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Old 12-23-2005, 02:29 PM
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Default \"Swap-file\" thingy - Helps to \"assign\" it to 1 hard drive and use the

...other for storage?

Hi, I read in a few other posts that the Swap File is the thing the computer uses on your Hard Drive
when the physical memory gets full, and that if you have 2 different Hard drives on your
computer (not a RAID array - 2 different drives...)
that you can
tell your computer to use 1 hard Drive for the Swap File and you can use the other
to run your programs off of, save things to, and use pretty much for everything else...

Is the performance gain here huge or small? Is it worth getting a 10,000rpm Raptor 74 Gig. Hard Drive just to put the Swap File on and use for NOTHING ELSE?

Is it worth having 3 Different Hard Drives and using 1 for the swap file, 1 for your programs, and 1 for Data storage?
Does the cost in
$s to buy all these drives get you real-world improved performance???
(or is it a waste of time/money?)

Thanks, (as you can tell from my post I really know nothing about the Swap File, how it works/what exactly it does, etc.)
I am building a new computer and would like to know what Hard Drives to get on it...I would like the "money-no object" advice and then
I'll just see if I can afford to go out and actually buy it!
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Old 12-23-2005, 03:12 PM
Meech Meech is offline
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Default Re: \"Swap-file\" thingy - Helps to \"assign\" it to 1 hard drive and use the

[ QUOTE ]
Is the performance gain here huge or small? Is it worth getting a 10,000rpm Raptor 74 Gig. Hard Drive just to put the Swap File on and use for NOTHING ELSE?


[/ QUOTE ]

No.
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  #3  
Old 12-23-2005, 03:20 PM
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Default Re: \"Swap-file\" thingy - Helps to \"assign\" it to 1 hard drive and use

[ QUOTE ]
Is the performance gain here huge or small?

[/ QUOTE ]

What are you doing? Are you creating movies on your PC for a living, or are you playing poker and video games? If it's poker and games, you'll not notice a difference.

[ QUOTE ]
Is it worth having 3 Different Hard Drives and using 1 for the swap file, 1 for your programs, and 1 for Data storage?

[/ QUOTE ]

IMO, no, absolutely not. It just makes your configuration more confusing and more complex for no perceivable gain. I think you're better served by having second hard drive installed that you use as a backup for data on the first, so when (note: it is when, not if) the first hard drive crashes, you have a backup to restore from (but this is another topic). You could, if you wanted to, put the swap file on the second drive. Then, any time the swap file was needed (some games with big texture files uncompress the files to the swap file), you would see a performance boost.

Years ago, when ram was not cheap and limited, it used to make sense to put the swap file on another drive. But drives these days are fast, much faster than the 5400 RPM drives of just a few years ago. One thing that will help is fix the swap file size (I usually use 2x RAM size). That way, when windows does use the swapfile, it doesn't have to resize it. If you install 1GB ram, the need for swapping goes down drastically anyway...

IMO:
-1 GB ram (it's so cheap). If cost is no object, then go for 2 GB if your into video games.
-2 7200RPM seagate SATA II drives (1 drive is for backup only). I'll never use WD drives again, i've had 3 crash on me, the latest being my 1 year old Raptor.
-Configure the swap file file for a fixed size (2000MB will fine, 1000MB will reclaim 1GB of space for you to use if you wish). Optionally, for the "best" performance, you can configure this drive to hold the swap file as well. I would probably do it just because it's simple to do, but like I said, for everyday use, you probably won't notice a difference.
-Acronis TrueImage (backup software)
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  #4  
Old 12-23-2005, 10:52 PM
bort411 bort411 is offline
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Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 6
Default Re: \"Swap-file\" thingy - Helps to \"assign\" it to 1 hard drive and use

If you're planning on having a drive just for storage, I don't see why you wouldn't just put the swap file on that, because most often that drive won't be working very hard or will only be dealing with one file at a time.

You can buy an awful lot of memory for the price of a raptor and just turn of the pagefile; that would likely work better than having a dedicated drive for a swap file.
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