format of pagefile on 2nd hard drive

"Timothy Daniels" wrote in message
...
| If the OS and data files are in a partition formatted for NTFS,
| is there a recommended format for a partition on another
| hard drive that is dedicated as space for the pagefile? Should
| the pagefile partition be NTFS also, or is there a reason why
| it should be FAT32?
|
|
| *TimDaniels*

Hi Tim -

I've read this entire thread and I wouldn't touch the rest of it with a ten
foot pole. It's gotten quite nasty and totally off the point of your
original inquiry. Best advice I have for you: when you get responses you
totally disagree with, DO NOT REPLY to them -- this avoids most flame wars.

In any event, having a partition at the beginning of your second hard drive,
formatted NTFS, with a default cluster size of 4kb, would be the wisest
choice in order to achieve the best performance gain managing virtual memory
with your current system. I would choose NTFS because it's far less likely
to become corrupted should the system crash.

Personally I would create the partition with a size of probably 1.5
gigabytes and allow the system to manage the page file entirely. I
recommend that amount of space based on the need for the page file to expand
as applications call for additional virtual memory without risking crashing
the computer with a fixed page file that's 1.5 times the amount of physical
memory.

Ideally this new partition should be at the beginning of the drive in order
to minimize head movement as it's accessed.

In order to create a partition at the beginning of the drive, you'll need a
program such as Ghost or Drive Image to create a backup image of the drive.
Then delete the existing partition and create two new partitions with
Windows XP's disk manager. The first partition you create will then need
formatting. Again I recommend NTFS with a 4kb cluster size to match the
memory management code in XP. Then you can create a second partition in the
remaining space. There's no need to format this new partition as Ghost or
Drive Image will format the partition on the fly as your backup image is
restored. You may even be able to use Partition Magic version 7.01 or 8.0
to accomplish this feat, though I have had disasters occur from time to time
when resizing existing partitions and adding a new partitions before those
already on a drive -- a backup in advance is ALWAYS in order.

After you've created the new partitions on your second drive you can then
change the page file structure defined for your system. Windows XP will
perform best if you specify a very small fixed-size page file on your
default drive (I'm not exactly sure of the minimum size at the moment, but I
believe you can allocate 40kb for this purpose). This, of course, will be a
non-movable file. Then you can specify a system managed paging file on your
second drive. Reboot your system and XP should set things up nicely for
you. XP may or may not initially create a page file on your default drive -
but will create one if it is called for.

The above is all from my personal experience on an older Abit KT7
motherboard, which also had 384mb of RAM and two fixed disk drives. I never
benchmarked the performance of the system, but it did "feel" that it ran
more smoothly with the page file at the beginning of the second drive.

Good luck with whatever method you choose to proceed with.

Jef

"Jef Norton" wrote in message news
"Timothy Daniels" wrote in message
...
| If the OS and data files are in a partition formatted for NTFS,
| is there a recommended format for a partition on another
| hard drive that is dedicated as space for the pagefile? Should
| the pagefile partition be NTFS also, or is there a reason why
| it should be FAT32?
|
|
| *TimDaniels*

Hi Tim -

I've read this entire thread and I wouldn't touch the rest of it with a ten
foot pole. It's gotten quite nasty and totally off the point of your
original inquiry. Best advice I have for you: when you get responses you
totally disagree with, DO NOT REPLY to them -- this avoids most flame wars.

In any event, having a partition at the beginning of your second hard
drive, formatted NTFS, with a default cluster size of 4kb, would be the
wisest choice in order to achieve the best performance gain managing
virtual memory with your current system. I would choose NTFS because
it's far less likely to become corrupted should the system crash.

Corruption of a pagefile is completely irrelevant,
its recreated on the boot after the crash.

And if he really is short of physical ram, with that producing more
use than is desirable of the pagefile because of that, it makes a
lot more sense to use the file system that the boot drive is using so
you dont lose even more physical ram to support two file systems.

Personally I would create the partition with a size of probably
1.5 gigabytes and allow the system to manage the page file
entirely. I recommend that amount of space based on the need
for the page file to expand as applications call for additional
virtual memory without risking crashing the computer with a
fixed page file that's 1.5 times the amount of physical memory.

