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    Is this a good idea to do on a laptop?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Faustt, May 24, 2006.

  1. Faustt

    Faustt Notebook Enthusiast

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    The way I run my desktop is I have 2 HDs. both 80 Gigs. I partition one to 10/70 and leave the other 80.

    I have windows installed on the 10GB partition and use my desktop as my primary download area. I usually have about 5-4GBs free at all times on my C drive.

    my D drive is my other 80. I put my swap file on there along with most of my apps..

    my E drive is my media drive. I have most of my music/videos on it.

    anyway, Im getting a 100GB drive and was thinking about doing this with it.

    10GB windows - C:\
    1GB Swap - S:\
    Everything else - D:\

    Is this a good or bad idea? I'm just used to keeping my swap space on a different drive all together and windows in it's own little world. I'm not sure if I'll get any performance gain from keeping things so seprate on a single notebook hard drive.
     
    Faustt, May 24, 2006
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  2. dragonesse

    dragonesse Notebook Deity

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    I didn't realize you could set up swap space in windows that way...
    I definately like to partition my drives in a similar fashion, though I give 20gb to windows and most general programs (such as antivirus, office, adaware, aim... those things). I tried 10 and found it a bit tight for my needs. I would recommend partitioning the laptop drive as well, it saves the hassle of backing up things like music when reformatting, etc. There's certainly no reason not to. It's your machine, do things as per your preference.
     
    dragonesse, May 24, 2006
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  3. ikovac

    ikovac Cooler and faster... NBR Reviewer

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    Although you have all right, my opinion is that there is no point of having the swap file on a different partition of the SAME disk. Actually some tests show a small drop in performance.

    Keep the swap (pagefile.sys) and hibernate (hiberfil.sys) on C: but do the offline physical defragmentation with some advanced tool like Perfect disk or Diskeeper. You will notice much better boot times (42 down to 20 secs in case) and perhaps better Windows performance. Hiberfil and swap files should be kept at the physical beginning of the disk. That is not the other partition. Check the access and transfer rates with HDtach an you will see the difference.

    Also check here about some XP myths - one part covers moving the swap file:
    http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/XPMyths.html

    Cheers,

    Ivan
     
    ikovac, May 24, 2006
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