Swap on second HDD.

[Nowhere]

Since for some time I have two (identical) HDDs I decided to move swaps on the one with data only. Everything what is on it is one large FAT32 partition. I'm afrad I can't do much when it comes to creating Linux swap partition at the beginning of this HDD, but there's a choice for Windows 2003: I could simply create swap on existing FAT32 partition or create another one for NTFS. So...is it still true that FAT32 is "faster"?

And one more thing, about which I mentioned somehow: I am able to resize existing partition of course...but is it possible to "move it up"?

[Paddy]

Partition magic can physically move partitions to the beginning of the disc. I have done this in the past when i wanted to create a swap partition. In my past experience PM has managed to roger partitions on a fairly regular basis to the point where i now feel that if it works, then leave it be.

I now resort to the following solution:
1) Format and install 2003 server on a single NTFS partition
2) create a fixed, reserved, swap 'area' in windows.
3) Use O&O defrag to ensure that the swap 'area' and the OS are at the begining of the drive.
3) Install apps, which should now be automatically placed after the swap area
4) All non-essential data to reside on another disk/partition if you have to

As long as you don't need to increase the reserved swap area this method works fine.
I did try telling 2003 to use a seperate SCSI disk for a swap area and it didn't 'feel' any different, although I have no objective benchmarks.

I have done this using 2x9 GB SCSI dirves in a RAID 1 config. As all my data is stored on a seperate RAID array the 9GB is more than enough for OS, swap and apps. (I've jsut checked and I'm only using 3GB).

I don't bother partitioning any more, but I might if i wanted to do the above with a single disk.

Not sure if that helps, but it is what i do

[Nowhere]

...

As long as you don't need to increase the reserved swap area this method works fine.
I did try telling 2003 to use a seperate SCSI disk for a swap area and it didn't 'feel' any different, although I have no objective benchmarks.
...

But do you have 256MB of RAM with Windows 2003?

[Paddy]

erm.. actually I do
It's an old ProLiant 6500

[Nowhere]

Ok, Ok, not destktop usage...

[VJ]

For my Windows installation, I apply the following drive-usage:
C: (NTFS partition on 1st HDD) Windows installation
D: (NTFS partition on 2nd HDD) Applications
E: (NTFS partition on 1st HDD) Swap + data
F: (FAT32 partition on 3rd HDD) Images of C and D (taken with partimage on a Knoppix live CD)
G: (NTFS partition on 3rd HDD) Data

1st and 2nd HDD are SCSI (U320 and U160 respectively); 3rd HDD is Firewire800 (hardware raid 0).

The swap partition was placed on the E: partition before anything else, and is set in Windows to be of a fixed size: this causes it never to fragment. As I don't only need images of C: and D: the swap isn't part of the images stored on F: (takes up less space).
The swap size is 3 GB (automatically it suggests a min and max value, this is the max value), despite the fact that I have 1 GB RAM... (some applications tend to use a lot of memory).
If applications need their own swap files, they are put on either D: or E:.

Theoretically, I think this approach might optimize the harddisk usage for speed, but I have no measurements to back it up.


Jörg

[Jon P. Inghram]

You do know that if you put the swap file on two drives it does a pseudo-raid thing with 'em to share the load?

[Nowhere]

Negligible if teh swap on first drive is as small as Windows will permit?

[Jon P. Inghram]

No idea, I run with two fixed page files, 512 megs each on two drives.

[Marshmallowman]

Actually I was quite suprised how much using 2 swap spaces on to separate HDD's seem to improve responsiveness of windows 2000

[MultimediaMan]

If you move the swap partition off the boot drive, you lose the ability to capture crash dumps.

Howevr, this may or may not be a problem. Take care to not put the swap file on soft RAID array in Windows: bad things can happen if the array goes wonky.

[VJ]

You do know that if you put the swap file on two drives it does a pseudo-raid thing with 'em to share the load?

Sure?
I was told Windows just uses the first, and when needed the second. No intelligence used...


Also, would it take into account the fact that one harddisk could be under load, whereas the other might not be under load?


Jörg

[Jon P. Inghram]

Well, when I monitor paging file usage and HD activity on XP both paging files are used simultaneously, sure looks like it's doing some kind of load sharing.

[Nowhere]

Little update, just to let everyone know: it turned out that Windows 2003 doesn't need ANY swap on its primary partition...so all of my swap is on the HDD that is otherwise filled with not very HDD bandwith hungry mp3's

[Nowhere]

Another little update: it turned out that with 768MB of RAM and my usage pattern, Windows 2003 doesn't need any swap at all...