Ideally this new partition should be at the beginning of the
drive in order to minimize head movement as it's accessed.

Head movement is irrelevant when the physical
drive being used for the pagefile is basically
only used for the pagefile during normal ops.

What matters is the physical transfer rate possible,
not head movement, and that may well mean that
the partition for the pagefile should be in the area
of the physical hard drive that something like
HDTach shows is the fastest for that particular drive.

In order to create a partition at the beginning of the drive,
you'll need a program such as Ghost or Drive Image to create
a backup image of the drive. Then delete the existing partition
and create two new partitions with Windows XP's disk manager.

Not when he's starting with a physical drive dedicated to the pagefile.
He just needs to partition it correctly when its first installed.

The first partition you create will then need formatting.
Again I recommend NTFS with a 4kb cluster size to
match the memory management code in XP.

Whether that is best depends on other detail he hasnt supplied.
Particularly how the main boot drive is formatted file system wise.

Then you can create a second partition in the remaining space.
There's no need to format this new partition as Ghost or Drive
Image will format the partition on the fly as your backup image is
restored. You may even be able to use Partition Magic version 7.01
or 8.0 to accomplish this feat, though I have had disasters occur from
time to time when resizing existing partitions and adding a new partitions
before those already on a drive -- a backup in advance is ALWAYS in order.

After you've created the new partitions on your second drive you
can then change the page file structure defined for your system.
Windows XP will perform best if you specify a very small fixed-size
page file on your default drive (I'm not exactly sure of the minimum
size at the moment, but I believe you can allocate 40kb for this purpose).
This, of course, will be a non-movable file. Then you can specify a
system managed paging file on your second drive. Reboot your system
and XP should set things up nicely for you. XP may or may not initially
create a page file on your default drive - but will create one if it is called for.

And all this is a complete waste of time if he really does have enough
physical ram as he claims. And if he doesnt, more physical ram is
the only thing that will make much of a noticeable difference.

The above is all from my personal experience on an older Abit KT7
motherboard, which also had 384mb of RAM and two fixed disk drives.
I never benchmarked the performance of the system, but it did "feel" that
it ran more smoothly with the page file at the beginning of the second drive.

And unless you benchmark it, it could well be the placebo effect.

Good luck with whatever method you choose to proceed with.

On Thu, 11 Sep 2003 14:27:56 -0700, "Timothy Daniels"
wrote:


"J.Clarke" wrote:
I believe that he mentioned somewhere in a different
thread that it's a Dell Dimension PII-450. Some of
the Dimension models from that era maxed out at
384 meg, at least officially--they had BX chipsets so
they should have been able to take 512 unbuffered
or 1024 registered, but Dell may have crippled them
in some way. According to the Crucial site the
Dimension V-450 has 3 DIMM slots each of which
can take at most a 128 meg DIMM, which maxes
him out at 384.

While his best solution is to get a new machine...

You're a man of intellect, John. Yes, the slots and
Dell's specifications max the RAM out at 384. At
the time the specs were written and the motherboard
was tested by Dell, 128MB DIMMs were the largest
size available. Now, if I were willing to throw out all
of the old sticks, I could substitute 256MB sticks and
have 768MB available, but I don't want to spend the
money for more RAM since I don't need more than
384MB for what I do, and more RAM would just
increase the time used for bootup. I also intend to
periodically "ghost" the primary drive image to a
removable backup hard drive. I figure I could reduce
the time a little bit if the pagefile area doesn't have to
be copied, and it's possible that de-frags of the primary
drive would take a little less time if there's no pagefile
to work around. And in the unlikely event that the
primary drive starts getting congested, the area normally
taken for the pagefile would be available for storage.
So, for a zero cash outlay, I've decided to utilize a small
portion of the 2nd hard drive. All that I've been asking
is how best to do that - and *only* that.


