The standard way we build a server now is to place the OS on a separate drive from everything else. We usually put the swap file on this same drive. Once you have loaded your services (at boot time) the vast majority of your disk activity will be temporary files and the swap file. All your data access will take place on your other drives, so why burden this drive with more disk access by placing the swap file there, at least that's the question we asked ourselves. Sizing this drive takes some thought. NT is going to want to create a swap file that is 11MB bigger than memory. If you go smaller than this NT can start having problems. Also, the swap file plays an impact in the algorithm that NT uses to swap memory. I have heard that NT will start swapping memory when 1/2 of the memory is being used. I know from experience that if you make the swap file only 11MB bigger than memory the system will start swapping quickly. On a server that will be heavily utilized we will often make the swap file twice as big as memory. We seem to find a lot more staying in RAM and not being swapped as often. We have also found that with a lot of the software we want to load on the server having only 1GB becomes VERY tight. I would put a larger drive there. I just setup a server at my home for some side work I do (Athlon 800, 256MB ram, 20GB HD). I found that with the OS, 512MB swap file and installing everything I could to my D drive I still only had about 150MB free on a 1GB sys partition. I ended up trashing my installation and reinstalling just to make the system partition bigger. I hope this helps, if you have more questions don't hesitate to ask. ______________________________________________________ Bill Grover Supervisor IS Department Phone: 301.424.3300 x396 EU Services, Inc. FAX: 301.424.3300 x1396# 649 North Horners Lane E-Mail: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Rockville, MD 20850-1299 WWW: www.euservices.com ______________________________________________________ > -----Original Message----- > Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 17:28:31 -0700 > From: "Adrian Cesana" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: OT: WINNT system on seperate drive > Message-ID: <004401bfa996$307c3c20$0200a8c0@chili> > > Im finally building a new MSSQL server and separating it form > my CF server. > Im using a nice and fast 18GB LVD drive for my data drive. I > was also going > to create a 2GB partition for the WINNT system. I was > thinking that it may > be better to place the WINNT system on a separate older 1GB > SCSI drive I > have and create the swap file onto the fast drive. > > If my WINNT system is installed on a slow older SCSI-II drive > would I be > degrading my system performance bigtime?....or am I much > better of creating > the partition on the fast drive for the system...? > > Also if I have 1GB-RAM would I want to still set my swap file at > 512-512MB...? > > Thanks,Adrian ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Archives: http://www.eGroups.com/list/cf-talk To Unsubscribe visit http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists&body=lists/cf_talk or send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with 'unsubscribe' in the body.
