you won't notice it.

Putting pagefile in a seperate partition is bad. putting it on it's
own disk is good, but again, you won't notice unless sawpping is a
bottleneck, in which case teh money is better spent on memory, unless
you are maxed-out.

I put /tmp and swap and photoshop temp files on a seperate disk, which
is also as a place to put a backup copy of my MP3s and backup images
of a couple systems.




--
Al Dykes
-----------
adykes at p a n i x . c o m

 

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

J A Temple wrote:
>
> Hi all, I have a WD 80GB 8MB cache drive but would like to upgrade to 2
> Raptors. What would be the best solution for speed? I'm thinking of a
> RAID-0 with the old drive as backup (and music files, etc). I seem to
> recall that it's best to have the swap file on a separate partition at
> least, preferably on a separate drive. However, I would have thought having
> it on the dual Raptors would be faster...
>
> What say you, good ppl?
>
> Jat

Good idea using the Raptors in Raid 0, with the WD used as data
storage. Just make sure you backup important stuff to CD or DVD.

Forget about the swapfile; get yourself 1GB of memory and do without the
swapfile. Unless, of course, you are running a program that absolutely
has to have a swapfile (e.g. some versions of Adobe Photoshop.)

If the latter is the case, still get 1GB of memory and a program called
"ramdisk pro." This lets you create a virtual drive using RAM (which
you then use for a swapfile) and is 30 times quicker than your standard
Windows hard-drive-based swapfile. You ***WILL*** notice a huge
difference in performance.


Odie
--

RetroData
Data Recovery Experts
www.retrodata.co.uk

 

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 07:47:40 +0100, Odie Ferrous
<odie_ferrous@hot.dot.mail.dot.com> wrote:

>J A Temple wrote:
>>
>> Hi all, I have a WD 80GB 8MB cache drive but would like to upgrade to 2
>> Raptors. What would be the best solution for speed? I'm thinking of a
>> RAID-0 with the old drive as backup (and music files, etc). I seem to
>> recall that it's best to have the swap file on a separate partition at
>> least, preferably on a separate drive. However, I would have thought having
>> it on the dual Raptors would be faster...
>>
>> What say you, good ppl?
>>
>> Jat
>
>Good idea using the Raptors in Raid 0, with the WD used as data
>storage. Just make sure you backup important stuff to CD or DVD.
>
>Forget about the swapfile; get yourself 1GB of memory and do without the
>swapfile. Unless, of course, you are running a program that absolutely
>has to have a swapfile (e.g. some versions of Adobe Photoshop.)
>
>If the latter is the case, still get 1GB of memory and a program called
>"ramdisk pro." This lets you create a virtual drive using RAM (which
>you then use for a swapfile) and is 30 times quicker than your standard
>Windows hard-drive-based swapfile. You ***WILL*** notice a huge
>difference in performance.

If you don't create a virtual drive, your machine will have more
memory available to use for programs and won't have to swap at all.

In your solution you are forcing windows to swap to a swapfile in
memory, which is slower than windows not having to swap at all.


Al Dykes gave a very good answer. We cannot advice Temple on what to
do unless he has determined IF the harddisk is a bottleneck, and then
for WHICH programs the harddisk is the bottleneck.
If the harddisk is the bottlneck, it is vital to know if that is
because it does lots of random read/writes. (thus needing a good seek
time which a high rpm disk will have) or whether it needs a higher
sequential read/write performance. (In which case a 7200 rpm disk can
be almost as fast as a 10.000 rpm disk and much cheaper)

Marc

 

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

Marc de Vries wrote:

<snip>

Like I said, try it.

If you're short sighted or narrow minded, that's your problem / even
your prerogative.

Odie

 

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

Odie Ferrous wrote:

> Marc de Vries wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> Like I said, try it.
>
> If you're short sighted or narrow minded, that's your problem / even
> your prerogative.

If you've tried it please describe the details of the machine and OS on
which you tried it, the applications which you used to test it, and the
outcome, with some numbers.