*TimDaniels*

I think you're working with some bad assumptions.
Imaging apps and backups don't bother with the pagefile, so that won't
make any difference.
I thought you wanted to speed up the pagefile; that's the only reason
someone would try tweaking with file system and drive placement.
If you're not actually using the pagefile, then you don't need to mess
with it at all; you've got a whole other drive (for free!) to relieve
any crowding on the C: drive.
--
Bill
Replace "g" with "a"
Experience is what you get when you expected something else.

wrote in message ...
On Thu, 11 Sep 2003 08:41:51 -0700, "Eric Gisin" wrote:

wrote in message ...
| On Wed, 10 Sep 2003 22:33:19 -0700, "Eric Gisin" wrote:
|
| | Hmmm...
| | Obviously an *old* computer. :-(
| | I understand your desire to speed things up, but, honestly, with
| | something that old, you're trying to put fancy rims on a Vega. Nothing
| | you can do will speed that up to any discernable amount.
| | Sorry.
|
| Stupid Troll. He has plenty of memory.
|
| Does that mean he has more than you have?
| I'm intrigued by your comment. Why, when he says his system has to use
| virtual memory, do you say he's got plenty of RAM?

Windows 2K/XP always pages out, no matter how much RAM you have. You don't
have a clue, do you?

Yes, I do.
I'm also capable of talking without attacking, something you evidently
can't do.
Now, try this: it's obvious that the OP is using his pagefile because
he doesn't have enough RAM for the work he's doing.

I doubt the OP has problems with excessive pagefile activity. I don't with
255MB and Win2K, and everything is fast. I even have 140MB available now.

Almost nobody bothers measuring activity with perfmon. It's rarely a problem.

So you know what's going on with the OP's system better than he does?
How do you manage that?

Probably in the same manner that you did.


--
Bill
Replace "g" with "a"
Experience is what you get when you expected something else.

wrote in message
...
| On Thu, 11 Sep 2003 08:41:51 -0700, "Eric Gisin" wrote:
|
| wrote in message
| .. .
| | On Wed, 10 Sep 2003 22:33:19 -0700, "Eric Gisin" wrote:
| |
| | | Hmmm...
| | | Obviously an *old* computer. :-(
| | | I understand your desire to speed things up, but, honestly, with
| | | something that old, you're trying to put fancy rims on a Vega. Nothing
| | | you can do will speed that up to any discernable amount.
| | | Sorry.
| |
| | Stupid Troll. He has plenty of memory.
| |
| | Does that mean he has more than you have?
| | I'm intrigued by your comment. Why, when he says his system has to use
| | virtual memory, do you say he's got plenty of RAM?
|
| Windows 2K/XP always pages out, no matter how much RAM you have. You don't
| have a clue, do you?
|
| Yes, I do.
| I'm also capable of talking without attacking, something you evidently
| can't do.

You've demonstrated you are a troll. I am pointing out the obvious.

| Now, try this: it's obvious that the OP is using his pagefile because
| he doesn't have enough RAM for the work he's doing.
|
And your point is? Enabling the pagefile improves performance unless you are
really short of RAM.

| I doubt the OP has problems with excessive pagefile activity. I don't with
| 255MB and Win2K, and everything is fast. I even have 140MB available now.
|
| Almost nobody bothers measuring activity with perfmon. It's rarely a
problem.
|
| So you know what's going on with the OP's systyem better than he does?
| How do you manage that?
|
Years of experience. What I observe on my system applies to the majority of
others.

"Jef Norton" wrote:
"Timothy Daniels" wrote:
I've read this entire thread and I wouldn't touch
the rest of it with a ten foot pole....


Posting here does at times seem like barge-poling
through a water treatment pond. The trick is to
handle only the dry part of the pole. :-)

I think I'll also use NTFS on the pagefile partition -
if just to keep the system simple.

And, assuming that the "beginning of the drive" is
what the system considers the "first" partition on
the drive, that's where the pagefile partition will go.
The 2nd drive hasn't been formatted, yet, so it
should be pretty easy with MaxBlast or Partition
Magic.


