Sorry if I have put this thread in the wrong place, I wasn't sure if it was a hardware or software Q. Will my computer be faster with my Pagefile on the same SATA harddrive as my OS, or on a different PATA harddrive? Will the move to a slower PATA harddrive negate the advantages of moving the pagefile onto another harddrive? Thanks in advance.
How much RAM/OS do you have and which programs do you think will be using the pagefile? If you have 4Gb or more RAM I can't imagine the pagefile being used much (if at all). I'd suggest spending a bit of money and getting more RAM.
it can be quicker to move pagefile to a seperate drive - not partition though as it same drive! however moving it to a slower drive doesnt make sense and would probly have a negative effect when page file is in use. to be honest though it doesnt make a whole a lot of real world difference unless your really thrasing your main drive while using page file.
If you are running Windows 7 or Vista, and have 4GB of RAM, your page file will barely be in used, if not, not even in used. Windows Vista and up uses your RAM frst, and when it's getting low in space, it starts using your page file. While XP and older (as they are optimized for system with <512MB of RAM (or even lower on previous version of Windows), it puts everything it can to page file, whether you have a lot of free space on your RAM or not, and this will make a difference (or you can disable page file which will help).
actually i dont think thats true. I currently have 8GB Ram, and the system is using an 8192MB Pagefile, with 12286MB Recommended, I have my machine set to auto manage pagefile. the system will, if allowed use as much pagefile as it sees fit. on a side note, my system is only currently using 2.46GB of Ram, out of the 8. (64bit win7 ultimate)
Ok how can I explain this. Data on your RAM is never fragmented (cut into parts), it fits in one whole block. When using your computer for a while, opening, closing programs, you come a point where you have small memory holes everywhere between the processes (running programs - remember you also have the OS stuff), It might add up to 3-4GB of free space (with your RAM), but it might not be enough to fit anything, or what you want to run. So what happens?! The OS (in this case Windows - this is how it works for all OS), it moves everything from your RAM to the HDD, clear the RAM, and puts everything back stacked up nicely (no whole between processes). This is called Context Switch. Doing this task is very time consuming, and blocks the computer from being used, until the task is done (as the RAM is being cleared, and the CPU can't access your HDD directly, only RAM (and it's internal memories, such as the L1 and L2 cache). This Context switch is very visible in old OS's. So going this on 3-4-5GB, or even 1GB is time consuming. It will take some time to do this, even several minutes. So avoid this time wait to transfer everything, Windows does it at the same time you use your RAM. So that when it comes to perform a context switch, it just clear the RAM (doesn't take any time - RAM is ultra fast), and copy the HDD page file to the RAM, which is fast to do as Read speed for an HDD is much faster than write. PageFile is reserved space that Windows tries to not fragment, to accelerate the context switch process. So, it takes 8GB out of 12GB because you have 8GB of RAM. What is with the rest? The rest of the page file is there in the case you max out your RAM, the system won't go and say "Hey I can't load this application, you don't' have enough RAM", it will instead use the page file on your HDD. Basically see it as 8GB of your RAM is ultra fast RAM, and the rest 4GB, is extra slow memory. Or to put it better, that 4GB of page file extra is seeing and manage by Windows as extra "RAM", an extension to your RAM.
Very nice explanation! I have no idea if its true or not but ill just assume it is cos you seem like a pretty legendary guy! ha Where'd you learn this stuff from btw?
Stay in school (this doesn't mean failing all your classes to stay in school) You can acquire such knowledge and so much more by taking a hard and complicated class (no joke) called Operating Systems. It's a Software Engineer/Computer Science (it's really the same thing) course. To say the truth, despite being hard due to it's complicated, it's far the most interesting one I took so far. Once you take it you really know what are myths, marketing B.S, lies, and truth. Topics that is viewed in class: - Device Manager (questioned answered: how does it manage multiple printers (or wtv other device), how does the computer know that my printer finished the print job or has an error, how when I play music is passed through the correct sound card, and not my printer? and much much much more) - File Manager - Process Manager - Memory Management - Software -- Critical Section Protection (to say in a few short words: how to avoid a thread of a process from finishing and having it executing a second part of a program before another thread.) - OS components - What are drivers and their purpose exactly - How do computer components such as HDD and optical drive work in our computers without drivers, and the system used - How HDD and SSD's works, what is fragmentation really, and why it maters on HDD and not on SSD or RAM. - and a few other interesting topics. Once you do this undergrad class, you really reallllllly appreciate your Operating System, and you start to notice, and go "You what, that stupid UI bug in device manager properties where if you put the cursor on the X button and wait, it flicker.. reallllly doesn't mater. As this GUI is really like 10-15% of the OS. And that 85-90% is critical that works perfectly, else we talk about system malfunction, without excluding corrupting everything"
Think i might finish my uni course currently and try and do something similar like that. Tis pretty interesting. Got a high interest in fiddly things for some reason lol
Yes, but you have to see the pre-requested for that class. In my case, at my university, it's Java (as their is Java 1.2 programmer, for that critical section protection topic), and System Hardware class, a class that talks what we all mostly know about computer, such as (it a computer/software engineer and computer science intro class): - How an HDD works at an overview level - How a processor works, and it's divers components - A little bit of history on processors and computers - How the computer performs error corrections - Basic circuit drawing - basics of assembly code. - What is RAID and it's different types - and other topics such as bus, DMA and other small things. As for the Java class.. well you learn how to program in Java at a assuming you know nothing about programming level. So yes, it sucks that you have this ****, buuuuuttt it's in my opinion, worth it for any computer enthusiast. There should be a class where they remove the programing part and have no prerequisites. Maybe your university has such course!
