4 hdd´s, where should i put the page file?

fettoken

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So i use 4 sata2 hdd´s.
F: 750gb for storage
D: 500gb for installing stuff
E: 500gb that doesn´t have any function yet.
C: Windows partition 20gb
G: Main partition with games on it etc 280gb

Question is, where should i put the windows swap files on, and how big ? I got 4gb ram, only 3gb is usable by me. (rest is eaten by windows cache etc).
Question nr2. Is it normal that windows uses 2.4 gb system cache when transfering large amount of data from one disk to another ? (Its mostly 2.4 gb of virtual ram)

Maybe i should remove two of the 500 gb´s and get one of those raptor disk for installing programs / games on instead ?
 

fettoken

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My computer seem to use 2400 mb cache constantly, even now when i don´t have any processes open (not ones that take lot memory)
 

Kryten

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Yes, thats fairly normal. What windows is it, and is it 32 or 64bit?
And where for the page file? Won't really make much of a difference.
Reportedly you can get tiny amounts of performance gain with it on a drive that's used more for storage - say for instance, where you keep photos and videos but not used for your OS or games.
I don't hold out for that sort of computing old wives tale I'm afraid - back in the day it would indeed have gained a tiny amount of speed but these days, and certainly with 4gb of ram, it isn't going to make a difference that's noticable to you, especially with modern hard drives.
How big? Leave it automatic.

What exactly is the aim of all this, out of interest? Reason being, it's fairly pointless spending hours tweaking things, spending silly monies on fast hard drives etc when you spend all your time playing DVD's and/or WoW (example only, obviously)
Far better ways of tweaking system for performance :)
 

fettoken

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Got a 32bit system. And now when i put a 5gb swap file on D:/, every game and process seem to make use of all ram. Fired up Gothic 3, and it took 1.3 gb of memory. All processes seem to use resources more now. So yeah, its probably useless to spend time and money on expensive hard drives and tweaking too much. Im probably going to spend some money on a 24 inch tft and a another 8800 gtx, if i can find that SLI bridge whic i misplaced somewhere.
 

Kryten

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Heh, I'm hunting for an SLI bridge for the old mans machine atm :D

Naturally the max ram a 32bit system will see is 3.2gb - it's not actually possible to use any more than that, and even then the system overheads will consume that last 200 odd meg of ram. And of course by sticking in another 8800, that lid of 3.2gb will come down even more - nearer 2.8gb maximum usable RAM, I'd guess. Here's cursing the fact that 64bit OS's haven't been around long enough.
 

Reza

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I think default/usual pagefile size is 1.5 times ram size. But it also depends on your L1 and L2 cache. The usual aim is for L1 to have a >90% success rate, and then L2 hitting >90% of the rest, and ram then >90% etc.

In terms of where to put the pagefile. I actually gave this alot of thought lately too, while at the same time consdering SSD for pagefile use (which turned out wasnt worth it cause of the slow write speed to SSDs that i was considering).

The general conclusion on where to place the page file was:

1) Ideally not on the same drive as your system files.
2) Not any drives with fault tolerance since pagefile doesnt need it (raid 1, raid 5 etc).
3) Not on different partitions of the same physical drive.
4) To optimise you can spread the virtual mem over multiple physical drives (but try to avoid those that are more heavily accessed).

So specifically for your set up id recommend not putting it on your drive with C and G partitions. And i would spread the pagefile over F,E and maybe D depending on how much use it had already.
 

fettoken

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Thanks, that helps me alot! Oh btw, i recently deleted the partition where i had all my stuff on (750gb one). So i used Active Partition recovery to recover it, and it worked out. But in Partition Magic 8 it says the disk is "Bad". Should i put all my files on another disk, and format the 750gb one ?
 

Kryten

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I say so yeah. Partitioning isn't really a great way of organising files any more, the only benefits these days are just for folks who "Like to organise that way"
Windows can handle the drive sizes without issue so no worries there.
 

fettoken

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ok with 3.2 gig of ram why do you need a pagefile at all

Good question. Anyways, im having this problem now where the ram memory / pagefile doesn´t seem to flush stuff, thus making me unable to get "exclusive access" to for example the DVD player.
 

Embattle

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I was reading someting the other day regarding ram and pagefile, at 4gb you'll still get issues with certain programs and the general outcome was that you shouldn't bother disabling it unless you have 8gb.

Also don't get your hopes up for Sli, esp if you run Vista.
 

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