After you've created the new partitions on your
second drive you can then change the page file
structure defined for your system. Windows XP
will perform best if you specify a very small
fixed-size page file on your default drive (I'm not
exactly sure of the minimum size at the moment,
but I believe you can allocate 40kb for this purpose).
This, of course, will be a non-movable file.


Would the fixed-size file on the default drive be
the same as the 126MB file mentioned in the link
provided by "Frank" in Tampa Bay:
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;307886 ?


Then you can specify a system managed paging file on
your second drive.


Are there any user inputs necessary to tell WinXP to
make the pagefile on the 2nd hard drive system-managed?


Reboot your system and XP should set things up nicely
for you. XP may or may not initially create a page file
on your default drive - but will create one if it is called for.


Thanks for your help, Jef.


*TimDaniels*

"Eric Gisin" wrote:
"Timothy Daniels" wrote:
| "Frank" wrote:
| [.....] NO it will not make any difference what the
| file system is. As a matter of fact the bigger the
| FAT 32 clusters the faster the response. You will
| need enough of a page file on the system drive for
| a memory dump. Go here for more information.
|
| http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;307886
|
|
| Is there a way to provide the 126MB for a memory dump on
| the system drive and yet have all paging be done in a partition
| on another drive? It seems that by maintaining *any* pagefile
| space on the system drive, that pagefile area would be used
| the most - obviating the advantage of having the pagefile on
| a different drive.
|
You don't need kernel memory dumps, so forget that pagefile.
Win2k will mostly use the pagefile on the least access and
fastest drive.


My OS is WinXP Pro. Does that behave like Win2K with
regards to the pagefile? Of concern is that the reference
supplied by "Frank" pertains specifically to WinXP/WinXP Pro.


*TimDaniels*

On Thu, 11 Sep 2003 14:27:56 -0700
"Timothy Daniels" wrote:


"J.Clarke" wrote:
I believe that he mentioned somewhere in a different
thread that it's a Dell Dimension PII-450. Some of
the Dimension models from that era maxed out at
384 meg, at least officially--they had BX chipsets so
they should have been able to take 512 unbuffered
or 1024 registered, but Dell may have crippled them
in some way. According to the Crucial site the
Dimension V-450 has 3 DIMM slots each of which
can take at most a 128 meg DIMM, which maxes
him out at 384.

While his best solution is to get a new machine...

You're a man of intellect, John. Yes, the slots and
Dell's specifications max the RAM out at 384. At
the time the specs were written and the motherboard
was tested by Dell, 128MB DIMMs were the largest
size available. Now, if I were willing to throw out all
of the old sticks, I could substitute 256MB sticks and
have 768MB available, but I don't want to spend the
money for more RAM since I don't need more than
384MB for what I do, and more RAM would just
increase the time used for bootup.

Whoa, back up. You're trying to tweak the page file to get better
performance but you claim that you don't need more than 384 meg to do
what you do? I'm sorry, but that doesn't make any sense. If you're not
normally using up that 384 meg then what do you expect to gain by
tweaking the page file? And if you are using up that 384 meg and a
significant amount of the page file, and if you're suffering a
perfomance penalty as a result, then you are going to gain far more
performance by increasing the RAM than you are by tweaking the page
file.

I also intend to
periodically "ghost" the primary drive image to a
removable backup hard drive. I figure I could reduce
the time a little bit if the pagefile area doesn't have to
be copied, and it's possible that de-frags of the primary
drive would take a little less time if there's no pagefile
to work around. And in the unlikely event that the
primary drive starts getting congested, the area normally
taken for the pagefile would be available for storage.
So, for a zero cash outlay, I've decided to utilize a small
portion of the 2nd hard drive. All that I've been asking
is how best to do that - and *only* that.

I'm sorry, I still don't understand why it's an issue then. If you
aren't using the page file for anything except because Windows isn't
happy without one then just stick it wherever you want to and don't
worry about it. If you don't want to include it in backups then just
put it on its own small partition anywhere that you have some space
free. It's not one of those issues that requires a great deal of
analysis. Just figure out how big the page file needs to be, make a
partition a little bigger, format it using whatever file system you feel
like, and tell Windows to put the page file on that partition and you're
done. No need to agonize over NTFS vs FAT vs FAT32 or cluster size or
any of that stuff--those will have a very tiny effect on system
performance if the page file is heavily utilized--if it's not then they
aren't going to make one iota of practical difference.


