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Greetings, list-readers!
As someone who actually has set up hundreds of systems, here's what works
for me (your milage may very):
1. I *always* set up a PRIMARY partition JUST for my swap file. This is
true whether or not I'm setting up Win95/98/NT/2k.
2. If there is more than one hard disk in the system, I *always* evenly
split the swap file across dedicated primary partitions on the non-boot
drive(s).
3. I *always* set my swap file size as a FIXED size equal to 1.5 * memory.
Example: System has one 10gb drive, 128m memory. Create 2 primary
partitions (usually use PartitionMagic): Partition 1 = 9.8 gb, Partition 2 =
197 mb (size of swap file is 128m * 1.5 = 192m, hard disk partition *must*
be 5mb larger than swap file size)
Fixed size swap files on dedicated partitions do not fragment.
A fragmented swap file will damage performance far more than any other
fragmented file.
I always make the swap file partition the last partition, whether on one or
many drives.
(If you're using NT40, you'd need to set up a 2gb partition to install NT,
it doesn't like booting to a partition greater than 2gb... so in the
example above, there would be 3 primary partitions: 2gb, 6.8gb & 197mb)
I *always* install whatever the current version of Diskeeper is. I start
out by doing a boot-time defragment run, followed by configuring it using
"set it and forget it" to defragment once per 24 hours during the late
night.
The other defragmenters are interesting, but only one of them (Raxco's
PerfectDisk) has it's roots in mainframe computers as Diskeeper does.
Diskeeper is the defragmenter that Microsoft wish it built, so in true M$
style, they licensed it in Win2000. It's solid, mature, reliable and
trouble-free. "It just works."
Craig Jensen, President of Executive Software (makers of Diskeeper)
literally "wrote the book" on fragmentation in 1994: "Fragmentation: the
Condition, the Cause, the Cure" can be ordered from the Diskeeper website
for $29.95, or can be read for free on-line at:
http://www.execsoft.com/fragbook/. Short take: these folks KNOW what
they're doing.
Summary:
Separate partion for swap file - fixed swap file size: 1.5 * RAM - not on
boot drive if other drives available - Diskeeper on auto-pilot.
My clients are 98% financial institutions. This configuration has proven
successful for very reliable 24/7 operations that they require.
Hope this helps someone :-)
Doug
-----
Doug Forman, MCSE (doug@xxxxxxxxxxx)
Incline Systems, Inc. - Vancouver, WA
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kent Rollins [mailto:kentr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Sunday, September 19, 1999 9:03 PM
> To: OmegaList
> Subject: Re: Defragging Win NT
>
>
> NT's swap file is called PAGEFILE.SYS and is located in the root directory
> of your boot drive. It is used basically the same way 98 uses it's swap
> file. The reason they suggest creating a separate partition for it is to
> prevent it from becoming fragmented over time. This is a valid strategy
> (although until I see some benchmarks I am still dubious of the
> improvement
> in performance) and most unix installations are set up this way.
>
> Kent
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark J. Cerar <mcerar@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: omega-list@xxxxxxxxxx <omega-list@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Sunday, September 19, 1999 9:07 PM
> Subject: RE: Defragging Win NT
>
>
> Does anyone have any comments about using the following Hard Disk fine
> tuning technique to reduce defragmentation in WinNT?
>
> Set up a logical partition at the beginning of your hard drive to
> about 150%
> of your RAM and then put the Windows Swap file on this partition.
>
> I saw this tip on ZDNet a while ago (without any reference to a particular
> version of Windows) but it does sound interesting. I don't even know if
> Windows NT uses a swap file in the same way as Win9X.
>
> Mark.
>
>
>
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