Best use of 3 drives

J A Temple wrote:
 >
 > Hi all, I have a WD 80GB 8MB cache drive but would like to upgrade to 2
 > Raptors. What would be the best solution for speed? I'm thinking of a
 > RAID-0 with the old drive as backup (and music files, etc). I seem to
 > recall that it's best to have the swap file on a separate partition at
 > least, preferably on a separate drive. However, I would have thought having
 > it on the dual Raptors would be faster...
 >
 > What say you, good ppl?
 >
 > Jat

Good idea using the Raptors in Raid 0, with the WD used as data
storage. Just make sure you backup important stuff to CD or DVD.

Forget about the swapfile; get yourself 1GB of memory and do without the
swapfile. Unless, of course, you are running a program that absolutely
has to have a swapfile (e.g. some versions of Adobe Photoshop.)

If the latter is the case, still get 1GB of memory and a program called
"ramdisk pro." This lets you create a virtual drive using RAM (which
you then use for a swapfile) and is 30 times quicker than your standard
Windows hard-drive-based swapfile. You ***WILL*** notice a huge
difference in performance.


Odie
--

RetroData
Data Recovery Experts
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.retrodata.co.uk" target="_blank">www.retrodata.co.uk</a><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Best use of 3 drives 

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 07:47:40 +0100, Odie Ferrous
<odie_ferrous.RemoveThis@hot.dot.mail.dot.com> wrote:

 >J A Temple wrote:
  >>
  >> Hi all, I have a WD 80GB 8MB cache drive but would like to upgrade to 2
  >> Raptors. What would be the best solution for speed? I'm thinking of a
  >> RAID-0 with the old drive as backup (and music files, etc). I seem to
  >> recall that it's best to have the swap file on a separate partition at
  >> least, preferably on a separate drive. However, I would have thought having
  >> it on the dual Raptors would be faster...
  >>
  >> What say you, good ppl?
  >>
  >> Jat
 >
 >Good idea using the Raptors in Raid 0, with the WD used as data
 >storage. Just make sure you backup important stuff to CD or DVD.
 >
 >Forget about the swapfile; get yourself 1GB of memory and do without the
 >swapfile. Unless, of course, you are running a program that absolutely
 >has to have a swapfile (e.g. some versions of Adobe Photoshop.)
 >
 >If the latter is the case, still get 1GB of memory and a program called
 >"ramdisk pro." This lets you create a virtual drive using RAM (which
 >you then use for a swapfile) and is 30 times quicker than your standard
 >Windows hard-drive-based swapfile. You ***WILL*** notice a huge
 >difference in performance.

If you don't create a virtual drive, your machine will have more
memory available to use for programs and won't have to swap at all.

In your solution you are forcing windows to swap to a swapfile in
memory, which is slower than windows not having to swap at all.


Al Dykes gave a very good answer. We cannot advice Temple on what to
do unless he has determined IF the harddisk is a bottleneck, and then
for WHICH programs the harddisk is the bottleneck.
If the harddisk is the bottlneck, it is vital to know if that is
because it does lots of random read/writes. (thus needing a good seek
time which a high rpm disk will have) or whether it needs a higher
sequential read/write performance. (In which case a 7200 rpm disk can
be almost as fast as a 10.000 rpm disk and much cheaper)

