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#1
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Pleasant surprise
Hi All,
I have two SATA SSD's in my Win10 desktop PC, 250 & 500 GB. I did not expect Win10 to allow it but I tried and it worked. I created a pagefile.sys on each drive. It noticeably speeded up Win10. Then I booted WinXP in VirtualBox, on that PC, it was even faster than native WinXP installed on my netbook PC. I reason that the moving data on one drive only involves directory changes, while moving such data between two drives, actually involves slow data transmission. Twice the bandwidth to pagefiles in unbeatable. |
#2
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Pleasant surprise
On 12/17/2018 5:30 PM, Norm X wrote:
Hi All, I have two SATA SSD's in my Win10 desktop PC, 250 & 500 GB. I did not expect Win10 to allow it but I tried and it worked. I created a pagefile.sys on each drive. It noticeably speeded up Win10. Then I booted WinXP in VirtualBox, on that PC, it was even faster than native WinXP installed on my netbook PC. I reason that the moving data on one drive only involves directory changes, while moving such data between two drives, actually involves slow data transmission. Twice the bandwidth to pagefiles in unbeatable. Are you certain that Windows can use multiple pagefiles simultaneously? I'm only asking because I don't know, I did find this, not sure if it's correct: "Windows can use multiple page files just fine. Best practice is to have one page file on each physical drive, assuming they're not RAID'ed. A single drive would only have one page file, not one per partition (for performance reasons). When a paging operation is needed, Windows will choose the page file on the least busy drive at that moment." http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/25...le-size-drives |
#3
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Pleasant surprise
"Mike S" wrote in message
news On 12/17/2018 5:30 PM, Norm X wrote: Hi All, I have two SATA SSD's in my Win10 desktop PC, 250 & 500 GB. I did not expect Win10 to allow it but I tried and it worked. I created a pagefile.sys on each drive. It noticeably speeded up Win10. Then I booted WinXP in VirtualBox, on that PC, it was even faster than native WinXP installed on my netbook PC. I reason that the moving data on one drive only involves directory changes, while moving such data between two drives, actually involves slow data transmission. Twice the bandwidth to pagefiles in unbeatable. Are you certain that Windows can use multiple pagefiles simultaneously? I'm only asking because I don't know, I did find this, not sure if it's correct: "Windows can use multiple page files just fine. Best practice is to have one page file on each physical drive, assuming they're not RAID'ed. A single drive would only have one page file, not one per partition (for performance reasons). When a paging operation is needed, Windows will choose the page file on the least busy drive at that moment." http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/25...le-size-drives Thanks Mike, I just checked my Win10 Resource Monitor. Yes, the pagefiles on C: and D: are both used, but it depends on what is going on. When I open D:\, D:\ pagefile.sys is active. But C:\ pagefile.sys is always more active than D:\ pagefile.sys . Seems to confirm my hypothesis. |
#4
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Pleasant surprise
On 12/19/2018 6:29 PM, Norm X wrote:
"Mike S" wrote in message news On 12/17/2018 5:30 PM, Norm X wrote: Hi All, I have two SATA SSD's in my Win10 desktop PC, 250 & 500 GB. I did not expect Win10 to allow it but I tried and it worked. I created a pagefile.sys on each drive. It noticeably speeded up Win10. Then I booted WinXP in VirtualBox, on that PC, it was even faster than native WinXP installed on my netbook PC. I reason that the moving data on one drive only involves directory changes, while moving such data between two drives, actually involves slow data transmission. Twice the bandwidth to pagefiles in unbeatable. Are you certain that Windows can use multiple pagefiles simultaneously? I'm only asking because I don't know, I did find this, not sure if it's correct: "Windows can use multiple page files just fine. Best practice is to have one page file on each physical drive, assuming they're not RAID'ed. A single drive would only have one page file, not one per partition (for performance reasons). When a paging operation is needed, Windows will choose the page file on the least busy drive at that moment." http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/25...le-size-drives Thanks Mike, I just checked my Win10 Resource Monitor. Yes, the pagefiles on C: and D: are both used, but it depends on what is going on. When I open D:\, D:\ pagefile.sys is active. But C:\ pagefile.sys is always more active than D:\ pagefile.sys . Seems to confirm my hypothesis. Good to know, thanks. |
#5
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Pleasant surprise
"Norm X" wrote in message
