Spinner's swap file trick

entropyentropy Yah-Der-Hey (Wisconsin)
edited June 2004 in Science & Tech
If you have another fixed hard drive besides the drive where your O/S (presumably C:\Windows) is resident that IS NOT an audio/video writing drive, let's say for example a drive for backup, samples, whatever, then you should put your swap file on it. If you are setting up the drive for the first time, make the first (outermost partition which is the fastest physical access) reserved for your swap file. A good rule is 2x your ram. So a 512MB Ram system should have a 1.1GB FIXED swap file formated with 32k clusters. You'll see a good boost since now as your drives write data they can simultaneously read from the swap. If you can't set up the drive fresh, it still pays to put the swap file on it anyway.
ok, i have my main drive here, 7200 rpm, 120 gig. now, i'm thinking about taking an old 2.2 gig hard drive out of an old computer and giving this a whirl. first, has anyone tried this and succeeded (or hasn't succeeded)? also, since that 2.2 gig hdd is from around '96, it probably is at least 5400 rpm, if not slower. i know he says it'll help, but with something that old, will it? and does the drive have to be ONLY for the swap? or can there be like, another operating system on it ....?

Comments

  • kanezfankanezfan sunny south florida Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    if it's that old i think it'll be a lot slower than what you're doing now.
  • entropyentropy
    throws small pebbles at Spinner...
     Yah-Der-Hey (Wisconsin)
    edited May 2004
    throws small pebbles at Spinner...
  • TheBaronTheBaron Austin, TX
    edited May 2004
    thats how i do things, but i have 3 7200rpm 8meg cache drives. with your 2.2 gig, that'd be a bad idea im sure
  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited May 2004
    NO that will slow you down. Read/writes suck on those slow HDDs.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited May 2004
    Maybe I'm just a simple soul, but you could always try it to see how it goes. How long would it take, fifteen minutes?

    :leet:
  • entropyentropy Yah-Der-Hey (Wisconsin)
    edited May 2004
    ok, fair enough. thanks for stopping me from screwing myself over lol. baron, out of curiosity, do you notice a big difference in having the cache on another drive?
  • SpinnerSpinner Birmingham, UK
    edited May 2004
    entr0py wrote:
    * entr0py throws small pebbles at Spinner...
    Okay, so it doesn't apply to all situations! ;D

    The boys are right though, that will definately have a negative effect on performance. :)
  • entropyentropy Yah-Der-Hey (Wisconsin)
    edited May 2004
    prof, i almost think it would be a hassle even IF it would produce results. so, trying it, then finding out it's killing my machine and switching it back over would really suck
  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited May 2004
    Spinner wrote:
    Okay, so it doesn't apply to all situations! ;D

    The boys are right though, that will definately have a negative effect on performance. :)


    I prefer men.:D Thank you very much!:);)
  • CycloniteCyclonite Tampa, Florida Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    mmonnin wrote:
    I prefer men.:D Thank you very much!:);)

    You may want to rephrase that, as I just unintentionally took it out of context. And, well, Hahahahahaaa!! How about the man touch?
  • TheBaronTheBaron Austin, TX
    edited May 2004
    entr0py wrote:
    baron, out of curiosity, do you notice a big difference in having the cache on another drive?

    hm, this is a hard question to answer. what ive noticed, in a nutshell, is that if you're doing a lot of downloading (any type of downloading) its always hard to do things on the active drive, especially music. since music requires constant reads from the drive, if almost anything is going on your music will occassionally stutter, and this annoys the crap out of me. i think what im getting at is that having your page file on a second drive makes a miniscule difference, but HAVING a second drive (say of equal size) makes a BIG difference. having a third drive makes an even more noticable difference (at least with the way i have things organized)

    of course, regardless of how big the difference is, its still a difference, and i'll take any help i can get. (i think i got +50 points in pcmark04 by moving my swap file, who knew?)
  • MediaManMediaMan Powered by loose parts.
    edited May 2004
    Swap file, temporary internet files, system temp folders, scratch disks for digital image programs such as Photoshop...or video...

    I got them all sitting on another drive if I have two drives and only if the Swap/Temp drive (Let's call it that shall we) is of equal speed and cache to the main OS/Program drive.

    It is correct that the outer part of the drive (C:\) is the "fastest".

    If I am running a single drive then I partition and put those files on their own partition(s). Explanation and theory in depth here.

    http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=209
  • LammypieLammypie
    edited June 2004
    A feature of WINXP that I have discovered on my installation is that if you have the swap file on a different hard disk to the OS then it will not adequately record the full memory dump following a system crash.
  • BlackHawkBlackHawk Bible music connoisseur There's no place like 127.0.0.1 Icrontian
    edited June 2004
    Good virtual memory article - Link
  • SpinnerSpinner Birmingham, UK
    edited June 2004
    Lammypie wrote:
    A feature of WINXP that I have discovered on my installation is that if you have the swap file on a different hard disk to the OS then it will not adequately record the full memory dump following a system crash.
    Interesting, thanks for that Lammy', I wonder why it does that. :scratch::)

    By saying it's "A feature...", are you implying Microsoft added that quirk on purpose? ;D
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