Page Files and HDD benchmarking speeds

Ok, I was reading that putting the pagefile on a different drive than the OS drive can help increase performance, and with this being a very old system I need every optimization I can get.

Thing is, I am not sure which drive would be the best choice.

I have four harddrives connected to my system all IDE. Drives C and D are connected to the same IDE channel to the motherboard, the other two are connected to the same channel on a PCI IDE/SATA card. Would the ones connected to the (very very old) motherboard or the ones using a 3rd party adapter (that allows me to reach LBA48) provide better access speeds? Are there any freeware programs I can use (preferably something simple rather than an entire benchmarking suite) to benchmark my harddrives and which one would be the best choice?

Also, what would happen if I were to remove the drive that the paging file is on (sometimes for maintenance I need to disconnect all drives except for C)?

Odds are you won't see/feel or taste any difference if you move the file to a drive on anther controller...But it'd only take you a few minutes to test it;)

Ideally, you'd want to reset the file location before removing the drive;) But Windows should default it back to C drive.

If you want to move the page file to another hdd, make sure it is on another IDE ribbon.

I gave up on that idea when the cpus exceeded 1 GHZ as a spot watch did not show a gain.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Train

I gave up on that idea when the cpus exceeded 1 GHZ as a spot watch did not show a gain.

---

Unfortunately, my CPU is 1GHZ.

Split the pagefile across the first partitions of each physical drive (the first partition is at the edge of he disk, so has the highest speed under the heads, and so the best performance). That way you will get the best pagefile performance, and there are no disadvantages to splitting it.

Having said that, by far and away the best performance boost you can get is to have enough RAM to not need, or hardly ever need, to use the pagefile at all.

With XP, 1 GB of ram will make a world of difference.

I am already at 1GB of ram, which is my maximum supported.

Hows the testing going? Did you notice any difference?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Steve R Jones

Hows the testing going? Did you notice any difference?

---

I don't have any benchmarking app to test it with.

Here you go :)

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/how..._breaking_bank