Accusing others of being short-sighted or narrow-minded because they don't
immediately accept the brilliance of your notion that flies in the face of
all theory and experience is the tactic of someone who doesn't have any
solid evidence that his belief is correct.

> Odie

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

 

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"Al Dykes" <adykes@panix.com> wrote

> Putting pagefile in a seperate partition is bad. putting it on it's
> own disk is good, but again, you won't notice unless sawpping is a
> bottleneck, in which case teh money is better spent on memory, unless
> you are maxed-out.

I'm not a Linux user, but am pretty sure some distros use separate partition
for swap? Presume Win works differently in that regard; but wouldn't the
swap be faster on a C: if that consisted of 2 Raptors than on D: if that was
my old 7200 WD 8MB 80GB drive?

 

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Thank you Odie, Marc, Al + every1 else who replied. You are quite right, I
need to benchmark + verify my needs before asking such a 'loaded', broad
question; but interesting to read your responses nevertheless.

JAT

 

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On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 23:05:00 +0100, "J A Temple"
<taligent999@yahoooo.co.uk> wrote:

>
>"Al Dykes" <adykes@panix.com> wrote
>
>> Putting pagefile in a seperate partition is bad. putting it on it's
>> own disk is good, but again, you won't notice unless sawpping is a
>> bottleneck, in which case teh money is better spent on memory, unless
>> you are maxed-out.
>
>I'm not a Linux user, but am pretty sure some distros use separate partition
>for swap?

Correct. Linux can make special partitions for swapfiles. But there is
very little reason to do so.

I guess that if you want to use a second harddisk for swap, you could
make a small and efficient "filesystem" for that swappartition.
But I doubt whether that makes much difference. Once you are swapping
to disk, your performance plummets so fast, that a small performance
difference in the filesystem of the disk won't matter anymore.

> Presume Win works differently in that regard; but wouldn't the
>swap be faster on a C: if that consisted of 2 Raptors than on D: if that was
>my old 7200 WD 8MB 80GB drive?

That depends completely on what you are doing on those Raptors. If
they are already very busy with other stuff, (presumable the stuff
that made you buy those Raptors in the first place) then most likely
that old 7200 drive will be faster.

It's not about which disk is faster in theory. It's about which disk
is used a lot and which are idle in your system.

That's why the best rule for placing the swapfile is as follows:
Put it on the least used disk on the most used partition.

Least used disk, because that is the disk that will be fastest in
practice.
Most used partition because switching partitions gives some overhead.
That is also why you shouldn't normally create an extra special
partition for the swapfile on a drive. Only if that partition is the
only partition on the drive would you do that.

But in all cases there is also another rule: when you have to worry
about swapfile performance you need to buy more memory.

Marc

 

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"Marc de Vries" wrote:
> It's not about which disk is faster in theory. It's about which disk
> is used a lot and which are idle in your system.
>
> That's why the best rule for placing the swapfile is as follows:
> Put it on the least used disk on the most used partition.
>
> Least used disk, because that is the disk that will be fastest in
> practice.
> Most used partition because switching partitions gives some overhead.
> That is also why you shouldn't normally create an extra special
> partition for the swapfile on a drive. Only if that partition is the
> only partition on the drive would you do that.


Also if the swapfile were in the most-used partition of
the least-used drive. If a drive were used primarily for
backup, for instance, part of it could be used for a swapfile.


> But in all cases there is also another rule:
> when you have to worry about swapfile performance
> you need to buy more memory.


Yes, if your motherboard and budget will allow it.
(Mine won't - <sob>).

*TimDaniels*

 

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"Odie Ferrous" wrote:
> To me the difference in speed was phenomenal.
> I didn't need any benchmark programs for this.


I've lost track of what it was that you did.
What did you do that was so effective?

*TimDaniels*

 

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"Odie Ferrous" wrote:
> I'm currently running with only 768MB of system RAM
> and yesterday set up my ramdisk, configured it to 256MB
> and have been using that as the swapfile.
>
> [.....]
>
> Overall performance with the above settings is noticeably
> quicker.


