where should i put the swap file

[Crash893]

okay im pretty sure this is where this goes but have pitty on me if its not


in w2k you can move the swap file

i have 256 ddr ram

2 40gig hdd

drive 1 is all system stuff ( office drivers apps i use) 7200 rpm
drive 2 is all games and mp3s 5400 rpm

should i move the swap file over to drive2

if so how big should i make it

[JigPu]

Well, if you want your swap file at maximum performance, you need it on the fastest drive (obviously). However, since your games drive is the slower one, unless the HDs are on diffrent chanels, the system will have basicly half the thouroughput when writing or reading form the C drive (to change the swap file), and doing stuff with the D drive (while loading a game or something). Because of this, I will have to say to stick it on your D drive.

As far as size goes, open everything that you normaly have open, and then a few more memory heavy apps or games. Once you have all this stuff open, check out how much of your swap file is being used with system monitor, and use this as your swap file size. You could always add some extra room just in case (like 100MB), but that's up to you.

JigPu

[Jon]

D:.

No question.

[Crash893]

would it be worth it in prefomance to add a ide card and attach a little 1.5 gig drive and make that only for the swap file

[Jon]

If you have to buy the card, not worth spending the cash...save it for something else.

If you already have it, go ahead but it won't be any better performance than putting it on your storage drive.

I've used a small 545MB drive for a swap on one of my other systems before for that reason.

As a rule, it's best to have the swap on any other drive than the drive that your system files are on. This excludes a different partition of the same drive, however.

[David]

stick the swap file on the least used drive. Or upgrade your memory to 512 and disable virtual memory. I did that with XP Pro and It works fine.

[Crash893]

well im a little hesitant to upgrade the ram becuse its 2 128 and i dont want to have them sting around after the upgrade not being used.


why dont you think putting the swap on its own drive would bost preformance ( swap wont have to compete with the other files being accesed and it will be on its own cord)


even if i did up grade to 512 why would i disable vitural memory
woudlnt that be bad

[Jon]

Windows doesn't swap enough to inherit any ill effects by having it on the drive with your MP3s and such. I'm just saying that having it's own drive, in the manner you're suggesting, won't give any performance gain over the other way.

In my opinion having some swapfile is needed even if it is small. I don't recommend disabling the swapfile altogether.

[Crash893]

ah hell ill just leave well enogh alone

but thanks for the info that is very help full
and saved me some money

[Ebola]

you could just be like me and buy a gig of ram. :D

[Yodums]

Set it so the swap file goes on your default drive(C:) as it runs faster than the secondary and make sure its a 512 meg swap file, 512 minimum, 512 maximum.

Yodums

[cw823]

Originally posted by penguinfreak
stick the swap file on the least used drive. Or upgrade your memory to 512 and disable virtual memory. I did that with XP Pro and It works fine.



Run at least 512, disable virtual memory. Don't use a swap file. Was an easy choice for me. Run everything out of memory.

[David]

Originally posted by Ebola
you could just be like me and buy a gig of ram. :D

That is the best idea - if you can afford it!

If you have 512MB RAM + you can stop XP paging itself to disk with a little reg tweak.

[Johnfort]

If you have room, the swap file should be fixed at 1.5 times the amount of RAM. Don't forget to bump it up if you get more RAM.

[Crash893]

Originally posted by Ebola
you could just be like me and buy a gig of ram. :D

if i was filty rich mabey

im thinking about doing that for my sdram machine but i dont have the funding for the ddr yet