Does Your Page/Swap File Deserve Its Own Drive?
Dear Fred, What about giving the paging [aka "swap"] file its own dedicated drive? I've done this on several machines with no problems (although I did *once* receive a "Windows is running out of Virtual Memory" message while running CorelDraw, which I suspect is not good about releasing memory). In any case, a useful utility is Mark Russinovich's System File Defragmenter ( http://www.sysinternals.com/utilities/pagedefrag.html ), which defrags not only the paging file but also the Registry on bootup. I suspect you mentioned this at one time or another; I get most of my most useful utilities from your newsletter. ---Jim Allen
Turning over a second drive, or a partition
on a second drive, for the exclusive use of your page file can
theoretically boost performance--- especially if the separate drive is on its
own controller. But the performance boost might well be so slight that you won't
notice the difference in real-life operations.
The reasons for the theoretical boost are that 1) you can create a temporary
paging file that won't fragment because no other files will be written to the
disk; and 2) the dedicated can devote all its movement to the paging file
without having to take time out to read and write other files. It's also
possible to format the page file's drive as FAT32, which is marginally faster
than NTFS, adding another small increment of speed.
Readers who would like to try this can read this Microsoft Knowledge Base
article for instructions on how to move your paging file in Windows XP.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307886
(BTW: In some forms of backup where the software isn't smart enough not to copy the page file, getting your page file off your main drive or partition will greatly reduce the size of your main drive's backup files. So, there's more to moving the page file than speed alone...)
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