news "Mike S" wrote in message news On 12/17/2018 5:30 PM, Norm X wrote: Hi All, I have two SATA SSD's in my Win10 desktop PC, 250 & 500 GB. I did not expect Win10 to allow it but I tried and it worked. I created a pagefile.sys on each drive. It noticeably speeded up Win10. Then I booted WinXP in VirtualBox, on that PC, it was even faster than native WinXP installed on my netbook PC. I reason that the moving data on one drive only involves directory changes, while moving such data between two drives, actually involves slow data transmission. Twice the bandwidth to pagefiles in unbeatable. Are you certain that Windows can use multiple pagefiles simultaneously? I'm only asking because I don't know, I did find this, not sure if it's correct: "Windows can use multiple page files just fine. Best practice is to have one page file on each physical drive, assuming they're not RAID'ed. A single drive would only have one page file, not one per partition (for performance reasons). When a paging operation is needed, Windows will choose the page file on the least busy drive at that moment." http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/25...le-size-drives Thanks Mike, I just checked my Win10 Resource Monitor. Yes, the pagefiles on C: and D: are both used, but it depends on what is going on. When I open D:\, D:\ pagefile.sys is active. But C:\ pagefile.sys is always more active than D:\ pagefile.sys . Seems to confirm my hypothesis. Using two pagefiles on each SSD saves me 1.2GB in RAM memory. That's a god send and facilitates use of virtual OS(s). |
#6
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Pleasant surprise
Norm X wrote:
"Norm X" wrote in message news "Mike S" wrote in message news On 12/17/2018 5:30 PM, Norm X wrote: Hi All, I have two SATA SSD's in my Win10 desktop PC, 250 & 500 GB. I did not expect Win10 to allow it but I tried and it worked. I created a pagefile.sys on each drive. It noticeably speeded up Win10. Then I booted WinXP in VirtualBox, on that PC, it was even faster than native WinXP installed on my netbook PC. I reason that the moving data on one drive only involves directory changes, while moving such data between two drives, actually involves slow data transmission. Twice the bandwidth to pagefiles in unbeatable. Are you certain that Windows can use multiple pagefiles simultaneously? I'm only asking because I don't know, I did find this, not sure if it's correct: "Windows can use multiple page files just fine. Best practice is to have one page file on each physical drive, assuming they're not RAID'ed. A single drive would only have one page file, not one per partition (for performance reasons). When a paging operation is needed, Windows will choose the page file on the least busy drive at that moment." http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/25...le-size-drives Thanks Mike, I just checked my Win10 Resource Monitor. Yes, the pagefiles on C: and D: are both used, but it depends on what is going on. When I open D:\, D:\ pagefile.sys is active. But C:\ pagefile.sys is always more active than D:\ pagefile.sys . Seems to confirm my hypothesis. Using two pagefiles on each SSD saves me 1.2GB in RAM memory. That's a god send and facilitates use of virtual OS(s). I tested this under Windows 10, and it froze the machine twice. I didn't use your exact test setup. I could have, but all I wanted to prove by running a test, is that there is potential danger. It looks to me, that if there is malloc going on when the paging is heavy (but can't keep up), the system just freezes, instead of slowing down to the (rate limited) paging activity. It doesn't even seem to work as well as WinXP. Because it has that sensitivity, I can't recommend this to potential users, since it relies on the speed of the storage being maintained once the system is driven into swap country. I had a similar problem with Imagemagick, and its usage of OpenMP library as part of image processing. Once a bunch of processes started drawing down on memory at the same time, the system would freeze there, too. Microsoft fixed that, as on the next OS release, it would no longer freeze. But the test I've just done suggests the other fix was just a bandaid to solve that particular case, rather than an actual "good fix". If there is no virtual memory left, a program should just die, rather than freezing the computer like that. Freezing the computer isn't user friendly. There's not much point of having a page file, if the system won't use it. And just augers into the ground when free RAM on the system drops below 400MB or so. The cool part is, the IDE LED stays lit. As if some I/O operation needed RAM, and there wasn't any to be had. On VirtualBox, you can highlight eight VMs and click the "Start" at the same time, if you need an aggressive test case. My suspicion is, if you started enough VMs simultaneously on your two SSD setup, your system might freeze as well. Paul |
#7
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Pleasant surprise
[snippage]
I have two SATA SSD's in my Win10 desktop PC, 250 & 500 GB. I did not expect Win10 to allow it but I tried and it worked. I created a pagefile.sys on each drive. It noticeably speeded up Win10. Then I booted WinXP in VirtualBox, on that PC, it was even faster than native WinXP installed on my netbook PC. I reason that the moving data on one drive only involves directory changes, while moving such data between two drives, actually involves slow data transmission. Twice the bandwidth to pagefiles in unbeatable. Are you certain that Windows can use multiple pagefiles simultaneously? I'm only asking because I don't know, I did find this, not sure if it's correct: "Windows can use multiple page files just fine. Best practice is to have one page file on each physical drive, assuming they're not RAID'ed. A single drive would only have one page file, not one per partition (for performance reasons). When a paging operation is needed, Windows will choose the page file on the least busy drive at that moment." http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/25...le-size-drives Thanks Mike, I just checked my Win10 Resource Monitor. Yes, the