Best Place for pagefile

[Maleko]

Dunno if this should have gone in hardware or software forums....anyway

I have:

x2 80gig drives in Raid0 (all progs and windows)

and 1 200gig (store, backup)

Both are SATAI

where would be best to put my page file on this setup? I hear way to many stories of wat to do.

[CoffeeFiend]

I hear way to many stories of wat to do.

And asking here won't solve that. The idea is to put it where there is more performance. The RAID0 setup should perform quite well, but if you're doing IO intensive stuff on there, being on another drive would be faster. It really depends. Same goes for things like photoshop scratch disk setup.

And it's a bit like pagefile size. People have been arguing over this for ages, and asking here wouldn't give you a definitive answer either.

[Maleko]

good point

[Slimy]

It's not really a big deal and there really isn't a size and place that will give you a huge performance gain.

Check the option for Windows to take care of it for you

[OuTmAn]

how about putting a pagefile on both?

I heard that Windows should choose the faster drive at a given instant. for exemple, if system drive is heavily working, then writing swap on documents drive, and vice-versa.

not sure of Windows's efficiency for determinating the best drive to write on. if anyone could provide a personal report about it..

[Keris]

If I had to choose just one place to put a Pagefile in that situation, it'd be on the RAID 0. If you have the array formated as a single partition, then it's easy; just plop in on that partition and go. If you break it up, such as C: for Windows, D: for Programs, and so on, then stick it on the partition closest to the middle of the drives. This will allow it to be reached fastest from anywhere. But since you can have as many Pagefiles as you have partitions, you can stick another one on the second drive if you wish.

Of course, all this piddling about is really pretty pointless. Only in extreme situations will changing the Pagefile positioning give appreciable performance increases. Yes, moving the Pagefile off a clogged and fragmented 5400 RPM drive made last century to a dedicated four disk 15k RPM RAID 0 array will show noticeable improvements when RAM runs out, but more RAM will help in a much larger way. And be cheaper than that super disk array too.

However, don't take this to mean the Pagefile only mattering when RAM is filled, thus you should just not use one if you have a lot of RAM. Windows NT is always using the Pagefile to move things that aren't being used at the moment but need to be kept in memory out of RAM so that running programs have access to more high-speed memory space. Pretty much just let Windows do it's thing. Unless you regularly use programs that have stupidly huge working sets that fill all your RAM and then some, there isn't much of reason to worry about the Pagefile. It's there, Windows will use it when needed, and you don't need to worry about it. If you must try to wring out every bit of performance you can from those occasions when RAM is full and you still need more memory space for the program at hand, there's something you can do. Set the small size to something semi-big (like 1-2GB) and then run a Pagefile defrag. You should then avoid the only major performance problem of a Pagefile: fragmentation. Usually Windows sets the small size pretty big on its own, though, so all you'd need to do is just run the defrag and be on your way.

[jcarle]

Regardless of what the endless debates say, the best location for a pagefile is on a seperate physical disk which is another one then the one where your windows is.

[Stead]

gigabyte's i-ram drive? seems like the best place for me!

before i started using vista...

in xp i would disable the paging file and just let it use the ram, if windows runs out of physical memory it will just pop up saying 'windows needs to expand the paging file, this may take a few minutes'

using 1 gig of ram, the only times that ever popped up was when I plain just tried opening lots of things to see what happens, or if i accidently scanned in a photo at the highest resolution...

..however using vista with 1.5gig of ram, that message just pops up to often..

and in answer to your question, personally, myself, if that 200 gig hd is only used for backing up and storage as yo usay, i'm guessing its not used often, I would put the page file on that drive

but as others have said, you won't really get the 'correct' answer, justa bunch of opinions of people who know they are right!

[haggisnneeps]

Isn't that like a paroxysm or something? Oxymoron maybe? Using RAM to act as the pagefile? If i had 2GB RAM and used 1 of them as a RAM drive, then i'd only have 1GB physical RAM left so if i used that up i'd start having to use the pagefile.... on the other Gig of RAM....

So what would be quicker in this scenario? A RAM access or a pagefile read/write to RAM I'm guessing a RAM access since instead of being used for pure RAM it would get re-routed or at least recalcualted before being written as a page read/write.....

I may, however, just be waffling

EITHER way though, i'd love to play with this so can you tell me how to do it?

Thanks