Marc<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Best use of 3 drives 

Marc de Vries wrote:
 >
 > On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 07:47:40 +0100, Odie Ferrous
 > <odie_ferrous.DeleteThis@hot.dot.mail.dot.com> wrote:
 >
  > >J A Temple wrote:
   > >>
   > >> Hi all, I have a WD 80GB 8MB cache drive but would like to upgrade to 2
   > >> Raptors. What would be the best solution for speed? I'm thinking of a
   > >> RAID-0 with the old drive as backup (and music files, etc). I seem to
   > >> recall that it's best to have the swap file on a separate partition at
   > >> least, preferably on a separate drive. However, I would have thought having
   > >> it on the dual Raptors would be faster...
   > >>
   > >> What say you, good ppl?
   > >>
   > >> Jat
  > >
  > >Good idea using the Raptors in Raid 0, with the WD used as data
  > >storage. Just make sure you backup important stuff to CD or DVD.
  > >
  > >Forget about the swapfile; get yourself 1GB of memory and do without the
  > >swapfile. Unless, of course, you are running a program that absolutely
  > >has to have a swapfile (e.g. some versions of Adobe Photoshop.)
  > >
  > >If the latter is the case, still get 1GB of memory and a program called
  > >"ramdisk pro." This lets you create a virtual drive using RAM (which
  > >you then use for a swapfile) and is 30 times quicker than your standard
  > >Windows hard-drive-based swapfile. You ***WILL*** notice a huge
  > >difference in performance.
 >
 > If you don't create a virtual drive, your machine will have more
 > memory available to use for programs and won't have to swap at all.
 >
 > In your solution you are forcing windows to swap to a swapfile in
 > memory, which is slower than windows not having to swap at all.

Marc,

You didn't read my post correctly.

No swap file is best, although in my opinion and my researched
experience, a swapfile on a RAM disk is stupendously quicker than your
usual Windows swapfile, and works substantially quicker than is enabled
by Windows' memory management, which I believe is crap.

Odie<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Best use of 3 drives 

In article <40D00497.F5DC524D.DeleteThis@hot.dot.mail.dot.com>,
Odie Ferrous <odie_ferrous.DeleteThis@hot.dot.mail.dot.com> wrote:
 >Marc de Vries wrote:
  >>
  >> On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 07:47:40 +0100, Odie Ferrous
  >> <odie_ferrous.DeleteThis@hot.dot.mail.dot.com> wrote:
  >>
   >> >J A Temple wrote:
   >> >>
   >> >> Hi all, I have a WD 80GB 8MB cache drive but would like to upgrade to 2
   >> >> Raptors. What would be the best solution for speed? I'm thinking of a
   >> >> RAID-0 with the old drive as backup (and music files, etc). I seem to
   >> >> recall that it's best to have the swap file on a separate partition at
   >> >> least, preferably on a separate drive. However, I would have thought having
   >> >> it on the dual Raptors would be faster...
   >> >>
   >> >> What say you, good ppl?
   >> >>
   >> >> Jat
   >> >
   >> >Good idea using the Raptors in Raid 0, with the WD used as data
   >> >storage. Just make sure you backup important stuff to CD or DVD.
   >> >
   >> >Forget about the swapfile; get yourself 1GB of memory and do without the
   >> >swapfile. Unless, of course, you are running a program that absolutely
   >> >has to have a swapfile (e.g. some versions of Adobe Photoshop.)
   >> >
   >> >If the latter is the case, still get 1GB of memory and a program called
   >> >"ramdisk pro." This lets you create a virtual drive using RAM (which
   >> >you then use for a swapfile) and is 30 times quicker than your standard
   >> >Windows hard-drive-based swapfile. You ***WILL*** notice a huge
   >> >difference in performance.
  >>
  >> If you don't create a virtual drive, your machine will have more
  >> memory available to use for programs and won't have to swap at all.
  >>
  >> In your solution you are forcing windows to swap to a swapfile in
  >> memory, which is slower than windows not having to swap at all.
 >
 >Marc,
 >
 >You didn't read my post correctly.
 >
 >No swap file is best, although in my opinion and my researched
 >experience, a swapfile on a RAM disk is stupendously quicker than your
 >usual Windows swapfile, and works substantially quicker than is enabled
 >by Windows' memory management, which I believe is crap.
 >
 >Odie


It should be noted that the suggestions to implement no-pagefile
systems in XP are in the distinct minority, and even if there is some
application for which a ramdisk is apropriate, the statement about
windows memory management in the above paragraph in an utterly
unsupportable paragraph, since the core logic of memory management is
essentially the same for w2k, including very large servers and is
proven quite satisfactory in production service.

