Virtual Memory Question

mike65

Windows automatically locates the VM on C:/ drive regardless of space availible. Should I move it to my fastest and emptest drive?

Mike.

sceptre

Yeah, you can. It makes sense from a performance optimisation point of view. The only downside is that if the pagefile isn't on the boot drive, you won't get a memory dump in the event of a system crash. I'd have two pagefiles if I were you - one on the boot drive and one on the second faster drive - preferably on a partition of its own with nothing else on it. Windows will automatically use the pagefile on the second, faster, less frequently used disc first. If you won't ever need a memory dump file, just go for the second disc.

Don't spread the page file over multiple partitions on the same physical disc though - you'll experience quite a big speed hit if you do.

Mutant_Fruit

ideally you'd move it to a different drive to the one windows is installed on. Not a different partition on the same drive, a physically different drive. It'll give a small speed boost.

ColmOT [MSFT]

Sceptre, you are incorrect.

The only downside is that if the pagefile isn't on the boot drive, you won't get a memory dump in the event of a system crash.

Windows WILL provide a memory dump, no matter where the pagefile is located. It places the memory.dmp file in the %systemroot% folder. You can configure this setting in the System Properties -> Advanced -> Startup & Recovery settings dialog page.

It's recommeded to put the page file on a separate controller from the OS for optimal performance.Placing the pagefile.sys on a different partition on the came physical drive is a perrf hit also.

Basically, only place pagefile on different controllers for best perf.

sceptre

Get someone to correct the MS knowledge base[1] then Colm, would ya? Win XP page as well. Ta.



[1]"However, completely removing the pagefile from the boot partition does not allow Windows to create a crash dump file (Memory.dmp) should a kernel mode STOP error occur. Not having this crash dump file could lead to extended server downtime should the STOP require a debug to be performed."

ColmOT [MSFT]

Ah - ok - I didn't realise that. Sorry Sceptre.

:dunno:

Emboss

Colm in general i think you'd be better of keeping hush and reading the forums for a bit

at least untill your finsihed reading your MCP books....

give us a break like.

sceptre

Bit harsh Emboss - I don't know that I'm right, though it is what I've always understood to be the case since winnt-31. I just know that when I went looking after the fact that the KB article said the same as me (though I must admit that if the tone of "you're wrong" had been a little softer I probably wouldn't have thought "feck this for a bunch of cabbages" and gone looking for the article). Key to participation here is usually not being always correct (though I'm sure there are a few who are (I'm not among them)) but having the ability to say "oh yeah, crap, sorry, my bad"

Capt'n Midnight

Since you didn't mention which version of windows you were using...

IIRC windows 3.1 could only recognise 64MB or some such - so if you had more memory than that you set up the swap file on a ram drive...

There is also a technet article somewhere allowing you to rename the swap file so both win9x and nt/2k.xp can share the same file.

pagedfrg is a utility on ntinternals site to defrag the swap file for NT/2K/XP (the latter two can defrag files not system files)

moridin

Something to mention that's kinda related to the topic is that if you put the pagefile on another disk/partition and you add another storage device to the system it might cause problems.

I had my pagefile located on a second partition (I think) a while ago, and when I put in a new Zip drive it started looking on the Zip to store the pagefile, and there wasn't enough room...

Moral of the story is that if you're putting it a non-standard place, ensure that the appropriate drive letter is specified using something like disk administrator, don't ever, ever put it on a drive letter that's been automatically been assigned by the OS

Emboss

Originally posted by sceptre
Bit harsh Emboss - I don't know that I'm right, though it is what I've always understood to be the case since winnt-31. I just know that when I went looking after the fact that the KB article said the same as me (though I must admit that if the tone of "you're wrong" had been a little softer I probably wouldn't have thought "feck this for a bunch of cabbages" and gone looking for the article). Key to participation here is usually not being always correct (though I'm sure there are a few who are (I'm not among them)) but having the ability to say "oh yeah, crap, sorry, my bad"

it's not just from here sceptre and not just this post seems to be an ongoing affair.

sceptre

Very good point there moridin. Any time I set up a machine I tend to set the CD drive to R (for ROM, see?), writer to S and zip drive to I (for Iomega before anyone asks - I like to keep zed spare). These days when people are adding things like digicams which are usually (if not always) recognised as storage devices and assigned a letter, things can be temporarily screwed up royally if people don't consider their drive letters.

(I assumed Mike was using an NT-based OS - 9x tended to put win386.swp in c:\windows rather than c:\)

moridin

I juse got into the habit of using X and Y for CD-ROM drives, and Z for zipdisks.

I like X, it's a cool drive letter... and when you say you're getting something off your x-drive people always perk up

mike65

I'm on win98se and I'm also keeping my head down

Mike.

Capt'n Midnight

Best not to use Z:
NT4 Servers use it as a temporary mapping to process login scripts.
z: = \\%Logonserver%\Netlogon

sceptre

Given that you're on win98 Mike the advice is still basically the same. Throw it on the faster disc, give it a fixed size (about 2.5 times the amount of RAM is the usual recommendation) and give it a wee partition of its own with nothing else on the same partition (this is what I did when I was using 98 as my main and only OS). Don't compress the drive. There's not too much to be gained from specifying an exact size but if you're moving it to a different drive you might as well.

& after a quick look on google I'm wrong about the usual location of the 9x swap file - it's usually in the root directory of the system drive)

Capt'n Midnight

If you can stick it in a partition at the start of a drive - that way the head does not have as far to move so it is physically faster.

BTW: The name of the swapfile used by Windows 98 can be changed by adding a PagingFile= line to the [386Enh] section of the System.ini file. If the path specified for the swapfile includes a lowercase drive letter, it can cause Windows 98 Second Edition to occasionally hang during a suspend. (don't ask)

so if you already have nt/2k/xp with c:\pagefile.sys you could do this .

moridin

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
Best not to use Z:
NT4 Servers use it as a temporary mapping to process login scripts.
z: = \\%Logonserver%\Netlogon

Doesn't matter a damn to me... I use 2k or XP in general