Re: OT: Web runs slow after RAM upgrade

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from Patricia M Godfrey  on Sat, 27 Dec
2003 15:53:28 -0500


> The Windows swap file, he says, "grows
> and shrinks with use, and quickly becomes very fragmented." He recommends
> going into control Panel, System, Properties, Virtual Memory, and setting
> Maximum Size and Minimum Size to the same; "a good size is roughly two
> and one-half times the amount of installed RAM." He also explains that
> one needs to defragment the swap file. (I've also read that it's a good
> idea to keep it on another drive than C: if one is avilable.) If you have
> another drive (or partition), defrag one drive, move the swap file to it,
> then defrag another and move the swap file there. If you've only one
> partition, disable the swap file, defrag your C: drive, then re-enable
> the swap file.

This is a mixture of truth and total balderdash (which, incidentally, we've
discussed several times before, e.g. at
 http://users.datarealm.com/xywwweb/xysearch.cgi?xywrite/2003/msg00139.htm
and other places). There is a great debate about just how large the swapfile
should be, but 2.5x is waaaay too much (IMO) when you have a large amount of
RAM. If you have a virtual mem file that surpasses say one Gig in size, you're
spending much more time puttering around in the cache (the virtual memory,
PAGEFILE.SYS) searching for data that might -- or might not -- be there, than
you are just going and fetching it afresh. I think 1.5x is about the right
number -- I've read (in a newsgroup) a pretty persuasive mathematical defense
of that ratio, though I can't put my hands on it just now. Obviously, opening
size and max size should be identical, otherwise any attempt to manage the file
is hopeless -- we've put this point over and over. You *never* need to defrag
PAGEFILE.SYS because it is recreated each time you reboot the OpSys. What you
do need to do is defrag the disk on which it resides, so that the next time you
boot PAGEFILE is written in one contiguous block. You only need to do this
once, because once you get PAGEFILE.SYS into a contiguous block it will stay
that way -- forever, unless you alter its size. To do this, yes, you may need
to move it temporarily to another partition in order to defrag the Win boot
drive (C: ?), then move it back. Since it gets a huge amount of disk access, it
should be positioned as close as possible to your other system files (generally
near the outer edge of the disk), for minimum head movement. Theoretically,
the file system should be NTFS, for speed and efficient use of disk space. The
downside of using NTFS is that you can't just boot a floppy and get emergency
access to BootDrive files the way you can with a Win98SE floppy and FAT32; but
you can boot off the NT installation CD and drop to a DOS Prompt (the
installation CD understands NTFS -- although any use of the bloody thing
trashes IBM Boot Manager, which is a PITA for BM users).

Apropos of this sort of issue, I'm just beginning to be aware that a huge
number of users don't partition their disks. All they have is C:. This is
simply insane. There's no other word for it. Nothing should be on C: except
the Operating System. No apps, no user files, nothing. When you buy a new
computer, the FIRST thing you do is partition the hard disk into 3, 4, 5, or
more logical disks D:, E:, F:, etc. There are so many solid reasons to do
this. No serious computer user should be without Partition Magic.