*TimDaniels*


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

Hi Tim -

Comments in line:

"Timothy Daniels" wrote in message
...
|
| "Jef Norton" wrote:
| "Timothy Daniels" wrote:
| I've read this entire thread and I wouldn't touch
| the rest of it with a ten foot pole....
|
|
| Posting here does at times seem like barge-poling
| through a water treatment pond. The trick is to
| handle only the dry part of the pole. :-)
|
| I think I'll also use NTFS on the pagefile partition -
| if just to keep the system simple.
|
| And, assuming that the "beginning of the drive" is
| what the system considers the "first" partition on
| the drive, that's where the pagefile partition will go.

It's been my understanding that partitions are allocated based on relative
sector number from the beginning of the drive. The first partition starts
at sector number zero and ends at sector number "x". The second partition
starts at sector number "x + 1", etc.

| The 2nd drive hasn't been formatted, yet, so it
| should be pretty easy with MaxBlast or Partition
| Magic.

Sounds like you're already 99% there. If it's not currently formatted, you
could even use Windows XP's disk management tool.

|
|
| After you've created the new partitions on your
| second drive you can then change the page file
| structure defined for your system. Windows XP
| will perform best if you specify a very small
| fixed-size page file on your default drive (I'm not
| exactly sure of the minimum size at the moment,
| but I believe you can allocate 40kb for this purpose).
| This, of course, will be a non-movable file.
|
|
| Would the fixed-size file on the default drive be
| the same as the 126MB file mentioned in the link
| provided by "Frank" in Tampa Bay:
| http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;307886 ?
|

I think I came up with the 40kb number as a minimum from somewhere (though I
cannot say where). If you're concerned about being able to create system
dump information, 126kb (or maybe even 128kb, so you end up with a nice
clean binary boundary) wouldn't be too much of an overhead on your system.
On my old KT7, Windows never even created the paging file on my default
drive, even though I had a small file specified for the drive - it was (and
still is... my retired dad still uses it) a very reliable system, even
though it only had a 100 MHz front side bus and, as you say, I had it "maxed
out" at 384 MB of SDRAM (why bother replacing my 128 MB sticks with 256 MB
sticks when I knew my next system would be using DDR SDRAM?).

|
| Then you can specify a system managed paging file on
| your second drive.
|
|
| Are there any user inputs necessary to tell WinXP to
| make the pagefile on the 2nd hard drive system-managed?
|

For the small paging file on your default drive, you click the "Custom Size"
radio button and specify the same value for the Initial and Maximum size
fields. For the paging file on your slave drive, you click on the "System
Managed Size" radio button and let Windows do the rest.

|
| Reboot your system and XP should set things up nicely
| for you. XP may or may not initially create a page file
| on your default drive - but will create one if it is called for.
|
|
| Thanks for your help, Jef.
|
|
| *TimDaniels*
|

Happy to help. Good luck with your project!

Jef

"J.Clarke" wrote:
Whoa, back up. You're trying to tweak the page file
to get better performance but you claim that you don't
need more than 384 meg to do what you do? I'm sorry,
but that doesn't make any sense. If you're not normally
using up that 384 meg then what do you expect to gain by
tweaking the page file? And if you are using up that
384 meg and a significant amount of the page file, and if
you're suffering a perfomance penalty as a result, then you
are going to gain far more performance by increasing the
RAM than you are by tweaking the page file.


This is getting comical. More RAM is not an option. I
am a student and I can't afford to spend $250 for 784MB
of new RAM. I also have available (at no extra cost) a fast
2nd hard drive, and I have available (at no extra cost) an
unused ATA/133 channel. The only time I push the system
is doing Java/C# compilations and testing software that
uses runtime services. I'm assuming the compilations make
use of the pagefile space. I also assume defragging uses the
pagefile space to reassemble and reorder blocks of files.
Since I have the 2nd hard drive and the 2nd ATA/133 channel,
why not use them? They're free!


