How do i move my paging file to center of hard drive disk?

My paging file is on the outside of my disk, and im wondering what the easiest way to move it as close to the center as possible. Like right after the operating system or something. Its located like almost all the way to the outside, so im getting bad performance. So any ideas? My disk drive is allready half full so, i dont want to delete any of my files or anything. Maybe backing up my C drive (local disk), reinstalling windows, setting the page file, then putting all my files back will be the easiest?

If it is on the beginning of the disk... that is the highest performance area.

Moving it to the middle would cause problems performance loss.

As to how to place you paging file... you cant AFAIK BUT.....

Completely close out your Swap file (and ditch hibernation if you have that enabled)...clean and defrag your OS drive. Make an image or clone the harddrive over to another one. (I like acronis true image)

On the new HDD (or reimaged old drive) check out fragmentation analysis utility. Solid BLue all at the beginning of the HDD, now enable pagefile, it can not go anywhere but after the solid blue. (set it to static size to reduce fragmentaion of your HDD)

Still I dont recommend doing that. If anything I put swap file and TEMP/TMP folders on the beginning of a second disk (except when I am running raid...)

always best to have it at the start of the drive for performance reasons. I normally create a small partition (1 to 2GB) when I install the OS. If you create this partition before the OS/System partition the it will be at the start of the disk and give better swap performance. Putting the swap file on its own drive also reduces fragmentation issues.
Moving your swap file around on an existing install / partition is usually not possible

is this any level of performance you would actually notice....

Mr.Guvernment said:

is this any level of performance you would actually notice....

Click to expand...

yeah this is a lot of effort for no gain

real world, probably very little, but on the other hand a fragmented swap file does noticeably reduce performance

Allright. What i did was, I barrowed a 320gb HD from my friend. Plugged this one into mobo, and got into windows. I then moved very large files onto this. Including my documents folders, many program files, and my whole Install folder. (A folder i created for all the .exe install programs i download off the internet, happened to be about 8GB.) I then analyzed my HD, and i found a huge space near the start of the disk, so i deleted my paging file, rebooted, created the paging file, and it filled up this hole. Then i moved all my files back, defragmented, and w00t, paging file is way closer to the center.

but if a swap file is a "fixed" min/max the same size it doesnt get fragmented apparently, also the swap file is cleared on reboot /restart anyways....

coin said:

real world, probably very little, but on the other hand a fragmented swap file does noticeably reduce performance

Click to expand...

I don't think fragmentation is an issue at all with a page file. The only exception to this is when your working with huge photo editing, and video editing projects. For normal computing the data is written in 64kb chunks, and it isn't sequential. The head is going to be seeking anyway, so fragmentation doesn't really matter.

If I read your previous post right (you create a small partition on your system disk to hold the page file?) this will actually give slower performance. If you're working with something in Windows, the head has to leave the active partition, write data to the page file, then move back to the active partition. It's not a huge performance loss, but it's there.

There isn't much you can do with a page file to gain performance. The best thing you can do is put it on a separate disk, preferably on a different ide channel, and let it be. Set the minimum to about 2gb, then let Windows handle the rest. That way if you you need extra page file space windows will be able to expand it if necessary. Most people don't need more than 2gb or so, but it never hurts to be safe. You could end up with a non-typical computing project that requires much more space on a temporary basis, and you won't get vm errors if it's allowed to expand.

You could use something like Diskkeeper which is just an extension of the Windoze defrager.

Step 1: You need two partitions but two disks would be a much better option
Step 2: Set the pageing file on C to 0 set the partition on drive x as high as 4096 set it the same number for both min and max
Step 3: Reboot
Step 4: Use Diskkeeper to defrag both drive and then set boottime defrager to defrag MTF and pageing file
Step 5: Its gonna take a few you have to be there to not hit keys and then on second boot hit the y key after all that then setup your page file anywhere on C and then analyze

And yes useing a set page file will keep your system much more stable along with keeping your page file from getting so fragged. However if your worried about the performance of your swap just setup a small partition say like 4 - 4.5G and just set your pageing file to a set of 4096 for min and max.

Yeah, I used to defrag the paging file with Diskeeper too with a boot-time defrag, back when I had only one drive, and Diskeeper used to do a good job. Now, with a two drive setup, I have the paging file on the beginning of the second disk on a small partition. Maybe the speed has increased a little bit after moving my paging file to the second drive. or it could also be just my imagination hehehe.

it woud have a performance increase for sure moving it to a seperate drive, the question always comes down to, is it enough for all the work..