Windows XP - Pagefile - where to put it?

[aiman]

Has anyone any good suggestions where I should put the Pagefile of XP ?
I have a single hard disk with two partitions C and D, 90 Go each plus a 240Go USB external
All my system/program files are on C and nearly all my data is on D with backup etc on the external

C is ~45% full
D is ~10%
EXternal is ~35% full
so there's space available, but I was looking for optimum speed of the virtual memory.
I read somewhere that it is better to move it off C onto D but I also read that you shoul not put it onto the partition containg your data !

Confused somewhat, I must say:confused:

[under_exposed]

Get hold of an old hard disk (something like a 10GB), add it to your machine and use it for the swap file only. This will reduce disk contention and speed thing up (with a bit of luck!).

[Saab Dastard]

Distinguish between physical disks and partitions - there is no great benefit from putting the swap file on a different partition on the same physical disk - the disk heads are working just as hard!

It can be useful to move the swap file from c partition to d partition if C is getting full. Normally one would have a smaller C (system) partition than D (data), so C would tend to fill faster.

It only makes a difference when you can put the swap file on a physically separate disk. But as to using an old disk - not necessarily a good idea, unless the seek time and DMA support is adequate.

If you have a 5400 rpm (or faster) disk with UltraDMA mode 4 or 5, fair enough - but it would probably be actually a retrograde step to introduce a slower disk without UltraDMA mode 4.

SD

[aiman]

Does this fit your spec?
I do not know what is UltraDMA mode 4 or 5 but it is 7200 rpm
Sorry about the French text but numbers are numbers?

Description du produit: Western Digital My Book Essential Edition WDG1U2500 - Disque Dur Externe
Type de produit: Disque Dur
Capacité: 250 Go
Débit de transfert de données: 480 Mbits/s
Temps moyen de positionnement: 8.9 ms
Vitesse de rotation: 7 200 tours/min
Taille de la mémoire tampon: 8 Mo
Type d'interface: Hi-Speed USB
Connecteur: USB 4 broches
Alimentation: CA 120/230 V (50/60 Hz)
Dimensions (LxPxH): 14.1 x 17.1 x 5.7 cm
Poids: 1.3 kg
Garantie constructeur: 1 an
Détails techniques
Principales caractéristiques
Description du produit: My Book Essential Edition WDG1U2500 - disque dur - 250 Go - Hi-Speed USB
Type: Disque dur - externe
Dimensions (LxPxH): 14.1 cm x 17.1 cm x 5.7 cm
Poids: 1.3 kg
Capacité: 250 Go
Type d'interface: Hi-Speed USB
Connecteur: USB 4 broches
Débit de transfert de données: 480 Mbits/s
Temps moyen de positionnement: 8.9 ms
Vitesse de rotation: 7200 tours/min
Taille de la mémoire tampon: 8 Mo
Système d'exploitation requis: Windows 98 Deuxième Édition, Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition, Microsoft Windows XP, Apple MacOS X 10.2.8 ou plus récent
Alimentation: CA 120/230 V ( 50 - 60 Hz )
Caractéristiques détaillées

Général
Compatibilité: PC, Mac
Largeur: 14.1 cm
Type de périphérique: Disque dur - externe
Hauteur: 5.7 cm
Profondeur: 17.1 cm
Poids: 1.3 kg

Alimentation
Périphérique d'alimentation: Adaptateur secteur
Tension requise: CA 120/230 V ( 50 - 60 Hz )

Extension/connectivité
Interfaces: 1 x Hi-Speed USB - USB à 4 broches, type B

Casque
Distorsion Harmonique Totale (THD): USB 4 broches

Divers
Type d'emballage: Pour la vente au détail
Câbles inclus: 1 x câble USB - USB type A à B - 1.8 m

Caractéristiques d’environnement
Température de fonctionnement maxi: 35 °C
Température de fonctionnement mini: 5 °C

Performances
Débit de transfert de l'interface: 480 Mbits/s
Temps de positionnement piste à piste: 2 ms
Vitesse de rotation: 7200 tours/min
Temps de positionnement: 8.9 ms (en moyenne)
Temps de latence moyen: 4.2 ms

Logiciels / Configuration requise

[Saab Dastard]

I would never put the pagefile on an external disk.

USB attachment precludes DMA, thereby slowing down data transfer and also significantly increasing the load on the CPU.

Theoretical max on USB 2 is 480 Mbps = 60 MB/s. Theoretical max for UDMA mode 4 / Ultra ATA 100 is 100 MB/s, mode 5 = Ultra ATA 133 is 133 MB/s.

While UDMA 4 and 5 both comfortably exceed the rate at which the fastest drives can read data off their platters (around 80 MB/s), it is better to eliminate the bottleneck!

So a dedicated INTERNAL disk is the only way to improve
performance.

Of course buying so much RAM that the pagefile is redundant is another option! But Win XP can only address 4GB - and by no means all mobos can accomodate that much.

SD

[Mac the Knife]

Leave your pagefile where it is (system defaults) - while it makes a hash of lots of other things, Windows actually handles paging reasonably sensibly.

The only tinkering worth doing is to limit the size of the paging file by setting Initial Size to 200-500MB and Maximum Size to 1-1.5GB.

Unless you are very low on RAM (and then you should use your money to add some more RAM) there's no realworld benefit in having a paging file on it's own dedicated disk .

:ok:

[izod tester]

I disagree with Mac the Knife, allowing the swap file to grow and shrink as windows sees fit contributes to fragmentation. I set the minimum and maximum to be the same, albeit on a separate hard drive to the operating systems (I have 2 identical IDE drives which are mirror images of each other with the operating systems and a large SATA drive with partitions for data and the swap file lives in its own partition there. In your case, I would set a 2Gb min and max swap file on d:, then defrag c:. Then create a new swap file on c: and delete the one on d:

[amanoffewwords]

This might help http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314482

[aiman]

I think I'll do a combination of ideas from Mac and Izod,

Thanks to all for their contributions.