I also intend to
periodically "ghost" the primary drive image to a
removable backup hard drive. I figure I could reduce
the time a little bit if the pagefile area doesn't have to
be copied, and it's possible that de-frags of the primary
drive would take a little less time if there's no pagefile
to work around. And in the unlikely event that the
primary drive starts getting congested, the area normally
taken for the pagefile would be available for storage.
So, for a zero cash outlay, I've decided to utilize a small
portion of the 2nd hard drive. All that I've been asking
is how best to do that - and *only* that.

[.......]
No need to agonize over NTFS vs FAT vs FAT32
or cluster size or any of that stuff--those will have a very tiny
effect on system performance if the page file is heavily utilized--
if it's not then they aren't going to make one iota of practical
difference.


Who needs a practical difference? Who's agonizing?
I've asked some simple questions in the interest of
understanding and utilizing my system better without
spending a bunch of money, and everyone starts making
value judgements about what *else* I should do instead
of just answering the simple questions. Must I first justify
my intentions before anyone will proffer some simple
answers? If those questions had simply been answered,
this thread would have been 2 postings long.


*TimDaniels*

Thanks again, Jef.


*TimDaniels*

Timothy Daniels wrote in
message ...
J.Clarke wrote

Whoa, back up. You're trying to tweak the page file
to get better performance but you claim that you don't
need more than 384 meg to do what you do? I'm sorry,
but that doesn't make any sense. If you're not normally
using up that 384 meg then what do you expect to gain
by tweaking the page file? And if you are using up that
384 meg and a significant amount of the page file, and
if you're suffering a perfomance penalty as a result,
then you are going to gain far more performance by
increasing the RAM than you are by tweaking the page file.

This is getting comical.

Yep, you're becoming a complete laughing stock.

More RAM is not an option.

More ram is ALWAYS an option.

And he was rubbing your nose in your basic stupidity that
EITHER 384MB is enough physical ram and the pagefile
isnt being used for other than the XP startup ops, OR
the pagefile is being used a lot BECAUSE you dont have
enough physical ram, in which case you can fiddle with the
detail of the pagefile until the cows come home if you like, it
wont help worth a damn with a decent performance hard drive.

I am a student and I can't afford to
spend $250 for 784MB of new RAM.

Doesnt cost anything like that.

I also have available (at no extra cost) a fast 2nd hard drive, and
I have available (at no extra cost) an unused ATA/133 channel.

See above.

The only time I push the system is doing Java/C#
compilations and testing software that uses runtime services.

So your claim that you have enough physical ram is just plain wrong.

I'm assuming the compilations make use of the pagefile space.

Depends on which compiler you are using.

I also assume defragging uses the pagefile
space to reassemble and reorder blocks of files.

Dud assumption.

And only fools who havent got a clue obsessively defrag anyway.

Since I have the 2nd hard drive and the 2nd
ATA/133 channel, why not use them? They're free!

Because if you dont have enough physical ram, it will
make sweet **** all difference when the boot drive
is a decent modern performance drive, bonehead.

Try it and see.

Bet you wont have the balls to admit
that it makes sweet **** all difference.

I also intend to periodically "ghost" the primary drive image
to a removable backup hard drive. I figure I could reduce the
time a little bit if the pagefile area doesn't have to be copied,
and it's possible that de-frags of the primary drive would take
a little less time if there's no pagefile to work around.

And everyone keeps telling you that the pagefile
does NOT get included in the image file.

And in the unlikely event that the primary drive
starts getting congested, the area normally taken
for the pagefile would be available for storage.

Get sillier by the minute. You'll get the same effect by moving
some stuff off the boot drive to the other drive, stupid.

So, for a zero cash outlay, I've decided to
utilize a small portion of the 2nd hard drive.

More fool you.

All that I've been asking is how best to do that - and *only* that.

Wrong question, stupid.

No need to agonize over NTFS vs FAT vs FAT32
or cluster size or any of that stuff--those will have
a very tiny effect on system performance if the
page file is heavily utilized-- if it's not then they
aren't going to make one iota of practical difference.

