small partition for page file on 2nd HDD

[Titanion]

I am adding a 2nd 30GB disk to my system and I want to move my page file to that disk... would it be better make a 2GB partition on the first part of the disk to run a steady 1024 to 1024 MB page file, and then use the ramaining space for a partition for games, etc...

I am just concerned that the page file would tear up the hard drive, so would a dedicated partition of a 2nd HDD be better...

<font color=red><b>The mind is in its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.</b></font color=red>
John Milton, <i>Paradise Lost</i>, Book II

 

[sjonnie]

Depending on your usage and how full the disk is it might be best to put such a partition it in the middle of the drive. That's usually about where windows plonks the pagefile anyway, so if you fix the pagefile to a fixed 2GB I don't see how you've really acheived anything.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/myanandtech.html?member=114979" target="_new">My PCs</A>

 

[jim552]

If by "tear up the hard drive" you are refering to "fragmenting" the hard drive the following should be true if you hard drive is less than 50% used.

If you set your swapfile to 0, reboot your system, and defragment your hard drive. (NOTE: Sometimes there has to be some small amount allocated to the swapfile for the defragment program to work depending on applications, drivers, and startup stuff installed. Set to whatever minimum works.)

Restart your system and set the swapfile start size, and maximum size to the desired limit. (I think you were thinking about 1024mb.)

Windows will attempt, and should be able to, create a swap file that is contiguous. If the file is set so it won't grow then it will remain contiguous.

The reason that you want less than 50% of your hard drive used to begin with is that I have found that when there is less than 50% in use Windows will always defragment good. (Unless you have a single HUGE file there.)

Additionally, I have been told that there are speed benefits to be gained if the swap file is in a separate partition, but I haven't noticed anything in that regard. I generally do try to put the swapfile on a different drive than the boot/system drive. (Honestly though, I don't really know if that helps throughput.)

DEFINATELY setting the swapfile maximum size to the start size helps though, as well as defragmenting your drive with the swapfile set to 0. (Or the minimum size that will work for your system.)

NOTE: Actually, I guess it should be "page file" instead of "swapfile". Also by "Windows" I am refering generally to Windows NT and above for this.

 

[Titanion]

I currently have a 2nd 30gb hdd that I will add to my 2nd computer on my lan... I want to improve 3D gaming... I have read that getting the swap file to a 2nd drive will improve performance...

and... I was wondering if a little more work on my part will improve system performance...

from both comments above, it does not really seem worth it... I will likely just move my page file to the 2nd hdd on IDE 2 and not worry about a dedicated partition...

<font color=red><b>The mind is in its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.</b></font color=red>
John Milton, <i>Paradise Lost</i>, Book II