Swap Partition - Fat32 Or Fat16?

[azagahl]

Should I use Fat32 or Fat16 for my swap partition?

I have a 1 GB swap partition and FAT16 can support up to 2 GB - more than enough.

Also, I don't have a problem with slack (wasted space) because the whole partition is full of just one file. So FAT16 is still fine.

Furthermore, FAT16 extended can have long file names I believe. Still, I don't care because i just have Win386.swp there and nothing else.

Finally, I've heard that Fat16 is faster than Fat32 and NTFS. With Format /Z, I can only go up to 8 KB clusters on my FAT32 partition. Fat16 defaults to 32 KB clusters which means it should be faster, right?

If so, perhaps one should be using Fat16 for their swap partition?

[prathapml]

That's right - FAT16.

Here's what I do:

Make a logical partition at END of disk-space, of size 768 MB. And then set the swap space to occupy the entire avaialble space on that partition (normally a 768 MB partition might offer only 760 MB of usable space). See that your C: drive does NOT have any partition file.

NOTE:

This only applies to Win9x. For single hard-disks with Win2k/XP, you should actually have swap on C: for good performance.

[azagahl]

Make a logical partition at END of disk-space

I thought the beginning of the disk was the outer ring of the disk, which spins the fastest and thus is the most rapidly accessed part of the disk. Putting your swap partition at the end of the disk would make access to it as slow as possible

[prathapml]

Well, outer-most tracks are the first partition, correct. But that's where the OS should be, for best speed.

The next best undisturbed place has to be at the end of the disc - its better because it won't start to be used uptil a certain point.

The middle of disk is not good for swap because of a range of reasons.... just suffice to say that this is what experience taught..

Of course, if you have a second hard-disk, just make a partition at start of disk and assign it for swap.

[jasinwa]

That's right - FAT16.

Here's what I do:

Make a logical partition at END of disk-space, of size 768 MB. And then set the swap space to occupy the entire avaialble space on that partition (normally a 768 MB partition might offer only 760 MB of usable space). See that your C: drive does NOT have any partition file.

Are you saying to use C and partition part of it for the swap? Or use a second drive on the same channel and partition it or part of it? I see in a later post you suggest that, but I heard that a swap file should be on the same drive as Windows...

Would the difference be that noticable? Currently I have a D drive and place a fixed swap file there (still fat32). I have 384M ram...

[azagahl]

but I heard that a swap file should be on the same drive as Windows...

The swap file is better on a seperate drive. That way you don't have to have one disk seeking back and forth constantly between two different points.

Does it hurt to have the swapfile and the OS partition on the same IDE channel? Or is it better to have one IDE channel per drive? I'm not sure how much it matters...

[Gurgelmeyer]

In the "old days" IDE masters always had better transfer rates than slaves. I don't know if this is still true - but a secondary master will allways perform as least as good as a primary slave I think. If not better, 'cause the swap file can then be placed at the beginning of the secondary master - in its own FAT16 partition - without occupying space from the OS on the primary master.

If you are lucky enough to have Partition Magic, you can even format a FAT16 swap partition with 64K clusters - NT 4+ should support >64K clusters.

[jasinwa]

I think one does NOT want to place a hard drive on the same channel as a cd/dvd rom...which mormally is the second IDE channel....

Currently I have a second drive on my primary channel...thinking of changing it to FAT16....

I am wondering if it's worth it - what is the expected speed difference between a swap on fat16 vs 32?

[jaclaz]

Please read here a somewhat exhaustive analisys on how the swap "should" be configured:

http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

another article with slightly different conclusions

http://www.petri.co.il/pagefile_optimization.htm

What both sources affirm is that the cluster size "should" be 4k:

Should the drive have a big cluster size?

While there are reports that in Windows 95 higher performance can be obtained by having the swap file on a drive with 32K clusters, in Windows XP the best performance is obtained with 4K ones ? the normal size in NTFS and in FAT 32 partitions smaller than 8GB. This then matches the size of the page the processor uses in RAM to the size of the clusters, so that transfers may be made direct from file to RAM without any need for intermediate buffering

On a side note, unless you actually use some "memory hogs" like Paintshop with "professional" sized images, you won't use much the swap file, and, on the other hand, if you actually use a lot the swap file, you might consider adding RAM to your system.

jaclaz

[randiroo76073]

Question, I have 2 hdds already fat32, #2 has 2gb at start for swap, can I change w/o fdisking & loosing other data stored on rest of #2?

[azagahl]

randiroo, I think the answer is yes. (But make sure you have everything backed up if I'm wrong!)

I recommend using the free Ranish partition manager (part244.exe). You should be able to delete the partition and reinsert a FAT16 one without disturbing the other partitions. It won't let you choose cluster size, but once you've made a partition FAT16 you can then go back and run "format X: /Z:64" to format with 32 KB clusters.

[randiroo76073]

Thnx azagahl, backup is something I can do in my sleep, I've only been at this 3 yrs[puters] & have hosed my sys more times than MS ever could[see last line in sig] but am learning, sure am glad I moseyed into this forum, so much yet to learn, so little time. Dare to go where no man has gone before

[randiroo76073]

azagahl, much grass! Success!