Who needs a practical difference?

Anyone analy obsessing about which to use, fool.

Who's agonizing?

You, fool.

I've asked some simple questions in the interest
of understanding and utilizing my system better
without spending a bunch of money,

And EVERYONE with a clue has kept telling you
what been spelt out a number times at the top, stupid.

and everyone starts making value judgements

Wrong. As always. Everyone has been rubbing YOUR stupid
nose in the basics that you cant manage to grasp, stupid.

about what *else* I should do

Because thats the only thing that matters, ****wit.

instead of just answering the simple questions.

Wrong questions, fool.

Must I first justify my intentions before
anyone will proffer some simple answers?

Everyone has been providing simple
answers right from the start, ******.

If those questions had simply been answered,

Its simply answered right at the top, ****wit.

this thread would have been 2 postings long.

Wrong. As always. Anyone with any sense would
have pointed out the complete irrelevancy of the
'simple answers' you keep demanding, child.

Just what are you 'studying', child ?

Hope its not rocket science. You'll fail.

On Thu, 11 Sep 2003 20:44:12 -0700, "Eric Gisin" wrote:

wrote in message
.. .
| On Thu, 11 Sep 2003 08:41:51 -0700, "Eric Gisin" wrote:
|
| wrote in message
| .. .
| | On Wed, 10 Sep 2003 22:33:19 -0700, "Eric Gisin" wrote:
| |
| | | Hmmm...
| | | Obviously an *old* computer. :-(
| | | I understand your desire to speed things up, but, honestly, with
| | | something that old, you're trying to put fancy rims on a Vega. Nothing
| | | you can do will speed that up to any discernable amount.
| | | Sorry.
| |
| | Stupid Troll. He has plenty of memory.
| |
| | Does that mean he has more than you have?
| | I'm intrigued by your comment. Why, when he says his system has to use
| | virtual memory, do you say he's got plenty of RAM?
|
| Windows 2K/XP always pages out, no matter how much RAM you have. You don't
| have a clue, do you?
|
| Yes, I do.
| I'm also capable of talking without attacking, something you evidently
| can't do.

You've demonstrated you are a troll. I am pointing out the obvious.

| Now, try this: it's obvious that the OP is using his pagefile because
| he doesn't have enough RAM for the work he's doing.
|
And your point is? Enabling the pagefile improves performance unless you are
really short of RAM.

| I doubt the OP has problems with excessive pagefile activity. I don't with
| 255MB and Win2K, and everything is fast. I even have 140MB available now.
|
| Almost nobody bothers measuring activity with perfmon. It's rarely a
problem.
|
| So you know what's going on with the OP's systyem better than he does?
| How do you manage that?
|
Years of experience. What I observe on my system applies to the majority of
others.

Talk about being a troll!

--
Bill
Replace "g" with "a"
Experience is what you get when you expected something else.

http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php should tell you everything you want
to know about dinking with pagefiles. It took me less than two minutes
to find that with Google.

On Fri, 12 Sep 2003 02:39:33 -0700
"Timothy Daniels" wrote:


"J.Clarke" wrote:
Whoa, back up. You're trying to tweak the page file
to get better performance but you claim that you don't
need more than 384 meg to do what you do? I'm sorry,
but that doesn't make any sense. If you're not normally
using up that 384 meg then what do you expect to gain by
tweaking the page file? And if you are using up that
384 meg and a significant amount of the page file, and if
you're suffering a perfomance penalty as a result, then you
are going to gain far more performance by increasing the
RAM than you are by tweaking the page file.


This is getting comical. More RAM is not an option. I
am a student and I can't afford to spend $250 for 784MB
of new RAM.

Do you need 768 meg to achieve your objectives? Why would you pay $250?
You can get 256 meg DIMMs from Crucial for 65 bucks a shot.

I also have available(at no extra cost) a fast
2nd hard drive, and I have available (at no extra cost) an
unused ATA/133 channel. The only time I push the system
is doing Java/C# compilations and testing software that
uses runtime services. I'm assuming the compilations make
use of the pagefile space.