pagefiles on C: and D: are both used, but it depends on what is going on. When I open D:\, D:\ pagefile.sys is active. But C:\ pagefile.sys is always more active than D:\ pagefile.sys . Seems to confirm my hypothesis. Using two pagefiles on each SSD saves me 1.2GB in RAM memory. That's a god send and facilitates use of virtual OS(s). I tested this under Windows 10, and it froze the machine twice. I didn't use your exact test setup. I could have, but all I wanted to prove by running a test, is that there is potential danger. It looks to me, that if there is malloc going on when the paging is heavy (but can't keep up), the system just freezes, instead of slowing down to the (rate limited) paging activity. It doesn't even seem to work as well as WinXP. Because it has that sensitivity, I can't recommend this to potential users, since it relies on the speed of the storage being maintained once the system is driven into swap country. I had a similar problem with Imagemagick, and its usage of OpenMP library as part of image processing. Once a bunch of processes started drawing down on memory at the same time, the system would freeze there, too. Microsoft fixed that, as on the next OS release, it would no longer freeze. But the test I've just done suggests the other fix was just a bandaid to solve that particular case, rather than an actual "good fix". If there is no virtual memory left, a program should just die, rather than freezing the computer like that. Freezing the computer isn't user friendly. There's not much point of having a page file, if the system won't use it. And just augers into the ground when free RAM on the system drops below 400MB or so. The cool part is, the IDE LED stays lit. As if some I/O operation needed RAM, and there wasn't any to be had. On VirtualBox, you can highlight eight VMs and click the "Start" at the same time, if you need an aggressive test case. My suspicion is, if you started enough VMs simultaneously on your two SSD setup, your system might freeze as well. Paul Maybe I should explain how I did this. Go to System Properties. At the top of the virtual memory page is a button, "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives". Uncheck this button. C: drive page file is still "System managed". You should then be able to make D: "System managed". I think that manually setting the pagefile upper and lower size limits might be an error that causes your problems This worked well for my Win10 PC. When I see that I have gained 1.2GB in free RAM, I ask from where. Answer, The second pagefile on D:\ allowed 1.2GB of memory contents to be paged out. I have started two VirtualBox VMs, Puppy Linux (actually started yesterday) and now WinXP. There is still ~100 MB free Win10 memory. WinXP Task manager says only 1-3% CPU is used. I don't want my system to crash but it still has enough resources to permit Waterloo Maple to run. |
#8
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Pleasant surprise
[snippage]
Paul Maybe I should explain how I did this. Go to System Properties. At the top of the virtual memory page is a button, "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives". Uncheck this button. C: drive page file is still "System managed". You should then be able to make D: "System managed". I think that manually setting the pagefile upper and lower size limits might be an error that causes your problems This worked well for my Win10 PC. When I see that I have gained 1.2GB in free RAM, I ask from where. Answer, The second pagefile on D:\ allowed 1.2GB of memory contents to be paged out. I have started two VirtualBox VMs, Puppy Linux (actually started yesterday) and now WinXP. There is still ~100 MB free Win10 memory. WinXP Task manager says only 1-3% CPU is used. I don't want my system to crash but it still has enough resources to permit Waterloo Maple to run. I just closed two VirtualBox VMs and now I have 2GB free memory. I am pleased. There is no longer any urgency for me to find and install greater than 4GB RAM when only 1.9GB RAM is used. Windows managed pagefiles are doubleplus good. |
#9
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Pleasant surprise
Maybe I should explain how I did this. Go to System Properties. At the
top of the virtual memory page is a button, "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives". Uncheck this button. C: drive page file is still "System managed". You should then be able to make D: "System managed". I think that manually setting the pagefile upper and lower size limits might be an error that causes your problems This worked well for my Win10 PC. When I see that I have gained 1.2GB in free RAM, I ask from where. Answer, The second pagefile on D:\ allowed 1.2GB of memory contents to be paged out. I have started two VirtualBox VMs, Puppy Linux (actually started yesterday) and now WinXP. There is still ~100 MB free Win10 memory. WinXP Task manager says only 1-3% CPU is used. I don't want my system to crash but it still has enough resources to permit Waterloo Maple to run. I just closed two VirtualBox VMs and now I have 2GB free memory. I am pleased. There is no longer any urgency for me to find and install greater than 4GB RAM when only 1.9GB RAM is used. Windows managed pagefiles are doubleplus good. I have increased my RAM to 8GB using two sticks of Samsung DDR2. Now the amount of paging is reduced. However, when accessing SSD D:\ programs or data, Resource Monitor says that D:\pagefile.sys is accessed. This is more efficient. --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- |
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