It certainly is correct for w/98.





--
Al Dykes
-----------
adykes at p a n i x . c o m<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Best use of 3 drives 

Odie Ferrous wrote:

 > No swap file is best, although in my opinion and my researched
 > experience, a swapfile on a RAM disk is stupendously quicker than your
 > usual Windows swapfile, and works substantially quicker than is enabled
 > by Windows' memory management, which I believe is crap.

Swapfile on a RAM disk?? Is this a joke?
Or is Windows memory management *that* bad?


-WD<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Best use of 3 drives 

Will Dormann wrote:
 >
 > Odie Ferrous wrote:
 >
  > > No swap file is best, although in my opinion and my researched
  > > experience, a swapfile on a RAM disk is stupendously quicker than your
  > > usual Windows swapfile, and works substantially quicker than is enabled
  > > by Windows' memory management, which I believe is crap.
 >
 > Swapfile on a RAM disk?? Is this a joke?
 > Or is Windows memory management *that* bad?
 >
 > -WD

Try it yourself before condemning it.


Odie
--

RetroData
Data Recovery Experts
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.retrodata.co.uk" target="_blank">www.retrodata.co.uk</a><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Best use of 3 drives 

In article <40D13F72.630B3633 DeleteThis @hot.dot.mail.dot.com>,
Odie Ferrous <odie_ferrous DeleteThis @hot.dot.mail.dot.com> wrote:
 >Will Dormann wrote:
  >>
  >> Odie Ferrous wrote:
  >>
   >> > No swap file is best, although in my opinion and my researched
   >> > experience, a swapfile on a RAM disk is stupendously quicker than your
   >> > usual Windows swapfile, and works substantially quicker than is enabled
   >> > by Windows' memory management, which I believe is crap.
  >>
  >> Swapfile on a RAM disk?? Is this a joke?
  >> Or is Windows memory management *that* bad?
  >>
  >> -WD
 >
 >Try it yourself before condemning it.
 >
 >
 >Odie
 >--
 >

Is there anyone here other than Odie that's tried any "ramdisk"
software with w2k/XP and can say what their experiences were and what
applications they use ?

As far as I can tell, Odie is the only advcate.





--
Al Dykes
-----------
adykes at p a n i x . c o m<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Best use of 3 drives 

Yes, I did. I have created ramdisk for Internet temp files. It helped a bit
with browsing speed, but I have found out that removing 50MB (from physical
256MB RAM) caused some performance problems for other applications. So I got
rid of it. Instead I "Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is
closed" and speed improved anyways. With DSL you do not want to cache too
much.

"Al Dykes" <adykes.RemoveThis@panix.com> wrote in message
news:cas5op$pvc$1@panix3.panix.com...
 > In article <40D13F72.630B3633.RemoveThis@hot.dot.mail.dot.com>,
 > Odie Ferrous <odie_ferrous.RemoveThis@hot.dot.mail.dot.com> wrote:
  > >Will Dormann wrote:
   > >>
   > >> Odie Ferrous wrote:
   > >>
   > >> > No swap file is best, although in my opinion and my researched
   > >> > experience, a swapfile on a RAM disk is stupendously quicker than
your
   > >> > usual Windows swapfile, and works substantially quicker than is
enabled
   > >> > by Windows' memory management, which I believe is crap.
   > >>
   > >> Swapfile on a RAM disk?? Is this a joke?
   > >> Or is Windows memory management *that* bad?
   > >>
   > >> -WD
  > >
  > >Try it yourself before condemning it.
  > >
  > >
  > >Odie
  > >--
  > >
 >
 > Is there anyone here other than Odie that's tried any "ramdisk"
 > software with w2k/XP and can say what their experiences were and what
 > applications they use ?
 >
 > As far as I can tell, Odie is the only advcate.
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >
 > --
 > Al Dykes
 > -----------
 > adykes at p a n i x . c o m<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Best use of 3 drives 

