Swap files on 2 different drives

[Savage1701]

I need to spread my swap file across 2 different i-RAM drives. WinXP says I need about a 4.6GB swap file. Will I hurt system performance if I a 2.3GB swap file on each of my i-RAM drives?

Thanks for any input.

 

[kimsland]

No, on the the contrary it would be better to use the lower Swapfile amount

The issue with Swapfile size is it's a matter of playing around with the Min\Max amounts until you get it right (well, when it seems more responsive)
Note: I always place the same amount in both Min and Max settings, to increase stability.

I got down to 50Meg at one time, but am now running ~1.5Gig (Min and Max) on 3Gig installed Ram (and also placed on another drive, to increase speed)

No one seems to be able to provide the definitive rule, because 1.5X or whatever Xp reports that you should have, is not correct in my honest opinion.

 

[DelJo63]

making the min == max stops the swap file from expanding, which runs the HD like
crazy AND fragments the swap file [ fix it with Pagedefrag ]

The general rule is swap = 1.5 x the installed RAM (some like 2x), but usually we
avoid anything > 3x.

The size of the swap file will at some point restrict the number of concurrent applications
or the number of threads that can be run. You will 'feel' the pain of a small swap
file when you get 'Insufficient Memory' errors and applications that die.
This is greatly influenced by the USER's habits and patterns of running applications,
so there's NO magic number to fit everyone.

 

[Savage1701]

I'm not sure I phrased my question correctly. Let's say I go with whatever size WinXP suggests - let's just call it "X GB's" and let WinXP automatically determine the size of the file.

My question is, can I put 1/2X on each i-RAM drive and let WinXP min/max it?

I'm not asking about the size of the swap file; I was only using the example of what WinXP recommended. My question is whether it is ok to have more than one swap file on more than one non-system drive. Or will I take a performance hit?

Thanks.

 

[kimsland]

Well I know you can have two swap files setup, on two drives
But Windows, if needed, will just use the resource of the first swapfile then move on to the other one

ie You just need one. Being not on the system drive ideally

 

[DelJo63]

HOWEVER, MS in all its wisdom REQUIRES a swap file on the boot disk

Make it as small as possible and the other size to whatever you like to focus the
i/o to that disk