Swapfile Partition and Size

f61

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Jun 3, 2007
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I've been reading here about partitioning HDD's, going RAID, etc. I've settled on one drive with two partitions: one about 32-40Gb for the O/S, the balance for storage. For discussion I'll look at two scenarios: the smaller 160Gb drive or the 500Gb drive.

As I've read, some people also install a 3rd partition for the swap file, and I have several Q's about that.

1) What size of partition would this need (or is it a %) for the sm/lg drives above?
2) Should this be the '2nd partition' making it quickly availible (storage=3rd part)?
3) Are there any real advantages to doing this at all?

Thanx
f61
 

mike99

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Sep 9, 2006
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Not required. Just set a fixed size pagefile, use data partition to save room on C drive. Set twice memory size and monitor usage, you can always reduce it later. I have 50Gb for OS and remainder for applications and data.

Mike.
 

andybird123

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just my personal setup which works for me;

I have 2GB of RAM and a 1GB swap file on my H: (data) drive
I have a 40GB C: drive, 40GB G: (games) drive and 40GB H: (data)

My PC actually runs quicker (faster load times, slightly better FPS) with no swap file but I tend to use Adobe photoshop fairly regularly which doesn't like having no swap file at all.
 

StriderRyu

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Nov 22, 2002
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I've read in several other places that placing your swap file on a seperate partition, but the same disk as your OS can actually hurt performance significantly. I remember it being something about the read/write heads having to bounce from one section of the platters to another repeatedly because the data is physically seperated. This extra distance when, taken in totality, greatly adds to access times. It was awhile ago when I researched this however, so don't hold me to it.

It seems generally accepted that putting your swap file on a seperate drive is the way to go as far as increasing performance. This is how I run, and I am quite happy with my computer's responsiveness.