Only when the compilation cannot be performed in the available physical
memory.

I also assume defragging uses the
pagefile space to reassemble and reorder blocks of files.

Only when the defrag cannot be performed using the available physical
memory.

The pagefile is used for two purposes in Windows. One is to use cheap
disk space as a slow supplement to RAM--the pagefile is under that
circumstance treated by application programs as just more RAM and it is
not used differently by them than is any other RAM. The other is to
hold a dump of the system RAM in the event of a crash for the purposes
of debugging. For that purpose the pagefile on drive C and only the
pagefile on drive C is used.

Any time your system is paging it is running much more slowly than it
would if it did not need to page.


Since I have the 2nd hard drive and the 2nd ATA/133 channel,
why not use them? They're free!

The question is not whether to use them. The question is whether using
them to hold a pagefile will gain you anything.

I also intend to
periodically "ghost" the primary drive image to a
removable backup hard drive. I figure I could reduce
the time a little bit if the pagefile area doesn't have to
be copied, and it's possible that de-frags of the primary
drive would take a little less time if there's no pagefile
to work around. And in the unlikely event that the
primary drive starts getting congested, the area normally
taken for the pagefile would be available for storage.
So, for a zero cash outlay, I've decided to utilize a small
portion of the 2nd hard drive. All that I've been asking
is how best to do that - and *only* that.

[.......]
No need to agonize over NTFS vs FAT vs FAT32
or cluster size or any of that stuff--those will have a very tiny
effect on system performance if the page file is heavily utilized--
if it's not then they aren't going to make one iota of practical
difference.


Who needs a practical difference?

If you don't need a practical difference then why did you ask the
question?

Who's agonizing?

Anybody who really cares about fine tuning the pagefile is agonizing.

I've asked some simple questions in the interest of
understanding and utilizing my system better without
spending a bunch of money, and everyone starts making
value judgements about what *else* I should do instead
of just answering the simple questions.

That's because what you propose to do is going to have very little
effect on the performance of your system and is usually not worth the
effort.

Must I first justify
my intentions before anyone will proffer some simple
answers? If those questions had simply been answered,
this thread would have been 2 postings long.

It would help if you were clear in what you were asking. Is your
question "what can I do to my system to make compiles faster" or is your
question "I have an extra drive, what is the best way to use it?" or is
your question "what is the optimal configuration for a pagefile given
384 meg of RAM and two drives, one of which is currently empty?" Or is
it something else?


*TimDaniels*


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

"J.Clarke" wrote:
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php should tell you
everything you want to know about dinking with pagefiles.
It took me less than two minutes to find that with Google.


I should have looked there first.


Do you need 768 meg to achieve your objectives?


I don't need *any* RAM to achieve my objective,
which is added use for my 2nd hard drive which has
gobs of free space.


Why would you pay $250? You can get 256 meg
DIMMs from Crucial for 65 bucks a shot.


Ten days ago it was $85/256DIMM at Crucial, but
even $65 is more than I want to spend.


Since I have the 2nd hard drive and the 2nd ATA/133 channel,
why not use them? They're free!

The question is not whether to use them. The question is
whether using them to hold a pagefile will gain you anything.


You object to what I'm doing based on your opinion
that it will not gain me anything. But so what? It's free!
And whether it's worth *my* while to do it is not the subject
of the post.


If you don't need a practical difference then why did you ask the
question?


Why must I give a reason for what I want to do?
I asked a question on the best way to do something,
not *whether* that something should be done.


That's because what you propose to do is going
to have very little effect on the performance of your
system and is usually not worth the effort.


And why does that bother you?


It would help if you were clear in what you were asking.
Is your question "what can I do to my system to make
compiles faster" or is your question "I have an extra drive,
what is the best way to use it?" or is your question "what
is the optimal configuration for a pagefile given 384 meg
of RAM and two drives, one of which is currently empty?"
Or is it something else?


It's what I've been asking from start to finish of this
thread - What format would be faster in use for a
pagefile partition placed on a 2nd hard drive, given
that the system drive uses NTFS?


*TimDaniels*