Blast From The Past!
It’s been so long since I have even looked at a swap file for Windows, I hope I am not too rusty here. But regardless, here is the question recently sent into the old JustAskMatt queue.
Tony writes:
I’m looking for ways to boost performance on my desktop. Does it make sense to create a separate 1gb FAT16 partition and devote it solely to the XP swapfile and temporary files? I would also configure the OS to delete the swapfile on shutdown. Thanx!
Through the power of Google (kind of like the power behind Grayskull I suppose), I was able to find the following references for you.
Quote from softwaretipsandtricks.com about the benefit of a separate partition of for a swap file:
When a temporary swap file is used, the location and size of the file is determined by application being used and is not predictable. Also, since a temporary swap file is constantly written to and is not fixed in size, it would be highly fragmented across the partition that holds it. A better option is to create the swap file on a dedicated partition on your hard disk. By doing this, the swap file will never be fragmented since that partition is only being utilized by the swap file itself. You can configure the swap file size and location from Control Panel > System > Performance > Virtual Memory. The size of the swap file should be around 2.5 times the amount of RAM on the system.
Delete Swap file on shutdown quote:
In Win XP Professional, the Group Policy Editor has a security option to clear the pagefile at system shutdown. The same setting also forces the hibernation file to be wiped at shutdown.
To change the setting, click Start, Run, type GPEDIT.MSC click OK.
Drill down to Computer Configuration, Windows Settings, Security Settings, Local Policies, Security Options. In the right pane, find “Shutdown: Clear virtual memory pagefile.” The default is “Disabled.” If you enable it, be warned that deleting the pagefile takes such a long time to complete, that you may think that shutdown has hung up. It will SUBSTANTIALLY increase the shutdown time.
So yes, it does appear to make sense. ;) See everyone tomorrow.
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Matt,
In addition to what you found on swapfiles:
It is more efficient if the swapfile partition is placed at the beginning of a 2nd HDD on the PC. On my PC with 2GB of RAM, I have a 5GB partition (W:\) at the beginning of the 2nd HDD dedicated to the swapfile. I have 2 XP partitions installed (it’s a long story…) that both point to this partition to write the swapfile and do so with no problem.