On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 07:51:30 +0100, Odie Ferrous
<odie_ferrous.RemoveThis@hot.dot.mail.dot.com> wrote:

 >Will Dormann wrote:
  >>
  >> Odie Ferrous wrote:
  >>
   >> > No swap file is best, although in my opinion and my researched
   >> > experience, a swapfile on a RAM disk is stupendously quicker than your
   >> > usual Windows swapfile, and works substantially quicker than is enabled
   >> > by Windows' memory management, which I believe is crap.
  >>
  >> Swapfile on a RAM disk?? Is this a joke?
  >> Or is Windows memory management *that* bad?
  >>
  >> -WD
 >
 >Try it yourself before condemning it.

Some things are just too stupid to even consider trying.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Best use of 3 drives 

On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 09:28:07 +0100, Odie Ferrous
<odie_ferrous.TakeThisOut@hot.dot.mail.dot.com> wrote:

 >Marc de Vries wrote:
  >>
  >> On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 07:47:40 +0100, Odie Ferrous
  >> <odie_ferrous.TakeThisOut@hot.dot.mail.dot.com> wrote:
  >>
   >> >J A Temple wrote:
   >> >>
   >> >> Hi all, I have a WD 80GB 8MB cache drive but would like to upgrade to 2
   >> >> Raptors. What would be the best solution for speed? I'm thinking of a
   >> >> RAID-0 with the old drive as backup (and music files, etc). I seem to
   >> >> recall that it's best to have the swap file on a separate partition at
   >> >> least, preferably on a separate drive. However, I would have thought having
   >> >> it on the dual Raptors would be faster...
   >> >>
   >> >> What say you, good ppl?
   >> >>
   >> >> Jat
   >> >
   >> >Good idea using the Raptors in Raid 0, with the WD used as data
   >> >storage. Just make sure you backup important stuff to CD or DVD.
   >> >
   >> >Forget about the swapfile; get yourself 1GB of memory and do without the
   >> >swapfile. Unless, of course, you are running a program that absolutely
   >> >has to have a swapfile (e.g. some versions of Adobe Photoshop.)
   >> >
   >> >If the latter is the case, still get 1GB of memory and a program called
   >> >"ramdisk pro." This lets you create a virtual drive using RAM (which
   >> >you then use for a swapfile) and is 30 times quicker than your standard
   >> >Windows hard-drive-based swapfile. You ***WILL*** notice a huge
   >> >difference in performance.
  >>
  >> If you don't create a virtual drive, your machine will have more
  >> memory available to use for programs and won't have to swap at all.
  >>
  >> In your solution you are forcing windows to swap to a swapfile in
  >> memory, which is slower than windows not having to swap at all.
 >
 >Marc,
 >
 >You didn't read my post correctly.

Aparantly I read it just fine. But it seems that you didn't read MY
post correctly.

 >No swap file is best, although in my opinion and my researched
 >experience, a swapfile on a RAM disk is stupendously quicker than your
 >usual Windows swapfile, and works substantially quicker than is enabled
 >by Windows' memory management, which I believe is crap.

Of course a swapfile on a ramdisk is much faster than a swapfile on
harddisk. Just like any file on ramdisk is much faster than a
harddisk.

But that doesn't mean that it is wise to put your swapfile on a
ramdrive.

You have to look at WHY and WHEN a swapfile is used.

You use a swapfile when you don't have enough memory. When you create
a ramdisk you are decreasing the amount of memory available for
applications. This means that windows start swapping much earlier then
woul be the case when you had not created that swapfile.

Look at the following scenarios.
You have machine with 1 GB RAM.
In situation A you create a 500MB ramdrive and put your swapfile on
that. You thus have 500MB available for the OS and applications.
In siutation B you do not create a ramdrive and just have a swapfile
on disk. You have 1000MB available for the OS and applications.

1) Your applications use 250MB ram.
A: The application fits in the 500MB available physical memory and
thus no swapping is needed.
B: The application fits in the 1000MB availabe physical memory and now
swapping is needed.