Could it be possible that memory set aside for RAMdisk
and used by memory management as a swapfile, is NOT
memory that would otherwise be available for application
usage as a tempfile area? If true, that would account for
RAMdisk working better than free memory. Maybe
Photoshop doesn't get to use as much memory as is free
and available to the system.

*TimDaniels*

 

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On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 11:03:39 -0700, "Timothy Daniels"
<TDaniels@NoSpamDot.com> wrote:

>"Marc de Vries" wrote:
>> It's not about which disk is faster in theory. It's about which disk
>> is used a lot and which are idle in your system.
>>
>> That's why the best rule for placing the swapfile is as follows:
>> Put it on the least used disk on the most used partition.
>>
>> Least used disk, because that is the disk that will be fastest in
>> practice.
>> Most used partition because switching partitions gives some overhead.
>> That is also why you shouldn't normally create an extra special
>> partition for the swapfile on a drive. Only if that partition is the
>> only partition on the drive would you do that.
>
>
> Also if the swapfile were in the most-used partition of
> the least-used drive. If a drive were used primarily for
> backup, for instance, part of it could be used for a swapfile.

Since it will not be used in that case at the same time as the
swapfile you could indeed use a special partition.
(Although I would still not use a special partition, because that
gives me more flexibility for the swapfile size)

>> But in all cases there is also another rule:
>> when you have to worry about swapfile performance
>> you need to buy more memory.
>
>
> Yes, if your motherboard and budget will allow it.
> (Mine won't - <sob>).

And did the location of the swapfile matter much?

It's probably the difference between very bad performance and a little
bit worse performance.

Marc

 

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On Mon, 21 Jun 2004 00:41:00 -0700, "Timothy Daniels"
<TDaniels@NoSpamDot.com> wrote:

>"Odie Ferrous" wrote:
>> I'm currently running with only 768MB of system RAM
>> and yesterday set up my ramdisk, configured it to 256MB
>> and have been using that as the swapfile.
>>
>> [.....]
>>
>> Overall performance with the above settings is noticeably
>> quicker.
>
>
> Could it be possible that memory set aside for RAMdisk
> and used by memory management as a swapfile, is NOT
> memory that would otherwise be available for application
> usage as a tempfile area? If true, that would account for
> RAMdisk working better than free memory. Maybe
> Photoshop doesn't get to use as much memory as is free
> and available to the system.

IIRC there are some settings in photoshop to tell it to use all
available memory, or to use part of that.
If that setting is not correct, then you can get unexpected results.

That's why I asked him for details on his configuration, but as you
can see, he refuses to do that.

 

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On Mon, 21 Jun 2004 07:53:16 +0100, Odie Ferrous
<odie_ferrous@at_hot_dot.mail.com> wrote:

>Marc de Vries wrote:
>>
>
>Much snipped - all getting a little tedious.

Especially the bit asking you for more detailed information on your
setup so we can explain what you did wrong...

Very tedious when people with more knowledge than you don't want to
take your beliefs for granted.

>> When placing the swapfile on a ramdisk you haven't changed windows
>> memory management. You are still using exactly the same memory
>> management, but you have just made things more difficult for windows
>> and thus slowed it down.
>>
>> Your logic is flawed.
>
>I am afraid your paragraph above is flawed.

Well, then show me where the flaw is!

>For goodness' sake, why don't you just try it? You would do yourself a
>favour and perhaps save a little of everyone's time.

I can tell you that your computer runs a lot faster if you format your
harddisk. Why don't you just try it? You would do yourself a favour
and perhaps save a little of everyone's time.

Marc

 

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"Marc de Vries" wrote:
> I can tell you that your computer runs a lot faster if you format your
> harddisk. Why don't you just try it?


Do you really mean "format"? Maybe "defrag"?

