Extra Hard Drive and Swap file question

[jediphoenix]

I have a western digital 8.4 UDMA-33 hard drive with just one partition and I have an extra Western Digital 1.6 gig as well. I was wondering if I installed the 1.6 gigger as a slave and put the windows swap file (how large to make it?) on it by itself would I see any boost in performance? Thx

------------------
***TRUST IN YOUR TECHNOLUST***

[Jorden]

I'm running Win98 from off a 5400rpm 10.8Gb hdd, and set the swapfile to my 7200rpm 9.1Gb secondary hdd. Set it to 512Mb for minimum and maximum (I've got 256Mb RAM), and have no problems whatsoever.

The best way is by trying it. If you don't have any other Windows programs running from off that second hdd, it'll speed up Windows no doubt!! (As it only has to access the swap file on that drive)

Just some piece of advice: Set the swapfile with the minimum and maximum to the same amount of Mb. This will make your swapfile run alot faster than a variable one (say, minimum=1 and maximum=256Mb).

Jorden.

[jediphoenix]

Jordan I have 128 megs of ram so what should i set the swap file too?

------------------
***TRUST IN YOUR TECHNOLUST***

[Jorden]

2x your RAM, minimum...and maximum

So set your swapfile to 256Mb/256Mb.

[Rick]

I've got mine set up a little different. Primary HD is Maxtor 10GB 7200rmp, it's set up Win98SE on the first partition. All applications are on the secondary partition on that drive. My second HD is running as primary on the secondary IDE controller. Set a permanent swap file of 150mb on it. The only other thing on the drive are backups and mp3's.

Rick

[Jorden]

Setting the permanent swap file to between 0 and 150Mb was okay for Win95, but NOT for Win98 or above...

[jediphoenix]

Well my plans have changed My nieces are now getting the 1.6 gigger. I am left with an extra 540mb NEC drive which is 4500rpm. Is it worth putting the swap file on that?



------------------
***TRUST IN YOUR TECHNOLUST***

[Nuno]

Hi there guys!

Look, in my opinion, a 540 Mb Hdd is way too slooow to put such a critical performance thing like windows swapfile. No matter how much ram you have, good ol´ windows will always find a way to write something in the Hdd, and with such an old part it will crawl.

I have 96 Mb ram and I have the swap file configured to a 100 mb minimum, with no maximum defined. In that way, in normal use,
the swap file is most of the times fixed at 100 mb, and if it needs to be bigger, no prob. I know 100 Mb is kind of low, but I´m struggling with space problems, I´ve got just a 6.4 Gb hdd to pull all my stuff. I´ve ordered a IBM 13.5 Gb, so next week, I should be more confortable...

[kelin]

From all I have read, 512 is much too big for a perm swap...the whole point of having a perm swap is to force Windows to flush out your RAM and Swap file...if its too big, you are just defeating the purpose...Windows thinks there is still room in and and leaves stuff in it...if you set it at a more reasonable size, windows will be forced to constantly flush it out, leaving more room and letting you get the most use from it...]
I use the 2X RAM up to 128 megs...I am running 256 megs HSDRAM PC133 and use 268 (12 megs above the 256 level)...this is for MIN AND MAX size...
Also, set up a VCACHE if you use a perm swap...
Go to "Start" then "Run"....type in sysedit, then enter....go to the "Sys INI" tab...scroll down to VCACHE...and set as follows....
VCACHE
MinFileSize=16384
MaxFileSize=16384
Or you can download Cachemanager and it will do it for ya....
Anyway, for both the Perm Swap and the VCACHE...try some different settings and run some benchmarks...I use Wintune 98 for benchmarking my system...and it will show if your settings are working better or worse...
Also, re: having the perm swap on a separate drive...especially with IDE, it can't read/write from both drives at once...but, still, it probably better to run it on your second drive...if you can, put the other hd on the Secondary IDE, as the primary drive...its better not to have two IDE HDs on the same IDE channel...I run SCSI U2W, so it isn't a problem for me...
Anyway, most important thing is to try diferent things and see how they work...everyone's system is different, and the other guys 512 just might work better on your system (though I doubt it...when I run my perm swap at 320, things slow down quite a bit)...
So try em out...
Happy and Merry...
Kelin

[Jorden]

It would be toooooo slow if it had other data on it as well... But not if you use it for the swapfile only. Format it, do a thorough scandisk on it and defrag it then.
Put the swapfile on it, defrag it again and you should be up & running fine.

Nuno's thought of a minumum of 100Mb and no maximum defined works as well... But still Windows has to make the decision then on how much it needs, and we all know what letting Windows make decisions does

Jorden.

------------------
Merry Christmas Everyone !!

[Jorden]

The other guy ???

But you're right, Kelin. My 512Mb might be a bit too big, but if I set it lower my Windows keeps giving strange faults and GPF's all over... 512Mb and higher does it for me

Jord.

[Jorden]

Yes, it's a good drive, good size to put the swapfile on, on it's own

Don't use all of the 540Mb, just put it at the 512Mb I adviced. (Or even less than that)

Jord.

------------------
Merry Christmas Everyone !!

[jediphoenix]

Well the only place I can put the other harddrive is as the slave on the primary ide with the 8.4 gig, which afetr hooking everything up does nto work, the system will not find any HDs at all. Problem is that my secondary IDE is full with a Toshiba 6x DVD-rom as primary and HP 7200i rewritable as slave to it. I will try setting a permanent swapfile on the 8.4 gigger to 256 megs (2x my ram) and configure the vcache) so should I use wintune 98 to test results?



------------------
***TRUST IN YOUR TECHNOLUST***

[Jorden]

jedi... why not disconnect the secondary IDE port from the mobo when you go for detecting the hdd's ??

[jediphoenix]

HUH?

------------------
***TRUST IN YOUR TECHNOLUST***