Result: No performance difference between the configurations

2) You applications use 750MB ram.
A: The system needs to swap 250MB to the swapfile on the RAMdrive.
Even though the ramdrive is very fast, swapping is taking place and
the system is slowed down because of this. The slowdown is not very
big, but it is there.
B: The 750MB fits in the 1000MB, so no swapping is needed.

Result: The configuration with the Ramdrive is marginally slower then
the other configuration.

3) Your applications use 1.5GB ram.
A: The system swaps 500MB to the swapfile on the RAMdrive. And it
swaps 500MB to a swapfile on disk. (or if you don't have a swapfile on
disk your system crashes)
B: The system swaps 500MB to a swapfile on disk.

Result: Both configurations are slowed down considerably due to the
swapping to disk. (the performance loss of the swapping to ramdrive is
neglectable in comparison)

Conclusion: Do not put a swapfile on ramdisk.

Ramdrives are usefull when you have a disk bottleneck on creating temp
files. Lots of applications don't write data to memory but use
tempfiles. (smtp gateways for example) In that situation a ramdrive
can increase performance a lot.

Marc<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Best use of 3 drives 

Marc de Vries wrote:

<snip>

Like I said, try it.

If you're short sighted or narrow minded, that's your problem / even
your prerogative.

Odie
 >> Stay informed about: Best use of 3 drives 

In article <imm2d0l2sk65240i796m38d3lpl6na7bo3 DeleteThis @4ax.com>,
Marc de Vries <marcdevries DeleteThis @geen.spam.zonnet.nl> wrote:
 >On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 09:28:07 +0100, Odie Ferrous
 ><odie_ferrous DeleteThis @hot.dot.mail.dot.com> wrote:
 >
  >>Marc de Vries wrote:
   >>>
   >>> On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 07:47:40 +0100, Odie Ferrous
   >>> <odie_ferrous DeleteThis @hot.dot.mail.dot.com> wrote:
   >>>
   >>> >J A Temple wrote:
   >>> >>
   >>> >> Hi all, I have a WD 80GB 8MB cache drive but would like to upgrade to 2
   >>> >> Raptors. What would be the best solution for speed? I'm thinking of a
   >>> >> RAID-0 with the old drive as backup (and music files, etc). I seem to
   >>> >> recall that it's best to have the swap file on a separate partition at
   >>> >> least, preferably on a separate drive. However, I would have thought having
   >>> >> it on the dual Raptors would be faster...
   >>> >>
   >>> >> What say you, good ppl?
   >>> >>
   >>> >> Jat
   >>> >
   >>> >Good idea using the Raptors in Raid 0, with the WD used as data
   >>> >storage. Just make sure you backup important stuff to CD or DVD.
   >>> >
   >>> >Forget about the swapfile; get yourself 1GB of memory and do without the
   >>> >swapfile. Unless, of course, you are running a program that absolutely
   >>> >has to have a swapfile (e.g. some versions of Adobe Photoshop.)
   >>> >
   >>> >If the latter is the case, still get 1GB of memory and a program called
   >>> >"ramdisk pro." This lets you create a virtual drive using RAM (which
   >>> >you then use for a swapfile) and is 30 times quicker than your standard
   >>> >Windows hard-drive-based swapfile. You ***WILL*** notice a huge
   >>> >difference in performance.
   >>>
   >>> If you don't create a virtual drive, your machine will have more
   >>> memory available to use for programs and won't have to swap at all.
   >>>
   >>> In your solution you are forcing windows to swap to a swapfile in
   >>> memory, which is slower than windows not having to swap at all.
  >>
  >>Marc,
  >>
  >>You didn't read my post correctly.
 >
 >Aparantly I read it just fine. But it seems that you didn't read MY
 >post correctly.
 >
  >>No swap file is best, although in my opinion and my researched
  >>experience, a swapfile on a RAM disk is stupendously quicker than your
  >>usual Windows swapfile, and works substantially quicker than is enabled
  >>by Windows' memory management, which I believe is crap.
 >
 >Of course a swapfile on a ramdisk is much faster than a swapfile on
 >harddisk. Just like any file on ramdisk is much faster than a
 >harddisk.
 >
 >But that doesn't mean that it is wise to put your swapfile on a
 >ramdrive.
 >
 >You have to look at WHY and WHEN a swapfile is used.
 >
 >You use a swapfile when you don't have enough memory. When you create
 >a ramdisk you are decreasing the amount of memory available for
 >applications. This means that windows start swapping much earlier then
 >woul be the case when you had not created that swapfile.
 >
 >Look at the following scenarios.
 >You have machine with 1 GB RAM.
 >In situation A you create a 500MB ramdrive and put your swapfile on
 >that. You thus have 500MB available for the OS and applications.
 >In siutation B you do not create a ramdrive and just have a swapfile
 >on disk. You have 1000MB available for the OS and applications.
 >
 >1) Your applications use 250MB ram.
 >A: The application fits in the 500MB available physical memory and
 >thus no swapping is needed.
 >B: The application fits in the 1000MB availabe physical memory and now
 >swapping is needed.
 >
 >Result: No performance difference between the configurations
 >
 >2) You applications use 750MB ram.
 >A: The system needs to swap 250MB to the swapfile on the RAMdrive.
 >Even though the ramdrive is very fast, swapping is taking place and
 >the system is slowed down because of this. The slowdown is not very
 >big, but it is there.
 >B: The 750MB fits in the 1000MB, so no swapping is needed.
 >
 >Result: The configuration with the Ramdrive is marginally slower then
 >the other configuration.
 >
 >3) Your applications use 1.5GB ram.
 >A: The system swaps 500MB to the swapfile on the RAMdrive. And it
 >swaps 500MB to a swapfile on disk. (or if you don't have a swapfile on
 >disk your system crashes)
 >B: The system swaps 500MB to a swapfile on disk.
 >
 >Result: Both configurations are slowed down considerably due to the
 >swapping to disk. (the performance loss of the swapping to ramdrive is
 >neglectable in comparison)
 >
 >Conclusion: Do not put a swapfile on ramdisk.
 >
 >Ramdrives are usefull when you have a disk bottleneck on creating temp
 >files. Lots of applications don't write data to memory but use
 >tempfiles. (smtp gateways for example) In that situation a ramdrive
 >can increase performance a lot.
 >
 >Marc