*TimDaniels*

 

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Timothy Daniels wrote:
>
> "Marc de Vries" wrote:
> > I can tell you that your computer runs a lot faster if you format your
> > harddisk. Why don't you just try it?
>
> Do you really mean "format"? Maybe "defrag"?
>
> *TimDaniels*


Hello, Tim:

I believe that Marc was merely making a joke...i.e., a HDD will, indeed,
run "a lot faster," if it doesn't have an operating system (or any nasty
application files) slowing it down! <G>


Cordially,
John Turco <jtur@concentric.net>

 

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"Marc de Vries" <marcdevries@geen.spam.zonnet.nl> wrote in message news:igpdd0lu4fsvij666sclo6n64pdnbvuheh@4ax.com
> On Mon, 21 Jun 2004 07:53:16 +0100, Odie Ferrous <odie_ferrous@at_hot_dot.mail.com> wrote:
>
> > Marc de Vries wrote:
> > >
> >
> > Much snipped - all getting a little tedious.
>
> Especially the bit asking you for more detailed information on your
> setup so we can explain what you did wrong...
>
> Very tedious when people with more knowledge than you don't want to
> take your beliefs for granted.
>
> > > When placing the swapfile on a ramdisk you haven't changed windows
> > > memory management. You are still using exactly the same memory
> > > management, but you have just made things more difficult for windows
> > > and thus slowed it down.
> > >
> > > Your logic is flawed.
> >
> > I am afraid your paragraph above is flawed.
>
> Well, then show me where the flaw is!
>
> > For goodness' sake, why don't you just try it? You would do yourself a
> > favour and perhaps save a little of everyone's time.
>
> I can tell you that your computer runs a lot faster if you format your
> harddisk. Why don't you just try it? You would do yourself a favour
> and perhaps save a little of everyone's time.

And that likes to accuse others of being a troll.
Here isn the pot that calls the kettle black.

>
> Marc

 

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Absolutely clueless. Sue your parents for naming you after a stupid dog.

"Odie Ferrous" <odie_ferrous@hot.dot.mail.dot.com> wrote in message
news:40CE9B8C.82FCA5C3@hot.dot.mail.dot.com...
>
> Good idea using the Raptors in Raid 0, with the WD used as data
> storage. Just make sure you backup important stuff to CD or DVD.
>
> Forget about the swapfile; get yourself 1GB of memory and do without the
> swapfile. Unless, of course, you are running a program that absolutely
> has to have a swapfile (e.g. some versions of Adobe Photoshop.)
>
> If the latter is the case, still get 1GB of memory and a program called
> "ramdisk pro." This lets you create a virtual drive using RAM (which
> you then use for a swapfile) and is 30 times quicker than your standard
> Windows hard-drive-based swapfile. You ***WILL*** notice a huge
> difference in performance.
>

 

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

In article <cbvqru2j74@enews4.newsguy.com>,
Eric Gisin <ericgisin@graffiti.net> wrote:
>Absolutely clueless. Sue your parents for naming you after a stupid dog.
>
>"Odie Ferrous" <odie_ferrous@hot.dot.mail.dot.com> wrote in message
>news:40CE9B8C.82FCA5C3@hot.dot.mail.dot.com...
>>
>> Good idea using the Raptors in Raid 0, with the WD used as data
>> storage. Just make sure you backup important stuff to CD or DVD.
>>
>> Forget about the swapfile; get yourself 1GB of memory and do without the
>> swapfile. Unless, of course, you are running a program that absolutely
>> has to have a swapfile (e.g. some versions of Adobe Photoshop.)
>>
>> If the latter is the case, still get 1GB of memory and a program called
>> "ramdisk pro." This lets you create a virtual drive using RAM (which
>> you then use for a swapfile) and is 30 times quicker than your standard
>> Windows hard-drive-based swapfile. You ***WILL*** notice a huge
>> difference in performance.
>>
>


This sounds like Odie, let le check. yup.

Lets just say that we have not heard of anyone that reproduces
Odie's claim that a ramdisk produces restults better than
letting the OS manage all the memory, for any general purpose
PC use.



--
Al Dykes
-----------
adykes at p a n i x . c o m

 

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Al Dykes wrote:
>
>
> This sounds like Odie, let le check. yup.
>
> Lets just say that we have not heard of anyone that reproduces
> Odie's claim that a ramdisk produces restults better than
> letting the OS manage all the memory, for any general purpose
> PC use.



Simple.

I have yet to meet someone with my experience of performance testing.

Witty replies welcomed.


Odie