Well said.

My $0.02;

The size (number of pages) in the pagefile at any given time is not
very relevant from a performance standpoint. What really matters is
the number of page reads/writes per second. The correct description
is; if the total "memory working set" for all the OS and all
applications is less than the physical memory ("page pool") the system
will never need to read or write to the pagefile, for all practical
purposes. On mainframes we used to talk about single-digit pages/sec
to the swap device.

perfmon will tell you your swap I/O rates.

If you use a ramdisk to lock memory pages they are not available in
the page pool, and increase swaping, which, will be faster, granted,
but paging faster than fast paging.

Google "VM working set" for more information.

We frequently found that /tmp was a much better candidate for ram, or
the fastest spindle in the configuration. The problem is that the
size of tmp can swing wildly and it's poor to statically allocate lots
of memory to one function at expense of all other system performance.



--
Al Dykes
-----------
adykes at p a n i x . c o m<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Best use of 3 drives 

Odie Ferrous wrote:

 > Marc de Vries wrote:
 >
 > <snip>
 >
 > Like I said, try it.
 >
 > If you're short sighted or narrow minded, that's your problem / even
 > your prerogative.

If you've tried it please describe the details of the machine and OS on
which you tried it, the applications which you used to test it, and the
outcome, with some numbers.

Accusing others of being short-sighted or narrow-minded because they don't
immediately accept the brilliance of your notion that flies in the face of
all theory and experience is the tactic of someone who doesn't have any
solid evidence that his belief is correct.

 > Odie

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Best use of 3 drives